In one episode of The Phil Silvers Show (aka Sgt. Bilko), Bilko buys a racehorse and wants to get rich by sponsoring him at the races. Of course, they had to feed the horse, and a fair amount of the comedy of the episode was based on the premise that all the men thought that oats were disgusting and only fit for horse food.
Today that seems very strange; they're a well-loved staple in America and elsewhere. And that's hardly a new cultural phenomenon, since oats have been grown as food for both man and livestock for thousands of years.
So why, on a TV show from the 1950s, was the contemporary audience expected to find the characters' discomfort at having to eat oats funny?
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