Most classic TV fans, when asked to name a popular ‘50s or
‘60s sitcom that featured kids or teenagers at its core, would probably respond
with usual suspects like Leave it to Beaver or Father
Knows Best or The Donna Reed Show, to check off some
of the best-remembered. I’ve always
argued that TV’s first real teenager
was the titular character of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. I identified strongly with Dobie (Dwayne
Hickman), who seemed to have a lot of the same problems I did growing up in my
teens. He wasn’t the smartest kid in the
class and didn’t always get the best grades; he hung around with weird kids
(one of whom, Maynard G. Krebs [Bob Denver], was TV’s first beatnik); he didn’t
have a lot of ambition (he’d often shirk his duties working in his father’s
grocery store at first opportunity) and for the most part, he was content to
spend most of his life chasing after women.
And when confronted with his teenaged angst, he’d sit in the park beside
a statue of Rodin’s The Thinker and talk
to himself. (It’s a wonder somebody didn’t
have him locked up.) He daydreamed a
lot, too.
Dobie’s father, grocer Herbert T. Gillis (played by Frank
Faylen), was a blue-collar tradesman exasperated by the fact that his son was
bone lazy and didn’t seem in a hurry to make anything of himself. And he wasn’t shy about yelling at him or
exacting punishment at the drop of a hat.
Sure, we suspected Gillis loved his son but in the first season of the
show his familiar (and all-too-funny) lament was “I gotta kill that boy…I just gotta.” When Dobie Gillis was renewed for a
second season by CBS in the fall of 1960, however, the “suits” insisted that
the creative minds tone down Herbert Gillis and make him a more sympathetic
sort (beginning with the episode “You Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Houn’ Dog”). Though it definitely took the edge off of the
sitcom, the show still had enough elements to make it funny.
One of the reasons why I was such a fan of That
‘70s Show during its time on the air was that the father of that
series’ sympathetic teenage protagonist, Eric Foreman (Topher Grace), was the
patriarch Herbert T. Gillis could have become if the network had let him be
(and if the standards dictating language and the like were a little looser back
in the day). Reginald Albert “Red” Foreman
(Kurtwood Smith) became TV’s most likeably disagreeable dad. He was a misanthrope, a man who could barely
conceal his contempt for his son’s weird friends (“That kid’s on dope!” was one
of his pet phrases) and often even had difficulty expressing affection for his
son Eric, who had learned to ward off his father’s hostility with finely-honed
sarcasm.
ERIC: This is the best water heater
ever…God bless us, every one…
RED: Do you know why Tiny Tim
walked with a crutch?
ERIC: Because he had a smart mouth?
RED: That's right…
Red Foreman’s irascibility was positively hysterical,
calling his son “dumbass” (though he was flexible enough to use that term of
endearment for other people who irritated him as well) and also frequently
threatening to do him bodily harm (“How would you like your keen eye to watch
my sure foot kick your smart ass?”). But
all this served to add a little spice to the man’s softer side; he could on
rare occasions be a pretty good guy; in a fourth season ‘70s Show episode
entitled “Eric’s Corvette Caper,” Eric takes his dad’s prized 1958 silver blue Corvette
out for a spin to impress a high school cheerleader…and then is forced to
eliminate all traces of his crime before his parents return home earlier than
expected from their out-of-town trip.
Red is so pleased that his son didn’t disobey his order not to touch his
car that he gives Eric the keys to take the vehicle for a drive…and that’s when
Eric busts himself, because he’s forgotten he’s left the radio on in the “blare”
position:
ERIC: …and I'm grounded…
RED: For a month! Why did you do it?
ERIC: To impress…this ...
cheerleader...
RED: No kidding? Well, then…make it two weeks…so…ah…you gonna see her again?
ERIC: Well…can I have the car
again?
RED: Oh…she’s that girl…I know that
girl… (After a pause) Stay away from that girl…
You’ve probably guessed by now from this post that I spent
the past several days getting reacquainted with That ‘70s Show, thanks to
a nice gift of both The Complete Third Season and The Complete Fourth Season
from TVFlashbacks.com rep Barbara Pflaughhaupt.
It’s a little off-the-beaten path from what we normally do here at TDOY (it was cancelled about six years
ago after a successful eight-year run from 1998 to 2006) but despite its
contemporary pedigree I think the show’s time frame and reverence for classic
films and movies (see the picture below) make it a nice fit. (Plus, I have free swag to give away…but more
on that in a second.)
The premise of the sitcom—a decent if occasionally geeky kid
named Eric Foreman who spends much of his teenage existence in Point Place, WI
during the 1970s “hanging out” with his friends in his basement—originally inspired
its creators, Mark Brazill and Bonnie & Terry Turner, to call the program
in its early stages “Teenage Wasteland” and then “The Kids are Alright.” These two ideas were scotched because of potentially
thorny legal issues involved—namely, their connections to songs by The
Who. (Later, when the show became
popular, the show’s creators didn’t worry as much…even titling every episode in
its sixth season after Who compositions.)
“Feelin’ Alright” was also suggested as a title, but in the end That ‘70s
Show was inspired by the positive response the pilot received among
test audiences (as in “I like that 70’s show”).
Despite the show’s occasional anachronisms, That ‘70s
Show managed to be a fairly convincing representation of the era (the
time frame was from 1976 to 1979, with the show’s final episode set on New Year’s
Eve before 1980) with appropriate music, clothing, hairstyles, references and
the like. What I also thought clever
about the series was that it attempted to show teenagers in a realistic light…including
recreational drug use. The creators of
the show used a device they nicknamed “The Circle,” which would utilize a
360-degree camera pan that simulated the characters’ lighting up and passing
along marijuana without actually showing it (though the present billowing smoke
and mellow expressions on the actors’ faces made no bones about the
activity). Even in a more enlightened
decade that sort of thing was persona au
gratin on network TV—but it was a welcome relief from the way the subject
was really addressed back in the 1970s, where “very special episodes” of TV
shows would have some new kid move in town start selling weed and end up
ostracized by the regulars by the installment’s conclusion (“Drugs are for
losers!”). (That ’70s Show even kicked
off its third season with a wicked parody of the 1936 anti-marijuana feature
film Reefer Madness.)
"One puff...and I'm completely, hopelessly hooked." One of my favorite That '70's Show episodes, which shares the same title as the hilarious anti-dope screed Reefer Madness. |
Regardless of its nostalgic trappings, That ‘70s Show wasn’t
much different from the standard family sitcom, focusing on the complex
relationships between family and friends.
In addition to cast members Grace and Smith, That ‘70s Show also
featured Debra Jo Rupp as Eric’s doting mom Kitty (a throwback to Winifred “Winnie”
Gillis from Dobie Gillis…though Kitty was a bit more edgy) and in the first
three seasons, Lisa Page Kelly played Eric’s older (and promiscuous) sister Laurie. Kelly vanished from the cast abruptly in the
third season (Kelly has stated for the record that she had some personal
problems that necessitated her departure) and returned briefly for a few shows
in Season 5 before being replaced in the role by Christina Moore in a few
episodes the following season. The
disappearance of Laurie from the series was a blow that, while the show was
able to soldier on, was disappointing because the prickly relationship between
son Eric and dad Red was mirrored by a similar one involving daughter Laurie
and mom Kitty (who did not have a particularly high opinion of her
daughter). In a third-season Halloween-themed
episode entitled “Too Old to Trick or Treat, Too Young to Die” Kitty cons
Laurie into feeding some birds at a neighborhood by offering her a bribe of a
sawbuck. “I’ll do anything for ten
bucks,” Laurie excitedly agrees, prompting her mom to crack: “And for once,
that’s a good thing!”
The delightful Debra Jo Rupp gave her character of Kitty Sigurdson
Foreman a memorable braying laugh that would have done Bea Benaderet proud…but
also made her much more human in that in earlier seasons she struggled to kick
a nicotine habit and she also wrestled with menopause in Season Five. A nurse by profession, she was devoted to
Eric (as well as his friends) but every now and then she’d blurt out a jewel
like: “You know I love my family…it's
just sometimes I just want to get in the car and run them all over.” One of my favorite ‘Kitty’ episodes is a
third-season outing entitled “Holy Craps!” that has her persuading Red and Eric
to volunteer for the church bazaar:
KITTY: Okay, now, I have work
assignments for everyone…Red, you're selling raffle tickets…
RED: I'm your man!
KITTY: And don't yell at the
customers…
RED: I'm ...kind of your man…
KITTY: And smile…
RED: You need another man…
Red abandons the raffle booth to spend time winning big at
the church’s craps table (“I'm the richest man in Church!”) and Eric does
likewise with his responsibilities at the cakewalk, particularly after one of
the participants warns him about getting ideas of marrying his high school
sweetheart, Donna Pinciotti (regular Laura Prepon). Two of Eric’s friends, nihilistically cool
Stephen Hyde (Danny Masterson) and handsome idiot Michael Kelso (Ashton
Kutcher), have also been enlisted to help out, but they wind up cheating at
bingo in order to win all of the prizes.
Disgusted with their behavior, an exasperated Kitty remarks: “I can't
believe that any of you can walk into
a church without bursting into
flames!”
Another one of my favorite Kitty performances can be found
in a fourth-season episode, “Prank Day.”
In an effort to give friend Kelso payback for some pranks pulled at
their expense, Eric and friends jerry-rig a bucket of oatmeal to fall on Kelso’s
head…but Red ends up on the receiving end of the gag. Looking at her oatmeal-covered husband, an
upset Kitty pleads with her son: “Eric…how many times have I told you: ‘Don’t
poke the bear! Don’t…poke…the bear!’” Later, when Eric asks his mother if his dad
is still angry she tearfully tells him: “Eric…I put him in his Corvette…tuned
the radio to a hockey game and handed him a beer. I’ve
done all I can!”
Red and Eric forget Kitty's birthday in "Kitty's Birthday (That's Today?)" and must pay the ultimate penalty...accompanying her to a square dance. |
Rounding out Eric’s “gang” on the show were spoiled rich
girl Jackie Burkhart (Mila Kunis—who was only 14 when the series started; she
told the producers when they hired her she’d be “18 on my birthday” which was
technically not a lie) and a foreign exchange student (Wilmer Valderrama) who
answered to “Fez” (an anagram for F.E.S.—Foreign Exchange Student) because no
one really knew his real name (which became a running gag on the show, in
addition to the fact that no one knew his country of origin, either). Fez
was a naïve, horny individual who got big laughs by swearing (“You son of a
bitch!”) in a sibilant foreign accent.
Other cast members on the show included Donna’s parents, Bob (Don Stark)
and Midge—who was played by former Charlie’s Angel Tanya Roberts; like Laurie Foreman, Midge Pinciotti also
disappeared from the series for a while (it was explained that she had left the
toad-like Bob) before returning for a few episodes in Season Six. The other ‘70s Show regular was
Tommy Chong as Leo Chingkwake, an ex-stoner and Hyde’s FotoHut employer. Chong’s character, introduced in a second
season episode, made such an impression on viewers that he was promoted to the
opening credits at the start of the fourth season…and then Chong’s real-life
arrest for selling drug paraphernalia (water pipes) necessitated his exit from
the show until midway through Season 7.
In Season 8 the show’s producers relied on him to fill the “idiot” void
left by Ashton Kutcher’s departure.
(Chong was later mystified that they didn’t use his real-life troubles
as plot fodder for the series.)
In "That '70s Musical," Fez imagines his friends performing in a series of musical numbers including this split-splitting homage to the Turtles' Happy Together. |
From its debut in the fall of 1998, That ‘70s Show became one
of Fox’s most popular sitcoms—a show that despite its period setting remained
hip and entertaining due to its sharp writing and splendid ensemble cast. It made stars of its rookie young ensemble
(with Kutcher becoming the most prominent, though Grace had embarked on a movie
career that kept him out of the final season save the finale) though I would
argue the show yukked on a little longer than it should have (it was almost as
if they had little to do after graduating from high school, the same curse that
befell Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
It lives on reruns (one of the local MyNetwork Atlanta stations carries
it, as does Nick at Nite, MTV and ABCFamily) and has been released to DVD—Fox
Home Video made the series available on Region 1 discs from 2004-2008, with a
Complete Series in October of 2008. Because
of copyright entanglements, however, much of the period music that was
originally telecast in the episodes got replaced by stock compositions…but the
announcement on May 4, 2011 that Mill Creek Entertainment had obtained the DVD
rights to the series brought the good news that despite the need for music
replacement their copies would contain the original full broadcast edits.
And so I’ll segueway to the free stuff. I have free copies of both That ‘70s Show: Season 3 and Season 4 to give away to a lucky Thrilling Days of Yesteryear entrant who’s only required to send me
an e-mail (with “’70s Show Giveaway” in the subject header) at igsjrotr(at)gmail.com
before 11:59 EDT next Sunday (May 13) with their name, address and e-mail. (I also need to limit this promotion to U.S.
residents only.) If you’re not feeling
that luck is on your side, you can also purchase these two sets by your
lonesome by going to TVFlashbacks.com (where they’ve also got Seasons 1 & 2
available)…and they’ve even generously provided a discount code for you to use
on this page right here. Monday, May 14
I’ll draw a winner via Random.org and get their prize out to them as speedily
as I can. They’re really superbly done
sets, with all the episodes from each season and bonuses like commentaries on
selected outings, interviews from cast members and promos. If you’ve already won something off the blog
within the past 30 days you might want to graciously sit this one out but the
rest are encouraged to enter (one entry per household please). Thrilling
Days of Yesteryear—where the winning tradition continues!
1 comment:
Ivan, I was never a big fan of the show, but when I did watch it Red and Kitty were my favorites.
Post a Comment