In a now classic bit from the long-overdue-for-death TV series, “Family Guy”, the family is drowning and the father (Peter) makes a shocking, last-minute confession. “I did not care for the Godfather,” he says. While I can understand that, the bit basically ends with “I liked The Money Pit.”

For those who don’t remember it, The Money Pit was a 1986 film from Disney’s early Touchstone days. Touchstone was, I think, the brainchild of Michael Eisner, who managed to put Disney money behind a lot of R-rated, and morally gross films that would’ve tarnished the reputation of the studio, had said films been branded with the mouse moniker. It might have just been coincidence but it seemed like every Touchstone film I saw was at least a little bit sleazy. Things like Three Men and a Baby and Down and Out in Beverly Hills.

The Money Pit has Tom Hanks at what may be the height of his (wrongfully disdained) physical comedy years, and Shelly Long mistakenly believing that being in a movie with Tom Hanks was a good time to end her wildly successful “Cheers” run. It has a distinctive ’80s Touchstone sleaze to it. But this circuitous intro gets me to the main point: If you want to see how far society fell between 1948 and 1986, watching Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House and The Money Pit would give you a pretty good (if subtle) measuring tape.

In MBBHDH, Cary Grant is a Manhattan ad man, pulling down a handsome $15,000/year, but living in a cramped little 2 bedroom apartment with his wife (the eternal Myrna Loy, looking as lovely as she did 14 years earlier in The Thin Man) and two daughters—daughters who are being taught to loathe capitalism and advertising in their posh private school, no less!—and just one bathroom between them. Mrs. Blanding has a plan to remodel the apartment (which they do not own) by knocking down some walls and…well, you can’t do much but spend a lot of money to make things more fashionable.

Mr. Blanding puts his foot down, but he ends up being seduced on a visit to the countryside. A classic old civil war (or was it colonial?) era house that he and the missus fall in love with, and immediately get suckered into paying too much for. (The story is narrated by family friend Bill, played by Melvyn Douglas.) The rest of the movie concerns the literal building of their dream house, and this is where the two films really start to diverge.

For the rest of the movie, the Blandings (unlike the Fieldings of The Money Pit) bring all their woes down on themselves. The only time the Blandings really get played is in buying the real estate. The Fieldings are played for saps for the entirety of the film. You might think that watching people be stubborn jackasses and fools would be less sympathetic than watching a couple be victimized, but the former is not only funnier, it works better as a cautionary tale.

Because they’re building their dream house, the two have uncompromising ideas about what they want, even when it’s very expensive, and even when it doesn’t make sense. They quickly set aside the wisdom of the architect and the contractor and even their lawyer pal, Bill, and the sky becomes the limit.

If you want another sense of how things have changed, the first time Blandings really loses it is when he discovers is house is going to cost $18,000! Why, that’s over a year’s salary! And remember, he’s the only one working. (The final house price ends up around $32,000.)

There’s a subplot of jealousy here, too, and it’s handled so much better in the old movie. In the ’48 film, Cary Grant is stupid jealous: Myrna Loy’s not going to cheat on him, because she’s Myrna Loy, fercryinoutloud. The theme keeps coming up, as the circumstances of Bill being around while Mr. Blandings is not become increasingly awkward (socially, and how’s that for another change?), but it never goes further than a gag. I don’t remember how Pit plays out, but I remember it creeped me out.

Obviously, this isn’t going to be the average experience, but for me, seeing Blandings a few years after Pit made me feel like I’d been robbed. Of my civilization. And this is unfair to Pit, really, which is fine with a great performance from Hanks. And maybe I over-estimate it, but The Flower actually preferred this movie to Charade (the second film in our Cary Grant double-feature), and The Boy might have also.

So, check it out.