Television was an event in our day. If you were lucky, you had cable. If not, you had three channels. One was really just to keep up on Sesame Street without anyone knowing. The shows we watched defined us, as so many publications have mentioned. What the articles don’t offer are funny and random quotes from these shows. Here is a trip down memory lane, via the voices of the seventies:
Tim Conway, on The Carol Burnett Show:
“I was at this freak show one time and I saw these Siamese Elephants. They was joined at the end of their trunks. This trainer made ‘em stand up on their back legs and their trunks stretched. Then this little monkey would come out and dance the merangue. Kinda felt sorry for them. They couldn’t go like the other elephants and go Pffffffhu! All they could do is Snrkin.”
Nellie Olsen, queen of 1800’s snark on Little House on the Prairie:
“Half the time, you don’t even SMELL like a girl! You’re either sweaty, or you stink of fish!”
Cindy Brady, (The Brady Bunch) on the occasion of the family’s fateful, two-part Hawaiin adventure:
“I’m sure glad Greg didn’t get hurt. It would have ruined our picnic tomorrow!”
Land of the Lost. A time-traveling family, Rick, Will and Holly always had their corduroys in a bunch over some miscommunication with a Slestak or dinosaur. You had to be there.
“Sometimes, Rick Marshall, you demonstrate your intelligence in a strange, but effective, way.”
Batman, from the re-runs of the Batman series, which originally aired in the 1960’s:
“I knew what you were up to Penguin so I gently coated my stomach with buttermilk.”
The Star Trek series:
“He’s dead, Jim.”
“I signed aboard this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget.”
George Jefferson, wealthy dry cleaner extraordinaire, The Jeffersons:
“I’m gonna stick my foot so far up your behind you gonna think I grew there.”
Columbo, the squinty-eyed, trench-coat- for -every-season detective so understated he had a show named after him:
“There are a couple of loose ends I’d like to tie up. Nothing important you understand.”
“I can’t swim, I don’t even like a deep tub.”
After kickball, television was our main form of entertainment in the middle of nowhere. These shows and many more formed our sense of being in the seventies. What are some of your favorites?
I just had the three channels, and tv was very important entertainment in the winter for us. Stuck inside, we played games and watched tv. That was pretty much it. All of the shows you listed were favorites of mine. I was telling my son about Sunday night TV, which was one of our favorites. The Wonderful World of Disney, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau were all great tv viewing. The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, Little House on the Prairie, and Laverne and Shirley were shows we never missed, either. Now I record tv shows and never have time to watch half of them!
Wild Kingdom would be so beneficial to kids today!
Marshall, Will, and Holly
On a routine expedition
Met the greatest earthquake ever known.
High on the rapids
It struck their tiny raft. AAAAUUUUGHHHHHH
And plunged them down a thousand feet below.
To the Land of the Lost.
To the Land of the Lost.
To the Land of the Lost.
Who didn’t love the Marshalls and the Slestsk?