So at the start of this season, we found out that Hyde’s dad is not Robert Hays, the bartender. Instead it’s Tim Reid, a successful businessman of some sort. Yes, Venus from WKRP. But as Hyde put it, his being half-black “explains a lot”.
In last week’s episode, Kitty had a party; Midge (Donna’s mom) spent a lot of time talking to William, Hyde’s dad, and Bob (Donna’s dad) immediately got jealous. Now, by today’s standards, William does have it all over Bob. He’s better looking, more intelligent, more successful (I think…or didn’t Bob invent something a few seasons ago?), and, of course, a better conversationalist.
But the show is still stuck in 1979, the last time I looked. And although at that time, it was acceptable for a white woman to date or marry a black man, I’m not sure that “talking with William” would automatically equal “flirting”. From what I remember of the late '70s (I was a kid, but I was around), Bob would be more likely to express uncertainty, and Red or Kitty would laugh off the suggestion. “Oh, they’re just talking! She couldn’t really be interested in him! I mean…look at him!”
I really don’t think that someone in 1979 would jump to that conclusion so easily. I think they’d have to be caught smooching for Bob’s jealousy to be justified, because then it would be justified no matter who the guy was. What say you?
I agree with you on everything about flirtation being in the eye of the beholder. But that’s always been true, just as much today as in 1979 — and in 1779.
Na und? I remember if you saved enough Kenenr Points and sent in some money you could get the Boba Fett action figure. I was living in Florida at the time, so it would have been 1978 or 1979.
Eric is enough of a geek that he would try his damnedest to get a Boba Fett.
Keep in mind that the show takes place in a small Wisconsin town, not a big city, or even the suburb of a big city. A black man, successful or not, would have been an odd sight on the streets of “Point Place” in 1979. At that time, unless you lived in Milwaukee, Madison, or some of the medium sized towns in southern Wisconsin the only black people you’d see would be the black guys playing for the Packers in the fall, the Bucks in the winter and the Brewers in the summer.
The very uncomfortable “I hope I don’t say anything to offend” deferential attitude displayed by Kitty and Red rang true quite well to me, in my experience growing up in a Wisconsin town of 20,000 where the only black kid in school for most of my time there (ca. 1980-1992) was a guy who was adopted into an otherwise all white family.
As for Bob, he’s got a bit of an inferiority complex, and I think he’d have the same reaction to Midge talking to any man more successful than he. After all, she already bolted on him once already.
Eric and Donna were in their senior year of high school (Class of 1979) in the 2002-2003 season, they were scouting colleges in November 2002, and the gang got their SAT scores in December 2002. Eric turned 18 in November 2003, and he returned to his high school Christmas dance (December 1979) as an alumnus in December 2003.
I think we can safely assume, eleven months later, that it’s 1980 now on That '70s Show. Notice, though, that one year of real time does not necessarily equal one year of Point Place time. More like 1-1/2 to 2 years of Point Place time equals one year of real time.
All on-air clues indicate that Point Place is in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.* While I am still looking for 1970 and 1980 census data, I can report that Kenosha County had 488 black male residents in 1960.
Thus I will ignore the official website’s assertion that Point Place is a suburb of Green Bay, 154 miles from Kenosha. That’s the same website that thinks “groovy” was a '70s term.
Except, from what I’ve heard and read on this very message board, they’re not going to go into the '80s. I suppose they’ll just do a MASH and from now on it’ll be 1979 until the show ends.
I seem to remember reading last summer that this season is the last year for the show. As I recall, the “kids’” contracts are up and they decided that it was time.
FWIW, the year of the show is always whatever’s on the license plate sticker in the closing credits. Its been 79 since sometime last season.
They’re apparently not very far from Milwaukee, but since they don’t seem to go into the big city too often they can’t be all that close either. As Walloon says, to the extent that Point Place can be located anywhere in reality, it’s somewhere in Kenosha County. There have been a few episodes where they do geographically implausible things for that area, like have the girls casually drive back and forth to Sheboygan twice in one day, but most other signs point to the southeastern corner of Wisconsin. I think it was in the very first episode that the gang was all excited about going to the disco in Kenosha. This would indicate they’re closer to there than Milwaukee, so I think we can even narrow things down to the southern part of the county.
There’s a real town in southern Kenosha County called Pleasant Prarie, and I’d suspect that whoever invented the fictional Point Place may have been inspired by that name/location.
What racial attitudes would have been like in that place at that time I don’t know, but I’m sure that stereotypes about black men being well-endowed and that some white women just go crazy for them go back much earlier. I didn’t see the episode in question so I don’t know how she was acting, but Midge has also always been portrayed as kind of a free spirit. So I don’t think it seems implausible that Bob might think she’d be perfectly happy to get involved with a black man even if interracial relationships weren’t very common.