9 Vintage Party Tips From Betty Betz and Her 1947 ‘Teen-Age Guide to Social Success’
Chicago’s Printers Row Lit Fest is one of my favorite annual events in my adopted hometown. As a collector of vintage picture books, textbooks, and teen hygiene handbooks, I look forward to the fest every year for the chance to discover and score forgotten classics, and one of my best discoveries so far has been 1947’s The Betty Betz Party Book: The Teen-Age Guide to Social Success.
There’s not much information about Betty Betz online. According to this page, she was an Indiana prom queen, who grew up to work for Mademoiselle, Harper’s Bazaar, and Esquire before focusing on writing and illustrating advice books for teenagers. Her cartoons ended up on all kinds of merchandise, from record-carrying cases to wastebaskets. And her books, with their rhyming advice and goofy, chubby-cheeked cartoon teenagers, are charming as hell. So today, we’re going to take a look at Betz’s guide to planning the ultimate party — and REBEAT readers, maybe you’ll pick up a tip or two for your next shindig.
“Just the fact that you throw a lot of parties doesn’t automatically rate you an Elsa Maxwell, junior grade,” Betz cautions us as the book opens. “There are a few easy entertaining tricks that insure your guests of a good time. They’re simple to learn and use and they make all the difference between a long-remembered, wonderful party and just another way to kill an evening.”
1) Set a theme for your party
Some of Betz’s suggestions include: Kid Party (“a swell party for cut-ups”: dress up like babies, play London Bridge and musical chairs, and decorate the house with stuffed animals and baby rattles), Photographers’ Ball (“ask a few of the prettiest girls to model for the fans”), and Gay Nineties Party (“sing old songs like ‘Tell Me Pretty Maiden,’ and stage a Floradora Sextet act”). My favorite suggestion is the Teeny-Weeny Party, which centers around a hot dog stand. Betz tells us that “gents particularly are fond of giving this succulent party,” which involves using two erect poles to hang up a sign that reads, “Get your teeny-weenies here.”
2) Invite the right people
Now, this doesn’t mean using your party as a chance to climb the social ladder — as Betz says, if you only invite the kids with high social status, “you’ll soon be tagged as a social climber…and your real friends will drop you like a rubber doughnut.” But it does mean that if you want to have a boy/girl party, you’d better make sure your friends can be paired off suitably (“don’t forget to consider such things as height, looks, and I.Q.”). And don’t surround yourself with ugly friends in the hopes that you’ll attract more guests that way, because that will get you “the reputation of having only female goons and creeps at her parties.”
3) Be a good conversationalist by talking to people about what interests them
Remember, “boys love to show all they know about baseball teams, football scores, tennis matches, track meets and the local basketball dirt,” while “girls are just fascinated by movies, plays and books, school activities, or local events.”
4) Be a good dancer
Practice with your friends, take a few lessons, and never, ever start jitterbugging without your partner’s consent. Also, be a polite dancer, no matter who your partner is. Betz tells boys that “catcalls and Hallowe’en antics may win yak-yaks at the local soda shoppe, but file them away when you’re out with a nice girl who’s doing her best to be as captivating as a screen queen.” And girls are cautioned to “be nice to your partner even if he’s a real dogface type,” because “if you show him a good time, he’s going to be your press agent for the rest of your life, even though you may never dance with him again.”
5) Decorate your house
Some of Betz’s suggestions: decorate your dinner table with old dance programs or mail-order catalog pages, make place card decorations out of gumdrops and toothpicks, hang old records on the wall, or put your guests to work and make them create a crayon mural in your rumpus room.
6) Serve the right food
Keep it simple — as Betz says, “Exotic foods are fine if your friends are making a special point of going to an East Indian tea room or a Pizzeria, but if you’re dishing it up, it’s best to be strictly homespun.” Think American cheese on crackers, pigs in blankets, carrot sticks, or “little party sandwiches” on white bread cut into interesting shapes. Betty tells of a friend of hers who “once created a sensation when she scooped out a little space in the top of a beautiful cabbage, filled it with a mayonnaise dressing, and then stuck fresh shrimp on toothpicks in the cabbage.” (In another section of the book, Betz suggests that you might want to “let a lovely little cabbage lady help you serve your carrot sticks, radishes, and celery.”)
And don’t forget drinks! “Liquid nourishment,” Betz reminds us, “is a favorite party item that can be as dull or as festive as you choose.” And if your interest isn’t piqued by mocktail names like Whing Dings, Bovine Boogie, Lalapalusa, and Horse’s Neck, then I probably don’t want you at my party, anyway.
7) Play the right games
Betz names a few classics here, like scavenger hunts, Grandmother’s Trunk, Telephone (she calls it “Russian Gossip”), and word games. But then things get… interesting. “Hat Making” involves girls decorating fancy Easter bonnets and making boys wear them. “Make-Up Contest” involves getting all the girls to decorate the boys themselves with lipstick, powder, wigs, and stickers. In “Feed the Baby,” girls fill up baby bottles and feed them to their boy partners — and the first boy to drink all his milk wins a rattle. And then there’s “Inchy-Pinchy,” where the girls blindfold a boy, cover their fingers with cork or lipstick, and then set to work pinching the boy until his skin is completely smeared.
8) Sing the best songs
Like “The Monkey’s Wedding,” “Johnny Morgan Played The Organ,” “Chinese Honeymoon,” “Hey Betty Martin, Tip Toe Fine,” and the classic, “Jenny Get Your Hoe-Cake Done.”
9) Get your parents out of the way
“Teen-agers usually get along best with other teen-agers, just as middle-agers speak the same language as other middle-agers,” Betz explains. So while your parents might want to stick around for a little while at first to meet your guests, you’ll all be better off if you send them to the movies for most of the night. It’s probably best that they don’t catch you playing Inchy-Pinchy, anyway.
So, REBEATers, next time you’re throwing a party, just keep these helpful tips in mind, and you’re sure to host a bash that your friends will be talking about for years to come. We hope you’ll let us know how it goes. And if you’ll be serving Whing Dings and lovely cabbage ladies, we really hope you’ll invite us.
