Movie Parking Mug

(Sometimes called TV Parking.) Not parking for the movies, but the kind of ridiculously easy parking a character in a movie gets when s/he pulls right up to his/her destination, zeroing in on a miraculously wide-open parking spot in what otherwise is an impossibly tight urban area. During the 1950s and 1960s, in movies and on television, Doris Day got such a rep for manifesting that lucky talent that a spin-off term was coined; see "Doris Day Parking." Generally Ms. Day's roles had her piloting sensible domestic sedans and station wagons, a visual metaphor for her competence, efficiency, self-reliance and ability to live without a man. By way of contrast, the neurotic characters Tony Randall portrayed often struggled with temperamental British roadsters, and Rock Hudson played dissolute types who poured themselves into a taxi -- hungover, drunk, in a hurry, or all three. Times did change -- a little. On "The Doris Day Show," CBS-TV's' late 1960s career-girl sitcom and vehicle (no pun intended) for Ms. Day, her character drove a 1969 Dodge Charger. A red convertible Charger, on a legal secretary's salary. Modernity notwithstanding, Doris never seemed to have much trouble finding instant parking. In San Francisco. Business-district and high-rise parts of San Francisco. In all fairness, though, the opening credits included a very brief shot of her on the California Avenue cable car. .