WT(H) Decade: the 70's

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

What in the ... (hell!) ?

Talk to me about either your experiences or your perception of the (mostly late) 70s .. as it relates to ....

This strange intersection of styles and culture. This may be hard to put into few words, but here are some examples that may convey my puzzlement:

An obvious one, but don't misconstrue it as a reason to talk about disco:
Disco - Gay & Drug culture becomes fun for the whole family - from kids to grandmas.

Mork Suspenders
Variety Shows: Why did everyone sing "Babyface"?
"If My Friends Could See Me Now"*
HR PufNStuff and the Brady Bunch at the Hollywood Bowl
The fucked-up, tragic film ending - Midnight Cowboy, *Sweet Charity
Suits and Ties
Rollerskates as sexy
The CHiPs-style montage (I think CHiPs was 80s, but the montage kind of encapsulates a lot.)

Seems as if it was the decade where straighlaced met sleazy and they had a party and everyone was invited. ...and I just can't put into words the strangeness of it, now that I look back. I don't feel as though I've explained it well .. anyone know what I'm talking about?

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 19:36 (twenty years ago)

Newhart wasn't that weird.

― andy --, Wednesday, 9 November 2005 19:40 (twenty years ago)

No single thing was weird. It was the melding of all those things at the same time....

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

I think the 70s were quite drab and claustrophobic in the UK (I was born in 78, so can't remember). There's nothing as depressing as a mid-Seventies British sex comedy.

― chap who would dare to tell uninteresting celeb spotting stories (chap), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 19:43 (twenty years ago)

A couple of months ago, I rented a bunch of DVDs, among them Martin Scorcese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, since I had never seen it in its entirety. About a third of the way through, I turned to my wife and said, "Man, this movie looks and sounds exactly like what I remember the 70s being like." Not least because my family was stationed in the Southwest from 1972-1974. (I was born in 1969.)

So, if you want my impressions of the 70s, rent that movie.

― monkeybutler, Wednesday, 9 November 2005 19:54 (twenty years ago)

That's a decent example of the tragic movie. And at the same time, Donnie and Marie, enjoyed by the same audience.

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 21:08 (twenty years ago)

It's not particularly tragic, I don't think. What would make you think so?

― monkeybutler, Wednesday, 9 November 2005 21:09 (twenty years ago)

http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/AmericanMotors/1970_AMC_Javelin_SST-a.jpg

Nothing tragic about the AMC JAVELIN!!

― andy --, Wednesday, 9 November 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

I haven't seen it in awhile. I remember it as being really depressing without a happy ending .. but maybe it did have that.

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

What's up with Day of the Locust?

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

another late 70's phenomenom that bled into the early eighties: Mimes.

I found an old radio schedule for my campus station from 1982-1983. A mime with suspenders and Robin Williams haircut was prominently featured.

― kingfish orange creamsicle (kingfish 2.0), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

Sheilds & Yarnell .. How'd they EVER get a show?

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:52 (twenty years ago)

Not to mention Pink Lady & Jeff.

― I do feel guilty for getting any perverse amusement out of it (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 9 November 2005 23:56 (twenty years ago)

I think it was the let-it-all-hang-out aspect of the 60s "youth explosion" finally filtering into the mass culture. People got used to suggestive entertainment so you saw more racy or oddball stuff. I think it was probably more gradual than you may be suggesting, however.

Wasn't Midnight Cowboy 1969? The fact it won the best pic Oscar surely affected 70s cinema, though. Also, Laugh-In was a 60s show that echoed through the 70s, though it hasn't aged well.

But Love, American Style has gotta be the definitive 70s TV show. (for comedy in the US, anyway)

― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 10 November 2005 00:34 (twenty years ago)

http://www.michaeljfoxdatabase.com/Graphics/TV/TV_series_guest_loveboat_lo.jpg

― monkeybutler, Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:09 (twenty years ago)

yes.. but what confounds me is the let-it-all-hang-out culture coexisting/overlapping/mixing with some pretty conservative, wholesome stuff.

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:12 (twenty years ago)

But isn't it always that way, to a degree? Edgy stuff creeps in to the conservative culture, sometimes beside it but sometimes mixed in. Like maybe on one established show they hired a young writer or producer to get some new blood, and he snuck stuff by the rest of them.

― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:18 (twenty years ago)

Yes, on the British sex comedies; "Eskimo Nell" (dir. Martin Campbell, 1974) satirises them brilliantly. Curious that the director has gone on to make both "Edge of Darkness" and "The Legend of Zorro"...

"Eskimo Nell" does actually dramatise the clash/merger between the straitlaced and the sleazy, with (the absurdly innocent) Christopher Timothy and Michael Armstrong (IIRC) as prospective film-makers encountering the gamut of Soho decadence. And of course, throw into that equation the moral reformers, standard targets portrayed within the British sex comedy - though indeed the films tended to reinforce many conservative values, beyond a tepid show of 'excess'. "EN" is rather more honest about it all, and a good film about the era.

― Tom May (Tom May), Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:22 (twenty years ago)

yeah, it is always there .. but ... not with mimes and roller skates.

I dunno, there's just something a little wierder with the Brady Kids singing Babyface during all of it...

― D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Thursday, 10 November 2005 01:35 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.