The Wacky 70's

[Raffine]

K-Tel and Ronco, though they were originally started in the sixties, put out boatload after boatload of comp albums in the 70s.


And those wonderful "Sessions Presents...!" albums. 

I loved the way the would advertise classica albums that only featured the main themes.
"Now you can listen to Beethoven and Mozart symphonies with no unwanted passages!"

[RCMerchant]

KUNG FU!!!!

Seems like all my freinds (including my idiot brother Glenn!) had a pair of Nunchuks!

Most folks think the Bruce Lee films started the Kung Fu craze-actually FIVE FINGERS of DEATH was a hit first!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm-TgM0fAt4
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It was everywhere!

TV....(Lee was actually up for the role-but it went to Carradine-Bruce was p**sED!)



Comics.....(I usta buy this title...)



TOYS! (I had 3 or 4 Kung Fu grip Joes.....)



Music....!




Hey-you were waiting for this-right? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTiSzFp4arg
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Cartoons! (Scatman (the SHINING) Crothers sang the intro for Hong Kong Fooey!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW54W9y6-eU
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I love this ad...



No one could top Bruce,though...!

I like this clip from an interview of the Master...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USlnfTGlhXc
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[indianasmith]

What a great thread!

I was born in Dec. of 1963, so I was six years old when the 70's began and 16 when they ended.  Growing up in a series of small Texas towns (with the exception of one 14 month stint in a Dallas suburb), I had a happy enough childhood.  But my golden memories are of the 1980's.  As a historian, I see the 70's as a time of deep cultural disallusionment.  America had lost its anchor,  and seemed to drift through the decade, rudderless, confused, and exhausted.

  One thing that I point out to my history classes is that history's decade does not necessarily follow the calendar.  What we think of as "The 60's", at least from my perspective, began on that dreadful day in Dallas when President Kennedy's head exploded, and ended when the chopper carrying the just-resigned Richard Nixon took off from the White House lawn.  That stint of nearly 11 years was the most traumatic era in American history since the Civil War, and the divisions it created shape the American political, social, and cultural landscape to this day.

  The 70's, therefore, culturally speaking, stretch from the day Ford took office to the moment when Jimmy Carter returned to Plains, GA.  Only six years, but what a remarkable decade!  Things I remember from growing up then - riding my bicycle EVERYWHERE I went, sometimes five and six miles from home.  8 track tapes - I always hated when they changed tracks in the middle of a song!  Horizontally striped turtlenecks - I thought they actually look GOOD on me!  On TV, we watched ALL IN THE FAMILY, THE CAROL BURNET SHOW, and of course, my Dad loVed HEE HAW.  I loved WELCOME BACK KOTTER and MORK AND MINDY, and in my early school years I remember racing home to catch DARK SHADOWS every afternoon.  I really couldn't follow the story line very well, I just thought it was so cool because it had a vampire and a werewolf in it!

   I think that the cultural scars created by all the trauma of the sixties - Vietnam, Wategate, the riots and assassinations, and everything else - left a nation worn-out, jaded, and in quest of something new to believe in.  Remember the proliferation of various cults?  The Patty Hearst kidnapping?  Reverend Moon's followers begging for cash at the airports?  The birth of Christian Rock?  The death of Elvis?

  When I teach History 1302, I jokingly refer to the 70's as "the Decade without Taste."  I guess it could more accurately be called "The Decade of very, very BAD Taste!"  To each their own, but if I could live my whole life in one continuously looped decade, the 70's would not be it.  We would all be living in the 1980's FOREVER!

[RCMerchant]

I don't think it's the 70's I miss so much...I just miss being a kid. I miss that sense of adventure. Of riding my bike for miles into the boonies on dirt roads with my Army canteen and some peanut butter sandwhiches....walking in the woods with my BB gun-shooting old cans and bottles-fishing at the creek-reading comic books and monster mags under the apple tree, Late nite Creature Feature during a summer thundrstorm-watching Hopalong Cassady reruns on winter mornings. Pushing my GI Joe in his Jeep down the hill in back of the barn. Pretending I was Thor-knocking down dried corn stalks out in the field with a stick. Believeing in ghosts. We were never gonna die.
And as long as we stay young at heart-we never will. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juJpyUkHPCA
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[Raffine]

Thanks to The Oil Crisis my first official solo driving experience was being the one to have to drive the cars to the gas station to wait in those looooong gas lines. I was making these runs to the local station a coule of years before I was old enought o have a license.

FYI: You could only go to the gas station on every other day, based on yout tag number.
If your tag ended in an odd number you could buy gas on odd numbered days, if your tag ended with an even number you bought gas on even numbered days.

The gas shortage was also the end of the full service gas station. There are still a few around, but then self-serve was an almost unheard of concept. For a while most stations had 'Self Serve' (cheap) and "Full Service" (expensive) pumps.

[indianasmith]

I remember taking the fiberglass pole that had once had my bike flag on it and using it as a lightsaber after seeing STAR WARS!!  There was a tree in my back yard that had a long, thin branch that ran parallel to the ground about 4 feet up - I fought ENDLESS duels with it!  (Not a lot of kids my age close by).
  I also became an amateur herpetologist in 1976, capturing hundreds of reptiles over the next couple of years and logging each one in a special notebook with its measurements, Latin name, and place and date of capture.  Then I started hunting arrowheads in 1977 and never stopped . . . .

[RCMerchant]

Thanks to The Oil Crisis my first official solo driving experience was being the one to have to drive the cars to the gas station to wait in those looooong gas lines. I was making these runs to the local station a coule of years before I was old enought o have a license.

FYI: You could only go to the gas station on every other day, based on yout tag number.
If your tag ended in an odd number you could buy gas on odd numbered days, if your tag ended with an even number you bought gas on even numbered days.

The gas shortage was also the end of the full service gas station. There are still a few around, but then self-serve was an almost unheard of concept. For a while most stations had 'Self Serve' (cheap) and "Full Service" (expensive) pumps.

My first car-I was 16 as well (1978)-I bought a 1964 F-10 Ford Pickup for $150...I had to clean the mice nests outta the bell housing...I worked on that dam truck all summer! I crusied it out in the field behind the house. 

[JaseSF]

I was born in 1973 so I was pretty young in the 70s and honestly remember the 80s more fondly too but I do recall in my childhood watching Hanna Barbera cartoons - Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and the like. We had only two channels here in those days but I do recall the enormous popularity of The Incredible Hulk, the Dukes of Hazzard, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the Jeffersons, The Price is Right, All in the Family, Three's Company, Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman and Solid Gold. I recall the popularity of Disco which unfortunatey tended to pop up at birthday parties (recall liking Donna Summer, Bee Gees and that Disco Duck tune). Also recall Journey being very popular. Remember owning Disney record/book tapes of The Black Hole and the Jungle Book. Never missed the Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday or cartoons and wrestling every Saturday. Recall it being a big deal with the 70s King Kong debuted on TV and Salem's Lot being a big deal. I had an Atari 2600 which I repaired myself a few times after it broke down in my youth. It worked until I was in my teens. Spent most of my childhood though outdoors playing Cowboys and Indians, Hide and Seek, Softball, Ball Hockey and Snow sledding/toboggan riding in the winter. When it rained, we typically played Hangman or read comics (recall loving Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Incredible Hulk from Marvel and Justice League of America, Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes from DC). Recall several Starlost episodes being edited into mind-boggling TV movies which for some bizarre reason I couldn't seem to take my eyes off although they may have actually played in the early 80s.

[El Misfit]

The second movie to revolutionize Car chases:


Duel:

[AndyC]

I'm surprised that with all the TV shows being named, I haven't seen Happy Days. Very popular show for most of its run, hitting #1 in the ratings for 1976-77, and staying in the top four for three seasons. The show was on TV for most of my childhood, premiering about a year and a half before I started kindergarten and ending the year before I started high school. It was one of the shows the whole family would sit down to watch, and in the days when viewing choices were few, it was one of the shows all my friends were watching.

That's something that started rapidly disappearing around the middle of the 80s - everyone watching the same shows. People still do. There are a few big hits people talk about today, but there is so much to choose from on TV, home video and online, people are watching lots of different things, and not watching lots of other things. I'm not saying that's bad, but there was something kind of nice about kids going to each other's houses and watching their favourite shows, and going to school the day after seeing something really cool, and everybody was talking about it.

Come to think of it, the network television "event" was really a 70s phenomenon, even if it did continue into the early 80s. Star-studded network variety specials and lavish miniseries. I still remember the whole family watching Roots and just being blown away by it.

[AndyC]

The second movie to revolutionize Car chases:


Duel:

My two favourite car chase movies are still:

and

And it's actually pretty amazing how similar the two movies are. Both have a washed-up driver who takes a bet to make a delivery in a very short time, and through a series of events becomes the subject of an almost disproportionately large police response. One is more poignant, dramatic and philisophical, and the other is pure action and comedy. I would not be surprised if the essential plot of Smokey and the Bandit was lifted directly from Vanishing Point. In any case, they'd certainly make an interesting double feature.

[Allhallowsday]

Back in the day, we listened to the radio and there were songs you could not get away from... like, ANDREW GOLD "Lonely Boy":  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCOS2vOxuXE
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Or, QUEEN "Bohemian Rhapsody"  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irp8CNj9qBI
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PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS "Listen To What The Man Said"  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0v_DLkJmN0&feature=related
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[retrorussell]

Some other artists the '70s brought us..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2W3t5u7cxs&feature=related
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ifHo-IvC8&feature=fvst
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-IXJLgRnvs&feature=related
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiUCE7w0_d4
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrjoshaTSRo
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[RCMerchant]

Retro-Weird. When I first saw this topic-the Capt. and Tenille first came to mind! The had that variety show - and sang 'Muskrat Love' every dam time! AHHH! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1BEhL_avn8
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What ever happened to the variety Show,anyway? The 70's was loaded with them!

My Dad usta watch the GLEN CAMPBELL show all the time....
I always kinda liked this song....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qoymGCDYzU
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FLIP WILSON!-Here's a hilarious bit with Lenord Nimoy.....!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2G9p5QjL60
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My favorite was the CAROL BURNETT show!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7quWt3gHwc
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[Jack]

Ah, the car movie     My favorite was Eat my Dust

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldos-bzILXw
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