Did anyone seriously believe the 1950's were like the imaginary nostalgia protrayed in "Happy Days" (Even if you watched and liked it in the 1970's)

Sure they were "Happy Days"... If you were white, christian and living in the new suburbs. If you lived in a middle class city you were still alright but still you had to be white. If you lived in the south...forget it you might as well be living in a third world shithole like Somalia. Did anyone seriously believe teenagers acted like the Fonz and Ron Howard did in 1955 to 1965, I didn't, they were too 70's for my taste. Why no traces of the brutal racism, sexism and homophobia that was institutionalized and even mandated. Where was any of the McCarthyism that netted people for believing in other things than the "American Dream"? What about the institutionalized religion including the requirement that you go to church on Sunday if you are not infirm in bed or you burn in hell.

I am not saying the world was anywhere realistic but I am just wondering did anyone else have this same thought when the show came out.

Sure they were "Happy Days"... If you were white, christian and living in the new suburbs.

happy days was the worst show ever but just wanted to point out that a lot of the white christian suburbians in the 50s probably spent an uncomfortable amount of time each staring blankly at the wall, muttering "is this it....is this it"

and then the so called "Mid Life Crisis" set in and the husbands ran off with the secretaries.

i think reagan believed the 50s were exactly like how it was depicted in back to the future (thus it is reagan's favorite movie)

third world shithole like Somalia.
third world shithole like Somalia.
third world shithole like Somalia.
third world shithole like Somalia.
third world shithole like Somalia.

What about the institutionalized religion including the requirement that you go to church on Sunday if you are not infirm in bed or you burn in hell.

what about The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled analog synthesizer systems in the early 1950s. The technological development that led to the creation of the Moog synthesizer was the invention of the transistor, which enabled researchers like Moog to build electronic music systems that were considerably smaller, cheaper and far more reliable than earlier vacuum tube-based systems.

I've heard interviews with guys who said Modesto, California was exactly like American Graffiti.

'Happy Days' was the purest sort of fantasy tv, no more real than 'Lost In Space' or 'Gilligan's Island' or 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' or 'My Mother The Car'. When placed beside 'Happy Days', 'Seinfeld' and 'Friends' begin to look like straight documentaries of New York apartment dwellers.

I actually got to watch the episode of "Love American Style" that kicked off "Happy Days"...

i thought giligan's island was allegory.

If so, the island sadly lacked enough communists to threaten with a proper nuclear war.

I got pretty excited every time they had a Mexican in an old TV show. There was Chuey in one episode of "Leave it to Beaver" and a maid on one episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show".

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/01/03/world/03somalia.xlarge1.jpg

Greensboro, 1958

what about The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled analog synthesizer systems in the early 1950s. The technological development that led to the creation of the Moog synthesizer was the invention of the transistor, which enabled researchers like Moog to build electronic music systems that were considerably smaller, cheaper and far more reliable than earlier vacuum tube-based systems.

that too.... how bout the invention of the ASDR Envelope control circuitry that lead to the shaping of the sounds that make the synths possible? How bout the invention of the microcircuit that lead to the processors and the microchips that power the PC you are writing the red herring of this topic on?

pplains you are not far off with that picture. Just replace the black dudes with machine guns on old trucks with white sheeted white dudes with nooses and shotguns and it isn't really far from reality.

buzza otm itt

The existence of racism in 1950s suburbia had at least crossed the programme-makers' minds. Not sure Fonz ever appeared before HUAC though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uiiq-1KKSPg

I hate how on the Monkees they never really got into how difficult it is to work in the music business. Did anybody ever get sick and have to play anyway? Vocal nodes? Carpal tunnel? The rigors of touring? Trying to figure out how to actually pay grown-up bills, get health insurance, put something away for retirement - oh no, none of this for the producers of the Monkees, it's just a good time every week. Addiction, exhaustion, estrangement from family and friends, the challenges of remaining true to your vision while trying to build a life from one's work...to the producers of the Monkees, I might as well be talking about colonies on Mars. Fuckin' the Monkees. Way to whitewash the TRUTH

...it...wasn't real?

I think pop-culture portrayals of the 1960s are even further off than those of the '50s

and no, the '50s weren't at all like in Happy Days

The Monkees' story is actually pretty inspiring tho, unless yr Davy/Mickey going "get over it it's a good job jeez"

I could never work out why it ws cool for the Fonz to basically live w his friend's parents and flirt w Mrs C

MASH was so unrealistic they set in in Korea!

Laverne & Shirley shines the stark light of verite on single working women in Milwaukee.

If you've ever seen Harlan County USA, it's kind of like that only minus the coal and folk songs.

It's TV, all portrayals are stupid and false. In 20 years we'll be asking if life was like "2 1/2 Men" or "Modern Family" or whatever.

THE HELL YOU SAY

i'm not sure there were any non-crazy ppl who believed the 1950's were like the imaginary nostalgia protrayed in "Happy Days".

wait til I hip you all to how unrealistic the Partridge Family is

http://www.highexistence.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-post-thumbnails/timthumb.php?src=/wp-content/thumbnails/2653.jpg&w=604&h=300&zc=1&ft=jpg

Norman Lear tried but what bigot is really that lovable?

The Taxi theme song and Johnny Carson bring back memories of having a fever or throwing up. If I heard those i was up late and was only up late if I was sick.

As a kid I though MASH was about Vietnam, wasn't until I got older and actually watched it that I found out it wasn't.

Barney Miller, what dad these days would sit through a "cop" show that takes place in one room?

I love old tv shows.

*thought

I would like to hear The Startrekman's thoughts on Star Trek

freaks and geeks never adequately demonstrated how obliviously absurd everyone's hair was in the 80s as well as any yearbook of the time. i also blame reagan for this. (oblivious bad hair = iran-contra affair or something)

ans: It's not meant to resemble reality for everybody, but I would say it is quite possible that some people lived like 'Happy Days', not for long but it's possible. Then people moved on, lives changed and it was over...

The Taxi theme song and Johnny Carson bring back memories of having a fever or throwing up. If I heard those i was up late and was only up late if I was sick.

I got a "Here's Johnny: Magic Moments from the Tonight Show" 2xLP yesterday and it's pretty damn sweet. I was too young to see his show and this is a real blast, and makes it seem like the 70's were just the most SHOWBIZ time ever.

Also, i don't think I've seen much Happy Days outside of the Weezer video.

you didn't miss much. I was in high school during Happy Days initial run and I fucking hated that show, not sure why at this late date. 50s nostalgia was a big thing in the mid 70s, in retrospect I'd guess it reflected the growing conservatism that led to the rise of reagan and the religious right.

not just older people but a number of ex-hippie boomers i think got freaked out by the general air of permissiveness & hedonism in our culture as the 70s wore on. so even folks who remembered the 50s as repressive or whatever began to feel nostalgic for that 'simpler time.'

oh shit

http://spacemonkeypants.com/img/fonzi.jpg

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-03/278132500-06202248.jpg

I thought fonzie was so cool

I hate how on the Monkees they never really got into how difficult it is to work in the music business. Did anybody ever get sick and have to play anyway? Vocal nodes? Carpal tunnel? The rigors of touring? Trying to figure out how to actually pay grown-up bills, get health insurance, put something away for retirement - oh no, none of this for the producers of the Monkees, it's just a good time every week. Addiction, exhaustion, estrangement from family and friends, the challenges of remaining true to your vision while trying to build a life from one's work...to the producers of the Monkees, I might as well be talking about colonies on Mars. Fuckin' the Monkees. Way to whitewash the TRUTH

They did eventually all jump off a bridge iirc.

wait til I hip you all to how unrealistic the Partridge Family is

But it's based on the true story of the Cowsills!

At least the Monkees didn't jump a shark.

I get weirdly teary whenever I hear the Hill Street Blues soundtrack

People in tiny towns in IN are still living the Happy Days life. I saw it, complete with ambrosia and watergate salads...

Modesto is greatly changed, for anyone thinking of a nostalgic American Graffiti road trip O_o

I got a "Here's Johnny: Magic Moments from the Tonight Show" 2xLP yesterday and it's pretty damn sweet. I was too young to see his show and this is a real blast, and makes it seem like the 70's were just the most SHOWBIZ time ever.

YES! The 70's were very SHOWBIZ, the last of it all....

SCTV is really OTM with it...love SCTV

Vegemite..meeeee to and with Taxi!

Didn't the whole nostalgia for the 50's in the 70's start in England?

People in tiny towns in IN are still living the Happy Days life.

But with much lower production values.

Ha! True

Pretty sure that people in the seventies, even people who lived in the same sort of class structure portrayed in Happy Days, realized that it was a light entertainment show with an escapist bent. People were sophisticated enough to realize that just because it was presented as Golden Era on TV, that their own memories, if nothing else, were enough to offer a counter-reality to the Fonz.

The ones who might get confused about this sort of thing are mostly kids, who have very little real information to counterbalance the fantasy information. But even 'Leave It To Beaver' was a sociology textbook on 1950s suburban families compared to 'Happy Days'.

That 70's show was just a 90's show set in the nostalgic memory of the parents who lived during it and the kids being forced to live it out.

I would like to hear The Startrekman's thoughts on Star Trek

Star Trek the original series was a dramatic sophisticated take on the social issues of the time only wrapped in naval, scientifically inaccurate, and high class pulpy sci-fi. Yes it had alien babes and futuristic inventions that have inspired the technologies of today and still do. However The original Star Trek TOS is still a very sophisticated dramatic sci-fi show.

Fonzerelli faces his share of racism, I'm sure, that led to a life lived in an alartment above a garage.

Angered by a television broadcast showing a black man being beaten at a lunch counter for just wanting a meal, Al convinces Fonzie to head south to march in a week-end civil rights demonstration and it's not long before they both find out, firsthand, what's at stake for the black community.

After sticking up for a young Communist Party member who is being bullied by jocks, Fonzie attracts the attention of HUAC and must decide whether to take the fifth, risk jail or point the finger at the suspiciously redheaded Ralph Malph.

When I was a kid I knew that Happy Days was a sick fraud, but I did assume that the Brady Bunch perfectly represented the 70s

1950's racial intolerance is explored from both sides of the aisle after Howard Cunningham is asked to be best man at the wedding of a black, former army buddy.

"Leave it to Beaver" was more sarcastic than people think. Unless you have watched it. The real square show was "Father's Knows Best", (more square than "Ozzie and Harriet") but even then, when Bud discovers bongoes and becomes popular at parties, that was a pretty funny episode.

This is my all time fave, "Leave it to Beaver" episode:
http://www.imdb.com/video/tvland/vi3911123993/

Fonzie has struck up a friendship with Sticks Downey, a new youth in the area, and has secured him to play drums with the band at Richie's upcoming Hawaiian luau party. Prejudices appear from many of the locals when Sticks turns out to be black.

When I was a kid I knew that Happy Days was a sick fraud, but I did assume that the Brady Bunch perfectly represented the 70s

haha OTM

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8466/8132390263_d73389f62f.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8470/8132417210_b5022ba123.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8196/8132418496_ae12591a60.jpg

Chuck Cunningham, a young gay man, arrives in New York City by bus and immediately heads for Greenwich Village. There he falls in with drag queen La Miranda and friends, who take him to the Stonewall Inn. There is a police raid and Chuck and La Miranda are arrested.

the ice cream van that went round my neighborhood as a kid had a mural on the side featuring a silhouetted guy sitting on a motorbike and triumphantly holding aloft an ice cream, slogan above read "STAY COOL LIKE THE FONZ"

An essential piece of writing/thinking about Leave It To Beaver and, I suppose, 50s tv in general:

http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2012/05/leave-it-to-beaver-the-complete-first-season.html

HOMER: Ah, my high-school reunion! I can't wait to see the old gang again! Potsy, Ralph-Malph, the Fonz...

MARGE: Homer, that was "Happy Days"!

HOMER: No, they weren't all happy days. Like the time Pinky Tuscadero crashed her motorcycle, or the night I lost all my money to those card sharks and my dad, Tom Bosley, had to get it back.

As a kid I though MASH was about Vietnam, wasn't until I got older and actually watched it that I found out it wasn't.

― *tera,

I always assumed MASH was about Vietnam, but set in Korea to avoid opening fresh wounds.

That was the idea behind the movie, at least, wasn't it?

So I thought...

Loved reading that, cryptosicko, it is pretty otm!

the movie's based on the memoir of a MASH doctor who worked in Korea, iirc, but definitely conceived as a comment on Vietnam as well

What synthesizers were used in the creation of the television show "Happy Days"

I got a "Here's Johnny: Magic Moments from the Tonight Show" 2xLP yesterday and it's pretty damn sweet.

I have this! Yeah, it's great -- love Johnny's duet with Pearl Bailey on "Our Love Is Here to Stay."

The "HBC-1000 Ultra-Modern Computer Room". I heard the characters were created using a DELOS person integer and then using the same robot model as the robot gunslinger from westworld. Fonzie used a MAL-220 person integer from Delos routed through a deep root analyzer to create the coolness and the over the top skills that he possessed. Kevin Ethan Levin is actually cloned from this model

http://archive.org/details/various_artists_heres_johnny_magic_moments_from_the_tonight_show

^^^ totally listening to this when i get a second

Yeah Johnny Carson can really sing!