Six Million Dollar Adulthood

Last Friday, I wrote about the Six Million Dollar Man and my childhood memories of the TV show. I threw in some thoughts comparing the ideas of watching TV shows together as a family in the seventies and watching them separately today. I fretted and hemmed and hawed about what effect this 'in house cultural difference' would have on the kids. But I neglected to tell you that there are some shows that we watch together with the kids. With ALL the kids. For instance...

...we watch the Six Million Dollar Man.


I'm sure none of you regular readers of this blog are surprised by this plot twist. But yes, I did acquire the complete series and I did take the pains to load them up on the Apple TV. So that any episode is readily available with a couple clicks of the beautiful silvery remote.


The kids and I have been watching the show on and off for years. We started it when Lorie was working at Best Buy in the evenings and we were on our own. These days when we watch an episode, it's together as a family and under Lorie's extreme protest. During any given episode, she can be found to be playing Sims or Jurassic Park on her iPad mini.

The kids love the show, of course. Alex is six now, which as I mentioned before was my age during the show's original heyday. So there's some symmetry here. When we first started watching the show, all three kids would play bionics. With youngest Alex calling it 'bionic Steve' or 'the six dollar man'. They would run in slow motion in the yard or in the hallway and fight each other, sometimes arguing over who was 'Good Steve' and who was 'Bad Steve' and who was mind controlled and who wasn't and even which arm was bionic and which one was normal. I laughed at Katie's reasoning of being a female version of Colonel Steve Austin. I didn't tell her about Jamie Summers until it happened on the show itself. I preferred to keep it a secret and watch things unfold for them as they had for me thirty-some years earlier.


Needless to say, the introduction of Jamie Summers was a big hit. And then the revelation that she had her own show was even more exciting.

It's been sort of a joy for me. And I think this particular feeling at it's root is universal for fathers. The need to share something with your kids that meant so much to you when you were young. With something like Star Wars, which is probably the biggest case of "I gotta share with my kids", our culture gets in the way. There are current day movies and cartoons and playground experiences that can dilute the link between father and son when sharing those characters. Same with Batman or Star Trek. But with something like Six Million Dollar Man or even Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, or Flash Gordon the pickings are so slim for modern day interpretations that the experience can be a controlled link.

However, sometimes that can backfire.

Our latest viewing happened a few days ago. We watching an episode called 'Nightmare in the Sky'. The original air date was September 26th, 1976, and it was from season four of the show. It guest starred popular character actor Dana Elcar. It also guest starred Farrah Fawcett herself in her second appearance on the show playing the character of Major Kelly Wood. A fellow pilot and semi-love interest for Steve.

Alex watched intently.

Katie was confused. Who was this big-haired woman? What do you mean they were married in real life? What about Jamie? What about Jamie Summers? GET THIS WOMAN AWAY FROM STEVE!!


Ashton was... Ashton was very much a teenager for the whole thing. While years ago he very much enjoyed the show, today he kept making derogatory comments under his breath and unhelpful side slanders. He commented on the special effects and the outfits. He didn't like Steve's cheesy little season four mustache. He made sure we were clear that he would rather watch Eureka, which is a modern day show that we do enjoy together. And I made sure he was clear that if he kept running his mouth I would throw him outside.


He did enjoy Farrah, though. That much was obvious. Some things are eternal.

As I'm setting up my new comic book sanctuary, I have very few things with the Six Million Dollar Man on them. An old Christmas record. And one beat-up toy with missing pieces, no outfit and busted bionic working mechanism. But he's in his old spaceship/bionic monitoring station. I had that when I was a kid. And now I have it again as an adult. Proudly displayed under glass.


Thanks,
DCD

Six Million Dollar Childhood

One of my many loves is the Six Million Dollar Man. I have many strong memories and passions that carried over from childhood. The squinty, open shirt, wide-collared Lee Majors portrayal of Col. Steve Austin seems to be particularly strong with me as an adult. I think one of the reasons is that I went a good portion of my life without the show or any version of it. Unlike Star Trek. So it's almost as if I'm rediscovering the show as an adult. And rediscovering how fond I was of the show in the mid-1970's.


The show started in January of 1974 and lasted until Spring of 1978. Which means that part of the show's allure for me is it's pre-Robyn-ness. My baby sister Robyn was born in November of 1977 when we lived in Plattsburgh, New York. So it's not actually the fact of being without Robyn, but it's the idea that this was the proto-Dill family that loved the show. The early childhood stages of living in Texas, and not having an infant sister to contend with. We watched the show as a family. I do remember that. And ever time Steve Austin would climb into a plane my mother would check with my father for Air Force accuracy.

His answer fell into two ranges: "yep" and "nope".

I remember being jaw-droppingly stunned at Steve's fight with mechanized monster Bigfoot. I remember the horror of Maskatron, when that villain removed his face and revealed the circuitry underneath I was just as shocked as the rest of America. I remember the excitement of the Bionic Woman. I added Jamie Summers to my harem of imaginary wives, along with Daphne and Black Canary. I remember knowing who Farrah Fawcett was because she was married to Lee Majors and not because she was one of Charlie's Angels. We weren't allowed to watch that show.





In the heyday of the Six Million Dollar Man TV show, I was around six to seven years old. One of the things that strikes me is that I'm positive we watched this show together, as a family. It was a prime time show that my parents felt comfortable watching with a six-year-old. Can you think of any prime time shows today that you would watch with a kid that young? Certainly there may be some, but I can't think of any. Even our favorite sitcoms are too racy and deal with themes just too adult for us to sit down and enjoy with our youngest son Alex. And now my three kids have this set of shows that they watch and enjoy that I think are primarily made by Nickelodeon or Disney TV. "Good Luck Charlie", "Hannah Montanna", "Shake it Up", "Drake and Josh", and "Wizards of Waverly Place". I've seen a few episodes just so I can know what the kids are watching. But Lorie and I do not sit down and watch these shows with our kids as family time.

Our cultures are different. Between the enabling technology and the show content, our TV influences are completely different. Two or more separate sets of developmental culture in the same house. How will that effect us differently than the culture I experienced as a kid?

To my foggy childhood memory, EVERYONE was obsessed with the show back then. All my school friends, my family, and certainly the approved licensed merchandise makers. I didn't have the Six Million Dollar Man lunch box. But I DID have the Viewmaster reels and several records for my tiny toy record player. I remember clearly the evening when we went to the toy store to get me the Six Million Dollar Man action figure. I played with that thing CONSTANTLY. I had that figure before I had any of my super-hero or Star Trek Mego dolls. It was just Steve Austin and GI Joe.



The best thing about loving the Six Million Dollar Man wasn't the comics or the records or the action figures... it was by far the school yard play.

We had entire afternoons where everyone was bionic. Everyone was running in slow motion, wrestling off giant Northwestern Sasquatch space creatures, slow motion fist fights, slow motion fake jumps, slow motion 'looking far across the playground'. And the sound effects! Everyone was going 'Dah nuh nuh nuh nuh' under their breath when they weren't humming the theme song.

The only drawback to playing Steve Austin was that you couldn't incorporate the Wonder Woman twirl-change to go from being ordinary mortal to super-powered altruistic knight. Heaven help you if you were caught doing the WW spin-change on the playground.

It felt like a shared culture. It continues to feel like a shared culture. Mention the show to anyone over forty and you'll see the look of recognition light up their face. And when I slow-motion run past my bosses open office door going "Dah nuh nuh nuh nuh", the light chuckle lets me know she knows exactly what foolishness I'm up to.

Now if I could only lift this car with one arm...

Thanks,
DCD

Shazam!

I often find myself making poorly-constructed jokes about fighting crime cross country in a Winnebago. More often than not, no one knows what I’m talking about and everyone just goes about their business as if I had said nothing. There are some comic book friends of mine that think I’m referencing the famous Green Lantern/Green Arrow road trip of the late sixties. (If you don’t get the reference, well... you’re just not happening.) However, if you read my meta-text closely, you’ll find I’m referencing something else entirely.


The reference is to the Saturday morning TV show Shazam, which ran from 1974 to 1977. It starred Michael Gray and his terrific hair as a young Billy Batson. In case you don’t know, Billy has a magic word. Billy can shout “Shazam” and instantly change into the super-hero Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel was played originally by Jackson Bostwick, and replaced unceremoniously by John Davey in 1975 because of Hollywood-crappyness. But most creepy of all, Billy traveled the country in his Winnebago with an older character named “Mentor”, played by Les Tremayne. Mentor? Mentor? I guess it was too difficult for the writers to come up with a better name.








It’s hard for me to explain just how important this TV show was to kid culture of the mid-seventies. I can tell you that as a six year old in the seventies, I noticed NONE of the show's flaws or shortcomings. We ran around on the playground playing Captain Marvel just as much as we played Six Million Dollar Man. (More on that to come)


It seems sort of odd for an American animation company to lock down the rights to a show and then make a live-action version geared towards Saturday morning kiddies. But it really wasn’t all that odd. Hollywood had been producing these sorts of things since the 1950’s and Space Patrol, among others. Just because cartoons were the bulk of Saturday morning in the seventies doesn’t mean there weren’t some live-action gems. Shazam and sister-show Isis were two of the biggest hits to come from Saturday morning live action programming.


I had the Underoos. I wore them to school. My shirt became out-of-place during wrestling lessons in gym and everyone saw I was wearing Shazam Underoos and started singing “Underoos are fun to wear”. It’s for this reason that I make sure my shirt never becomes untucked at work, lest my co-workers see what I have on underneath.


I used to think my love of the character Captain Marvel and everything that goes with him came from the giant treasury editions I had that reprinted a few of his adventures from the 1940’s. Santa put them in my stocking a couple years in a row and I clearly remember spending hours examining every glorious panel.


But as much as I love those old comics, it’s not where my love of the character Captain Marvel comes from. It’s this show. This cheaply made, perfectly executed, cheesy old seventies Saturday morning TV show. It’s the lightning thrill of watching Billy and his incredible hair tear out of the Winnebago, run into a field, and call out the magic word. Yes, it was just that simple. The essential elements of the Captain Marvel character captured more perfectly than they have been since the character's heyday in the 1940’s.

Boy sees trouble. Boy uses magic word (oftentimes with drama-inducing last minute timing). Boy changes to super-powered man.


The show recently became available on DVD in its entirety directly through Warner Bros. I bought it, of course. And I’ve been watching it with my six-year-old in the evenings when he comes home from school with no tallies for the day. Lorie sits nearby, playing games on her iPad mini and pretending not to watch and occasionally making derogatory comments about the show’s unpolished nature. But I don’t mind.


After the episode ends, I tackle Alex. We wrestle around on the couch and I restrain his arms. He struggles, and uses his best dramatic voice. “Just… .got… to… use… magic… word! (gasp)… (pause)…. SHAZAM!”

He explodes out of my grip and starts beating me on the chest.

I love it so.

Thanks,
DCD

Bob Newhart and Football

I don’t care a lick about football. In fact, I found doing the least amount of research I could get away with for this blog post made me sleepy and lethargic. BUT… I can’t deny that it’s important and needed in our society. People need entertainment. And if they prefer their muscle bound men clad in skin-tight uniforms to be on the football field rather than in the pages of a comic book, so be it.

Football popped up in my cultural time machine recently. We were watching an episode of the Bob Newhart show from the early seventies. Bob and his buddy Jerry and his wife Emily were dealing with the 'new thing' that was plaguing marriages across the nation. Monday Night Football.

The episode originally aired in November of 1972. Wikipedia says that Monday night football started in fall of 1970. So perhaps it wasn't the most timely of topics for ol' Bob to tackle or maybe there were other factors in play that I'm not aware of. But the characters in the show were talking about the idea of football on Monday night to be a new and wondrous thing. It was even mentioned that Monday used to be the most depressing day of the week, but now there was something to look forward to.

Bob's wife Emily was none-too-pleased to find her husband and his pal littering her couch on a Monday night. She felt obligated to serve dinner and provide for the men. It's... interesting.


I find the culture of the show to be a strong time machine. The fashion's are a straight on disaster and the issues that Bob and Emily go through simply don't exist today. Emily frets about serving the men dinner. Emily frets about not spending time with her husband and being bored about football. Bob seems caught between two ideologies. There's the idea of being able to watch what he wants to watch when he'd like to watch it and with who while in his own home. And there's the idea of being sensitive to the needs of another human being who he's given his word to honor and cherish for the rest of his life. The two struggle for a middle ground and in true sitcom fashion, find a resolution.

One of the interesting elements of the episode is that Bob and Emily have a rule about their fights.... and it's that they won't go to bed angry. So, again in true sitcom fashion, they're up all night. It's a good thought in that it's based in the foundation of fostering communication.

I was too young in the early seventies to know anything about women's lib. And my own mother was devoutly against it because it didn't adhere to a 'Leave it to Beaver' acknowledgment of what the world should be like. But it's interesting to see Bob and Emily bring this to life for my entertainment and education with a culture historical milestone like the onset of Monday Night Football. At the time the show was trying to be timely. And in today's viewing it ends up being a time machine to another culture. Exactly the kind of thing I love.

My wife Lorie, however, is less than impressed with the show. She finds it boring and repetitive. So your mileage may vary.

Thanks,
DCD

Buck Rogers, Man of the Future?

I read this line recently, “A vision of our future as could only be seen from a certain point in our past”. I think it was on the back of one of my books reprinting Buck Rogers newspaper strips. I’m totally enamored with the idea.

“Retro-future” is another term I’ve heard thrown around to describe the same concept. The entertainment, whether it be movie, TV, book, comic, or something else, was futuristic at the time it was published. But not seems quaint and oddly out of place. It’s an antique vision of something that never existed. It’s an impossible anachronism.

No character embodies this more so than poor old Buck Rogers.

Buck Rogers, more formerly known as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, is culturally one of our greater science fiction characters. He used to be a household name, and even made it into our cultural lexicon as referring to something futuristic. If you’re unfamiliar, Buck is a modern day hero from 1929 who through some accident get put in stasis and revived in the year 2429. The character first appears in pulp novels of the 1920’s, but is later chronicled in a daily newspaper strip that ends up being one of the most popular strips of that era.


Part of Buck’s allure is that he’s a ‘fish out of water’. He’s a character from modern times cast in the future against his will. So he’s using the smarts and knowhow of today to battle menaces of tomorrow. This speaks to the reader somewhat, as we’re all able to imagine how we would do in Buck’s place. Despite the fantastic circumstances, it makes him relatable.

I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed Buck’s appearances in the original comic strips so much that now when his name is mentioned; it’s the character I think of and not the television show of my childhood. Although that show, starring Gil Gerard, was definitely a favorite of mine growing up and I wouldn’t have the love for Buck that I do without that show.


As I said before, this characters version of the future can’t possibly exist. It’s a future that can only be envisioned from a point in our past. In the original strip, Buck and his friends have yet to even leave Earth’s atmosphere. Having their adventures while facing Mongol hoards of Earth and using flight belts that make them light as a feather and enable them to jump great distances. In the television show, Buck is a member of Earth’s defense forces and earns an audience by introducing modern day knowledge to fantastic situations. Such things as showing the visiting alien queen how to disco, or being the only person around who knows what a boomerang is, or teaching a flight school how to fight by using an ancient game called ‘football’.



These elements of Buck’s character are important at first, but fall by the wayside as the character gets further entrenched in his fantastic surroundings. But these elements are what sets Buck apart, and keep him a bit entrenched in being an anachronism.

Flash Gordon’s adventures, hailed as comic strip art at its finest, are far more engrossing. He’s the Earthman tossed out of his element too, but those ‘fish out of water’ moments aren’t really played up. Flash goes in swinging and almost never stops. Whether it be the original comic strips or the television and movies that came after.

Some would say Captain Kirk and the original Star Trek show are a bit of an anachronism. Most everything they can do in the original show is within our technological understanding today. But Captain Kirk and crew have a story and a message that transcends the trappings of their 1960’s TV set. Any anyone with any imagination at all, and a willingness to watch, can forgive the paper mache scenery and hokey lighting and be swept up into their adventures.

The difference is longevity. Captain Kirk is easily making his way along with our culture, moving into the future as an endearing character along with Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. Flash Gordon has been revived several times. He struggles along far behind Captain Kirk and Superman, but he has a shot at entering the future as a character re-imagined for a new generation.

But Buck? Will Buck make it? Flash Gordon is at least still printed in Sunday newspaper strip format. But Buck’s strip was cancelled in 1967, not counting a short revival in the 1980’s because of the popularity of the TV show.



Things look bleak for Buck. Which only makes me love him more.

These are a couple of vehicles that Lorie found for me one Christmas. Their beautiful, in my opinion, and I can’t believe they were made. They match ships that were seen in the original newspaper strip. If I had a comic room to display them in, they would have a proud spot. But the comic room is still under construction.








Thanks,
DCD

Welcome Back Kotter

I want to tell you that one of my favorite shows growing up was Welcome Back Kotter. But I don’t have clear memories of watching the show and it doesn’t seem like something my mother would have chosen for us to watch. So I’m not really sure how often I watched the show. I just always remember it being there. Part of the permanent backdrop of the seventies that was cliché, old, and uncool by the time I was a teenager in the eighties.

NOT that I knew what was cool in the eighties.


Welcome Back Kotter was one of THE shows of the seventies. It was something that both reflected and became part of our culture. If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s about a New York City high school classroom of lovable losers calling themselves ‘Sweathogs’. They were the traditional school troublemakers and no teacher wanted them. Until a former Sweathog comes back to his roots with a teaching degree and a mission. To pay back the community that helped him by becoming teacher, mentor and friend to the current-day Sweathogs.

The concept, plot details, and themes are applicable to any era in a timeless way. The clothes, speech patterns, situations, and atmosphere are distinctly seventies. Class nerd Horshack carries a Planet of the Apes lunchbox and most of the cast sport afros. But for the most part, the plot lines are pretty standard sitcom-fare. Nothing really groundbreaking. That’s not what made it special.

What made it special were the particular, outlandishly large personalities of the four main Sweathogs. All four are really fantastic. As I sit watching the show with my kids, watching as my kids totally fall in love with the show, I get a full appreciation of what made it so popular.


The main character of the show is Gabe Kotter, played by Gabe Kaplan who was a popular comedian of the day. There would probably not be a show without his presence to anchor it. However, his presence swiftly becomes overwhelmed by the Sweathogs themselves. A young John Travolta as pretty boy thickhead, Vinnie Barbarino. A smiling, girl chasing, perfectly coifed lover who has taken leadership of the group. Puerto Rican Jew, Juan Epstein, played by Robert Hegyes. A simmering bucket of nervous and powerful energy. He plays the hoodlum so well that you end up wanting him on your side. Ron Palillo as the unforgettable nerd Arnold Horshack, with his big laugh, whiny voice, and deadpan delivery. And my personal favorite, Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs. Freddie is a smooth talker and charmer. You get the sense that he can get his way with almost anything. I’ve loved him since I first heard the deep-voiced, smiling “Hi there” that turned into his catch phrase. Twenty years before Joey’s “How you doin?” on Friends.

I keep wanting to use the adverb ‘likable’ in my descriptions of the individual Sweathogs. But it’s meaningless because it applies to all of them. I guess that was the whole point.


On August 14th of 2012, Ron Palillo passed away from a heart attack. Even though I haven’t seen him in anything in years, I still feel the loss. Probably because we’re only a few episodes into season two of Welcome Back Kotter, and even though the show is over thirty years old it still seems fresh to us. I haven’t told the kids yet.

The effect the show has on my kids is interesting. My youngest, Alex, keeps imitating Horshack’s throaty laugh to get a laugh from whatever adult is passing by. And occasionally he’ll quote one of Horshack’s opening lines: “My name is Horshack. Arnold Horshack. It means the cattle are dying.”

My oldest, Ashton, swiftly took the show to school, conceptually speaking. Forming his group of friends around him and creating a new group of Sweathogs. His use of tricks and jokes from the show were popular with his friends. And no… he never told them about the show.

My daughter, Katie, now has an endless arsenal of come-back jokes. “Up your nose with a rubber hose” or some other similar line can regularly be heard around the Dill household.


So yeah, what was cliché and old and uncool in the 1980’s has become fresh and new and popular again here in the present day.

Thanks,
DCD

1999 versus 2011

Let's take a moment to discuss science fiction, folks. Specifically, the devastating events that took place in 1999 and in 2011.

In 1999, a severe nuclear explosion occurred on the moon. The moon was tore from it's orbit around earth and sent hurtling through space along with everyone on Moonbase Alpha. I'm talking, of course, about the sci-fi seventies classic TV show Space 1999. One of my favorite shows growing up. The show was a British-made TV show that aired in 1975.


In 2011, aliens attacked the planet. Giving no warning, devastating our government, and sending the human race scurrying into the shadows where it formed small pockets of organized resistance against the occupying alien force. This is the world of Falling Skies. A TNT original series which began airing in 2011 that has thoroughly captured the attention of my wife Lorie and I. The series is smartly written, really well acted, and a treat to watch. Plus, it has Noah Wylie. A man that Lorie would leave me for in a heartbeat. I kinda don't blame her.


The shows are completely dissimilar except for the fact that they're both science fiction shows and their catalyst is a disaster related theme. What interests me in comparing them is the differences in their decades.

Space 1999 is completely in the realm of fantasy. Not much in the show can be considered realistic. The moon is hurtling through the cosmos and the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha have just enough time each week to have a little adventure before they have to get back to the base and continue on the moon's meteoric course. Getting ever-further away from Earth. Despite the despair of the situation and the frustration of the characters, Space 1999 holds a sense of optimism and notion that the human race is ultimately good. Falling Skies does the exact opposite.


First off, Falling Skies is very much rooted in reality. Showing us how hellacious living in this hunted stage would be, denied the amenities that we've grown used to. So much realism abounds, that when we do run into aliens or alien spacecraft, it's a little jarring. The characters are fleshed out well and serve to put on display for us all the faults of the human race. Noah Wylie's character, Tom Mason, is the optimistic center that gives everyone hope. Yet despite this aspect, there's an overall feeling of hopelessness that surounds the show. And the show takes every opportunity to question whether or not the human race is worth saving. Which if you suggested that idea to Commander Koenig, he would punch you in the face.


Another thing worth mentioning is the 'style' of science fiction on display here. Falling Skies is science fiction by virtue of the alien threat. Space 1999 used to hold itself to a high science fiction standard. Pitching itself as more science fiction than Star Trek because the plots were more cerebral and the threats more about alien differences against the human race. They just weren't doing a bad-guys versus good-guys show, and they were proud of that.


Lorie hates Space 1999. She doesn't really like watching the old shows with me. That goes back to the fact that you have to have a certain mindset to allow yourself to enjoy things from earlier eras. I've discussed that before. But the kids certainly enjoy Space 1999 with me. And Ashton has begun to watch Falling Skies, too. His perspective on the differences between the two would be interesting.


The shows are complete polar opposites. Yet this speaks more about us and our culture than it does the mindset of the creators.

Somewhere along the line, our tastes in entertainment have completely flipped. We don't want hope and optimism and truth and justice anymore. We want to see how far a character can fall, and then we want to see them kicked while they're down.

I don't like it. Sometimes I enjoy the execution of the story, such as with Falling Skies or Walking Dead. But ultimately I would like to see our tastes as a society go back to yearning for hope and optimism and the celebration of the human race. (And I just want the reality shows that celebrate our depravity to go away. The less said about that the better.)


Let me put it this way... I don't want realism in my science fiction. I don't want to see what life would be like without showers and electronics. I want to see a show where the showers are electronic! I want to wear a futuristic jumpsuit with a belt buckle I can use as a communicator. I don't want to wear clothes that have never been washed and I don't want to feel lucky because I found an extra blanket by the side of the road on my trek to get away from aliens who want me dead. As much as I love Falling Skies, I would much rather have Space 1999.


So the real question is this... is this trend in entertainment a phase? Will the need for realism circle back into the need for fantasy? And again and again and over again? I kinda hope so.

I want to see Commander Koenig shave Tom Mason.


Thanks,
DCD

Happy Days in the Seventies

So, I'm sitting here with my family watching a first season episode of Happy Days.  The episode is called "Great Expectations" and it's doing a lot to remind me that beatniks were hipsters before being a hippie was cool... And then my brain imploded.

AT ANY RATE... My family has been greatly enjoying the first season of Happy Days.  Except for maybe my wife, who would rather be watching some crap called Storage Wars.  The kids and I love it, though.

I have strong memories of Happy Days from when I was a kid.  We would assume our normal seats in the living room and there were certain shows we never missed.  Happy Days was one of them.  I don't actually remember any of the episode plot lines.  But the characters, atmosphere and situations are strongly imprinted.  This first season of the show is a bit different.

Writing this blog has me noticing my chosen 'theme' everywhere I look now.  And Happy Days is a perfect example.  It's the seventies version of the fifties.  So what does that say to us?

The producers of Happy Days are reaching a very wide and enthusiastic audience of this show.  Obviously, people who grew up in the fifties and could identify with the situations and culture presented.  The chord struck with this audience was so strong that they went and got their kids and plunked their butts down and watched the show together.

This tapping into the power of nostalgia can be very lucrative, as movies, TV, comics and toy companies are very aware of in today's world.  But it seems to me that it was a new concept back then.  And suddenly, as a bi-product of this phenomenon, we also have a whole generation that grew up in the seventies and know all about the culture of the fifties filtered thought the scope of things like Happy Days, American Graffiti, and Grease.

BUT... There's one more twist that plays around in my mind as I ponder these things while sipping green tea out of my favorite Scooby Doo glass... The content.  The episodic plots of Happy Days, and especially a lot of what was in the movie Grease, would not have been found in the movies and TV shows of the day.  The themes are different, the delivery is certainly different, and the situations are much more racy than what was considered acceptable television in the fifties.  At least for the first season of Happy Days.

So, is this bad?  We're seeing the fifties filtered through the seventies filtered through Hollywood television standards filtered through Henry Winkler's dreamy, penetrating gaze.

No.  It's not bad at all, as long as we're cognizant of what culture we're really experiencing.  You can't study the Wild West by watching Roy Rogers in those sequined shirts!  It's a filter.   Even Leave it to Beaver, filmed and aired in the fifties, is a filter.  My mother is adamant in the fact that Leave it to Beaver was extremely realistic.  (She also wouldn't let me watch Fantasy Island because it had the word 'fantasy' in it.  And just you forget about Charlie's Angels, mister!)  

But Many people would say that Happy Days is a more accurate version of the culture of the fifties than what Leave it to Beaver actually reflects.  Certainly the producers of Happy Days and the creative people behind American Graffiti.  

So can something filmed and aired in the 1970's BE a more accurate cultural reflection of the 1950's than something filmed and aired in the 1950's?

Is your head spinning yet?  I think about crap like this ALL THE TIME.

Remember the show That 70's Show?  I loved that show.  The late 1990's version of what the 1970's were like.  A Happy Days clone!  I devoutly followed that show.  Even when, after about five seasons, it 'jumped the shark'.

Which is a Happy Days reference... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jump_the_shark

...now my head really hurts.

Thanks,

DCD