Difficult to believe that it’s only since 1978 that NYC dog owners have been legally required to clean up after their pets. Before then, canines were free to crap all over the sidewalk and street. Poop everywhere. We were seriously that unsophisticated and unhygenic that recently. What disgusting things are we brainlessly doing now that should really stop?

In 1972, so-called Pooper-Scooper Law lady Fran Lee took to the airwaves to point out that we were huge slobs. She was a little batty, but she was right. Good on her. Gil Noble, the pioneering African-American TV journalist who recently passed away, held on for dear life while conducting the interview.

Fran Lee died in 2010 at age 99. From her New York Times obituary: “Though Ms. Lee was best known for her work on dog effluence (in 1972, The New York Times called her ‘New York’s foremost fighter against dog dirt’), she had been a crackling presence on city and national airwaves long before then.

On a string of programs and under a series of names – Mrs. Fix-It, Mrs. Consumer, Granny Franny – Ms. Lee advised radio and television audiences on household and consumer issues from the late 1940s until well into the ’90s. Her purview ranged from cyclamates to asbestos to how to make a candle from a sausage. (Add a wick and light; the pervasive fat does the rest.)

In the late 1960s and early ’70s Ms. Lee was seen regularly on two New York stations, Channel 5 (then WNEW) and Channel 11 (WPIX). She was also a frequent guest on many national programs, including The Tonight Show, The Mike Douglas Show and The Steve Allen Show, where she once taught Mr. Allen to transform a worn-out sweater into a bikini.”