Now, how did I, like, guess you were not even alive in, like, the '70s.
During '78 they covered Grease briefly, because I remember someone saying they loved Stockard Channing; plus Didi Conn has been one of the commentators.
In the same show they also did a who did you love more “Zeppelin vs. The Who”. Kind of weak, and no mention of the tramblings at the Who conecert in 1978. Not even during the WKRP segment.
Did they mention the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or the hostage crisis in Iran after the fall of the Shah? I missed the last half of 1979, but I’ll catch it later since VH-1 never met a rerun of one of their series they didn’t like (except Rotten Television, ah how we miss ya).
And just becuase I keep throwing in cheap shots at commentators: Let’s hope Lisa Marie Presley and Jim Gaffigan never meet and have children. The combined “duh” factor of these two could crash the collective IQ of the nation.
I think those are in '77, maybe '78.
THey should have got Micheal Winslow to comment on Bruce Lee. Nobody can do the “dubbed Kung Fu movie voice” like him!
Yeah, but I sure hope somebody is preserving pictures of young 'uns from the last few years wearing wildly baggy jeans, belted just below the butt. That’s one of those fashion statements that’s going to produce a lot of hilarity when it shows up on 2030’s “I Love the 2000s” show.
You didn’t miss anything. The whole Bicentennial took up about one minute (hey- Bicentennial Minute- heh heh heh-- if you get that one, you’re over 35), which majorly pissed me off. Admittedly, being the son of history teachers probably made it a bit more major in my house, but the Big 200 is one of my favorite childhood memories- EVERYWHERE YOU WENT, even in Alabama, you saw that BiCentennial Star, K-Mart was selling toy muskets and tricorns, Saturday morning shows (does anybody remember “Go!”- if I saw it today I might think it was cheesier than Wisconsin, but at the time I thought it was a really intelligent kids’ program) addressed historical issues, and for a year or slightly more the average American actually seemed to care about the country’s history as more than a superficial “travesties committed by dead white guys” or “proof we should have school prayer” type of partisan way. My family’s trek to Philadephia for 7-4-76 (along with about 599 million other people) is something I’ve wanted to retrace ever since. Ahhh…
Re: Battle of the Network Stars- that show was a gay adolescents dream. What else could you watch with your parents in the room that had all the male soap and sitcom stars in bikinis? (There was a syndicated version in the 80s hosted by Bruce Jenner [remember him?] and Morgan Brittanny [remember her?] that actually featured the gang from WHAT’S HAPPENING on one episode and that officially killed it- among the things from TV-land I never wanted to see, Rerun and Shirley Hemphill in swimsuits are close to the top).
Having watched about 4 episodes of I LOVE THE 70s, any humor in Michael Ian Black and Moe Rocca’s sarcasm and dryness is officially gone. “Let’s see some more nostalgia that we don’t remember but want to make fun of…” works with leisure suits and razor-parts and “Shields And Yarnell” (trivia: after their split [which wasn’t, as is often rumored, solely attributible to Yoko’s insistence on artsier mime] Shields was the live-in love of Catherine ‘Daisy Duke’ Bach for a number of years- he looks pretty good for 50something, incidentally) but not with the Bicentennial and the attempted assassinations of Ford or the energy crisis.
Incidentally, I heard a stand-up comic recently state one of the truest things of the era I’ve ever heard: For people of a certain age the words “Sooouuuuull Train” still ignite a little resentment because that was the sound that meant cartoons were over.
Things I would have given time or more time to:
Lemon Twist- does anybody remember this jumprope phenomena? It was a little black plastic lasso attached to an artificial lemon with “seeds” inside; you hooked it on one ankle and then “jumped” it, and my school actually required us to buy one for PE.
The homemade beanbag craze (mid 70s)- maybe that was regional
The wonders and glories of the brothers KROFT (mentioned throughout this thread)
The first digital watches (my older brother saved his money for two weeks to buy one; you had to hold down a button to show the time, which glowed in red LCD for about 3 seconds)
SANFORD AND SON- one of the last sitcoms that was both groundbreaking and as popular with 6 year olds as it was with 76 year olds- they also said things on S&S which would get you stoned, sued, tarred and feathered today (e.g. Fred to Lamont’s Puerto Rican girlfriend: “If you just have to date a brother why you pick one so dark? Why don’t you start with a high yella and work your way up?”)
The Star Wars LIFE DAY special
Space Shuttle merchandising
Lynda Carter still looks good.
Just a thought here, but if you are old enough to remember the '70’s (I am, bicentennial senior here) and you work for VH1 (possible workstyle contibutor), maybe there are still a few ongoing habits that may just be affecting your crystal clear memories of the decade. Yeah, it’s lacking in accuracy and completely cheesy, but I love cheese and I’m having fun watching it, darn it.
It should tell you how countrified my town was that instead of Soul Train, I still have a slight resentment of country singer Porter Wagoner and Nudie suits because The Porter Wagoner Show was the signal that cartoons were over.
For us, Soul Train came on after Kung Fu reruns but before the late night monster movies. Damn, I miss the pre-infomercial days of late night TV.
Mentioned momentarily when Richard Gere was named “Mr Goodbar Macho Man.” Rather a contradiction in terms, that.
Was covered.
I agree, they didn’t spend NEARLY enough time on all the crap you could buy and people’s memories of the day. I remember I had Bicentennial sneakers (converse-style red, white, & blue lo-tops with an eagle on the rubber toe) a Bicentennial Big Wheel (or Big Wheel knockoff, most likely), our neighbors had a red and white striped van with blue and white star curtains, my mom made my brother and I matching red, white, and blue striped outfits to wear to the parade. I love my bicentennial memories so much I re-did my guest bathroom in bicentennial decor. (I was able to pick up a half-finished “spirit of '76” latch-hook rug on eBay…the jewel in the crown!)
That’s funny about “Soul Train” signaling the “end of cartoons” for the day (I do remember how frustrating that was!) I remember by the late 70’s (or maybe summertime?) it was “This Week in Baseball,” and then the early 1980s “The Baseball Bunch” with Johnny Bench made the segue between cartoons and TWIB, thus softening the blow. I think I vaguely remember that when TWIB came on it was time to go wake up my parents - HA! What time was that, like noon or something? hee hee hee.
Let me guess your reasoning: rumors that a man is bisexual make it impossible for that man to be macho. Rather regressive attitude about homosexuality, no?
For your Bugaloo pleasure:
Yes, I feel the “I love the 70’s” is lacking in detail and inaccurate in a number of places – BIG things are missing, not little things like “I love the 80’s”
I actually hated the 70’s and still feel that anybody who went to High School in the middle six years of the 70’s pretty much got robbed.
I thought it had more to do with the character played by Richard Gere in Looking For Mister Goodbar was a opportunistic killer of a woman he picked up at a bar. Yeah, real hunk was that one.
Richard Gere was not the killer in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Tom Berenger was.
Ah. My memory of the movie is murky, I was really young when I saw it. I read the book when I was even younger, but I remember that quite well.
[hijack]Was the moral of that book "don’t pick up guys in bars to have sex with? Or, “see what sexual independance gets you? Dead, that’s what it gets you!” Or was my pre-adolescent feminism coloring what I read?[/hijack]
Quick correction on myself, there was a quick flash of ping pong balls raining on Captain Kangaroo. I missed it the first time I saw the episode.
And I remember loathing “The Baseball Bunch” not just because it meant cartoons were over, but since I was one of those geeky unathletic kids who hated sports (especially baseball) I took the all-American wholesome feel of the show as a personal affront. Like I was being insulted for not going out and playing sports in the backyard once cartoons were over. To me Johnny Bench was not a famous baseball player, he was the guy from the Krylon paint commercials who happened to play baseball at one time.
Something else I noticed the 70s series overlooked: the Mean Joe Green football jersey Coca-Cola commercial, or did I miss it?. That thing was everywhere for years on end. The subject of a thousand parodies (the best one being the one with the kid and a Vegas showgirl on the pay cable comedy series Bizarre hosted by John Byner, although it was and 80s series).
If I’m not mistaken, I think the Mean Joe Green commercial was one of their featured commercial flashbacks.
I was disappointed not to see my favorite Saturday morning show on there: “Wildboy”. Probably because I am the only person who remembers it.
At least they did show “Isis” and “Shazam”.
And where was the Bionic Woman? Six Million Dollar Man? Sha-Na-Na? These were important aspects of my childhood!
Someone mentioned the Killer Doberman series of movies in this thread and I had completely forgotten about them until just now. What in the world were those about? I just recall watching people being chased and mauled by a pack of of evil Dobermans that had apparently been trained to do so. Now that was entertainment!
The Coca-Cola commercial with Mean Joe Green was in the 1979 episode.