The 1927 film Wings, while not well known today, was responsible for numerous "firsts"- it featured the first nude scenes in film, (Clara Bow, the lead actress of Wings, bares her breasts for a fleeting moment and nude soldiers are shown from behind in a shower) the first same sex kiss, (though it wasn't between gay men) and the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Another first for the film came forty years later. In the 1960's, television shows were more innocent than today. They were less referential than shows today and when they did mention outside entertainment, it was usually fake actors and films. In 1968, however, Petticoat Junction broke with tradition and featured Wings prominently in an episode in which Uncle Joe (played by Edgar Buchanan) recounts how the greatest thing that ever would have happened in their small town- a movie premiere- was canceled because the Stars who were in it decided to go to New York instead. Uncle Joe writes a letter and the two stars of Wings- Richard Arlen and Charles Rogers- finally arrive in Petticoat Junction, forty years after the premiere. Proving that it's never too late to make amends.
