American television programs of the 1950s taught simple axioms such as Clear Fences Make Good Neighbors and If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say, Don’t Say Anything At All.
In that simple golden era, severe allergies were extremely rare among
the population, so something like a potentially lethal bee sting
provided more than enough material for a thirty-minute comedic episode.
Since then, television has become less wholesome, ethics and
plotlines more complex, and severe allergies more common. In fact, the
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 60 million
Americans suffer from allergies, and the CDC and the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases both report that the number of
Americans with allergies has been on the rise for the last ten years.