Image: Katie Haskell/Flickr
There's something extra-ominous in this combination of Leave It to Beaver 1950s schmuckery and nuclear terror. At this point, in pre-mutually assured destruction 1951, the world didn't even quite get it. Nuclear submarines were still some years off, as were ICBMs, missiles in Cuba, and the Dead Hand. This would have been the dawn of nuclear fear and the ensuing legacy of paranoia, and it mostly just feels ironic. A sort of everyday holocaust. Aw shucks, the neighbors are BBQ'd but good thing we have batteries.Close the blinds, cover your neck, don't drink the water. The radiation danger will have passed after just a minute. Help is on the way and your parents are fine, of course. Lol.For an alternate and entirely soul-scraping perspective, try Threads, a 1984 BBC drama offering the fictionalized aftermath of a nuclear attack attack on Sheffield, England. "Bleak" is understatement.