Let's play!

Remember these Disco Years toys?

I dug the gooey, icky feel and even the chemical smell of Slime, but it’s one of those toys that you say ‘hey, cool!’, then 3 minutes later you put it aside and never think about it again. I guess if you were into pranks involving…oh, I don’t know…snot...then maybe you’d get a little more charge out of it.


Rock’em-Sock’em Robots! Got’em for Christmas one year. Remember the commercials? ‘You knocked my block off!’

Simon is a toy that my parents liked as much as I did…actually, we got the cheaper knock-off called Einstein…but it was still the same memory/copy-cat game. Pretty addictive...and frustrating!


Only a little more engaging than Slime…the ever popular Slinky was a biggie in the Disco Years…

Okay, I bet most folks don’t remember this one, but it was an awesome toy…Spirograph! Who needs talent? Just stick your colored pen (conveniently included) into the little whirly-gig. wiggle it around, and you can make perfect curly-cue design thingies. Excellent...unless you do it on the dining room table and the pen cuts into the wood... (My dad did it...not me...I swear!)

When in the course of human events...

I can remember what a big deal the bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence was in 1976. There were big celebrations in New York, Washington and Philadelphia, which we watched on TV.


My grandmother gave the grandkids commemorative sets of the special bicentennial quarter (designed by Jack L. Ahr), half dollar and dollar coins. I even have a 1976 2 dollar bill! Not sure how much they’re worth now, but they’re cool things to have.


I remember hearing about the American Freedom Train, which carried over 20 cars containing pieces of Americana like Dorothy’s ruby slippers from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and a lunar rover from one of the moon missions.

As part of the celebration on July 4th it would have been amazing to see the fleet of revolutionary era-styled ships that sailed in New York Harbor and then later in Boston.

CBS aired a series of Emmy winning ‘Bicentennial Moments’ that highlighted historical events surrounding America’s fight for independence. Check out this link to see some of them on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bicentennial+minute&search_type=&aq=5&oq=bicentennial+m


It was an exciting, patriotic Disco Year...

Good morning, angels!

One of my favorite shows during the Disco Years was ‘Charlie’s Angels’. It came on past my bedtime, so I didn’t get to see it often. Luckily in this age of DVDs, I’ve recently been able to watch all of season 1…and had a great time doing it.

The show, which ran from 1976 – 1981, featured three beautiful women who were private investigators working for an unseen mystery man….Charlie, of course. What’s not to love about that premise?

Jaclyn Smith was my favorite angel as a kid, but in watching the show now it’s hard to deny how magnetic Farrah is on film. You can’t take your eyes off of her. She’s beautiful, sure, but she also had some sort of magic sparkle about her. She’ll certainly be missed.

Some favorite episodes from season 1:
- The Pilot – We first meet the angels in a cool whodunit murder mystery.
- The Séance – The angels go undercover to catch a jewel thief who’s a fake medium. Kelly blows her cover while under hypnosis and even tries to kill Jill!
- Angels on a String – The angels rescue an international political leader at a fancy resort. There’s a whole ‘identical imposter’ thing going on. Fun.

Some cool guest stars over the run of the show: Kim Basinger (before she was famous), Tom Selleck, Jamie Lee Curtis (before she was famous), Jim Backus (of Mr. Howell fame), Dean Martin, Robert Englund (aka Freddy Krueger!) and Barbara Stanwyck.

'Charlie's Angels' has one of the best fan websites I've seen. It's at http://www.charliesangels.com/.

Here are some great pics . . .

The original cast: Jaclyn Smith as Kelly, Kate Jackson as Sabrina and Farrah Fawcett-Majors as Jill.

In the second season, Cheryl Ladd replaced Farrah. She played Kris.

A more recent pic of the original angels, at the 2006 Emmy Award ceremony. They still looked awesome!

Spooooky

October seems like a good time to share some of my favorite Disco Years horror films. I consider myself quite the horror flick aficionado . . .

- The Omen (1976) and Damien: Omen II (1978) – These movies did such an excellent job of creating an uneasy, tense vibe that I found myself scared even during the non-scary parts. Two of the best movies ever, horror or not.


- Halloween (1978) – Jamie Lee Curtis’ first movie. I felt like I was running from bad old Michael Myers right there with her!


- Jaws 2 (1978) – I’m probably one of the only people who liked this sequel as much as the classic original, maybe because I was a kid when I first saw it and this one had more teenagers in it. The scene with Ann Dusenberry and her boyfriend on that little boat when you-know-who attacks really got me!


Carrie (1977) – A truly twisted, scary movie. It’s a little disturbing that I was actually glad when Carrie started racking up the corpse count in the third act…except when it looked like she was getting poor Amy Irving!


Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) – Excellent re-make. I promise you’ll lose your breath during the last 5 seconds of this movie.

Playing with dolls...I mean 'action figures'...

Some cool action figures/dolls from the Disco Years . . .

- Stretch Armstrong was one of those fad toys I got for Christmas one year. Kind of creepy when you look at it now. Actually, they should re-release it for grown-ups as a stress reliever…you could twist and pummel him to your heart’s content!

- Barbie and Ken go to the prom, circa 1977. Every girl seemed to have those crocheted shawls . . . yep, I think so too…


- I’m the proud owner of all the original Star Wars action figures! I even have the carrying case pictured below. Yeah, pretty awesome!


- My sister and cousins were all about ‘Charlie’s Angels’ (okay, I dug’em too). Their Charlie’s Angels dolls logged lots of play hours, for sure.


- The Six Million Dollar Man doll was fun because you could look through his magnified eye. He also had these fancy ‘bionics’ embedded into his arm and leg.

NYC Flashin'

Had a few ‘disco years’ flashbacks recently when Dean and I spent a long weekend in New York City.

The first flashback was really the main reason for the trip. Dean’s a huge fan of Dolly Parton and wanted to see the Broadway version of ‘9 to 5’, for which Dolly wrote the music. You’ll remember the 1980 movie starring Dolly, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. I thought the movie was silly, simple fun. The musical was fun too…but not quite as much so. Dolly’s music was certainly excellent and Megan Hilty, who played Dolly’s role of Doralee, was dead-on. It’s just that the whole thing felt a little…flat. The plot of the musical is exactly the plot of the movie. Even most of the dialogue was verbatim, which in a way was kind of cute since you knew what was coming but…that was also kind of the problem. You knew what was coming. Exactly what was coming. Maybe if I hadn’t seen the movie I’d have enjoyed the musical a little more. All-in-all, though, I’d recommend it as an enjoyable night out. It’s closing this month on Broadway, but a national tour is planned. In the meantime, you should totally check out the soundtrack on cd or download.

The second flashback was by total happenstance. Dean had heard that a lot of the Broadway actors have dinner after the show at a restaurant called Joe Allen’s, so of course we had to go do some star gazing. Over delicious burgers and fries we saw, of all people…Marcia Wallace! Remember her from ‘The Bob Newhart Show’ (1972-78)? The show wasn’t really my thing, but my folks liked it. I do remember Marcia as one of the funniest things about the show. She looked just like herself…flaming red hair and all. She’d been sitting in the back (I guess the celebs who ‘want to be left alone’ always sit in the back), but we saw her as she was leaving. Good thing I watch ‘The Young and The Restless’, on which she’d recently done some guest star work, or I might not have made the connection.

The last flashback was on a guided tour of New York City movie locations, which I highly recommend. We saw all sorts of locations from ‘Friends’, ‘Enchanted’, ‘Men In Black’, ‘I Am Legend’, ‘The Cosby Show’ and on and on. The flashback came when we saw Lois Lane’s apartment building from the 1978 ‘Superman’ movie starring Christopher Reeve. I tell ya, the building didn’t look like much to me. but now Renee Zellweger has an apartment in it! The guide assured us that it’s very posh on the inside. It’s near Central Park, so it’s prime real estate. The guide mentioned that even in the 70s there is no freakin’ way a person could live there on a reporter’s salary…guess Lois was doing some serious moonlighting!

Anyway, good times…

Oh yeah, I remember that one...

Everyone can probably rattle off at least a few of the tv shows that were big in the disco years. ‘Happy Days’, ‘Charlie’s Angels’, ‘Three’s Company’, ‘Laverne & Shirley’, MASH…we all know’em and love’em, but here are a few shows that ended up rated in the top 25 (some even in the top 10), that you may have forgotten about.

1976-77 Season
‘The Tony Randall Show’. Remember him from ‘The Odd Couple’? In this comedy he played a judge in Philadelphia. I'm drawin' a blank on this one…

‘What’s Happening’. This one I know from reruns. Sassy black women crack me up, so Shirley the waitress and Dee the sister were favorites. Of course, everybody liked Rerun.
‘Baretta’ (top 10 show). This one may be fresher in your memory because of the big scandal with Robert Blake a few years back. He plays a tough guy cop in this show. My bedtime was 9:00, so I could watch this, but not ‘Charlie’s Angels’, which followed it. I’m still bitter.

1977-78
‘Project UFO’. I don’t remember this one even though I’m a big Sci-Fi fan. It was about a couple of Air Force investigators who investigated UFO sightings, which sounds pretty awesome! Of course, I was mainly subject to whatever shows Mother and Daddy wanted to watch…like ‘Baretta’…argh…

‘Barnaby Jones’. Good ‘ole Jed Clampett’s follow up. The whole family liked this detective show. The lady in the pic look familiar? That's Lee Meriwether, who was (one of) the actresses to play Catwoman in the 'Batman' tv series.

‘Family’. This was one of those serious family dramas that tried to make you cry every week. Not a favorite, but I thought Kristy McNichol was the deal.

1978-79
‘Angie’. If you remember Donna Pescow, consider yourself a scholar of disco years tv! (Trivia: Her first movie role was in ‘Saturday Night Fever’.) I think sassy white women are almost as fun as black ones.

‘The Ropers’. I thought ‘Three’s Company’ was great, but was never really a big fan of the Ropers on that show so I wasn’t very interested in this spin-off. Sadsack Stanley kinda grates on the nerves.

‘Vega$’. A detective show set in…somewhere I can’t remember. Saw it a few times (again, past my bedtime). I remember he parked his sports car in his living room, which may not have been practical...but was totally cool!

1979-80
‘That’s Incredible’ (top 10…actually #3 for the year). This was a fun show that featured people doing crazy/dangerous/stupid stunts. Guess this would be considered one of the precursors to today’s reality tv. We’ve come a long way…nah!

Flo (top 10). I really liked ‘Alice’ and, like everyone else, Flo was my favorite on the show. My little sister and I yelled ‘kiss my grits’ at each other with some regularity for awhile there…we were edgy like that. I don’t remember watching this spin-off, but ‘Alice’ was never quite as good without Flo.

'House Calls'. We watched this hospital-based comedy off and on. Not my thing.

The JCC

The president during the disco years was, of course, Jimmy Carter. Not too long ago I visited the Jimmy Carter Center here in Atlanta. I’d only been once before, about 20 years ago when I first moved here and had forgotten how well done the museum and gardens are.

Some highlights:
- The presidential highlights film. Gives and excellent overview of Carter’s presidency. Lots of neat 70s footage.
- The replica of the oval office. It’s got kind of a 70s vibe. I dug it.
- Jimmy Carter’s Nobel peace prize. It has a surprisingly raw look to it. You can tell it’s handmade. There’s also an original painting that goes with it. It’s cool that Willie Nelson went to Oslo and performed ‘Georgia On My Mind’ during the celebratory concert.
- Presidential controversy tidbits. I learned interesting things about Carter’s work with the Egypt/Israel peace negotiations during his presidency, which seems to be his proudest accomplishment. They have copies of Carter’s notes from the meetings on display. Also learned more about the controversy of the Panama Canal treaty, which Carter pushed through, that allowed Panama to take over ownership of the canal. There are also interesting displays about the energy crisis (sad that we’re still facing the same issues today) and women’s rights.
- Campaign material from the 1976 race. My grandparents took my cousin and me to Plains, GA when I was a kid just to see Jimmy Carter come out of church during the election. I got Lillian Carter’s autograph at a campaign station. Brought back nice memories.

If you’re in Atlanta, it’s worth a visit. Only takes a couple of hours. They were about to close down the museum for a re-design when I was there, so you might want to check the website before heading out: www.cartercenter.org

Let's disco, y'all!

Some of the top pop/rock songs of the disco years…

1976

‘Play that Funky Music’ by Wild Cherry. What word did people use to describe something funky, before 'funky'? I'd put it in the same category as 'boogie'.


‘Tonight’s the Night’ by Rod Stewart. Rod Stewart’s music was never really my thing. Obviously, I was in the minority.

'50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’ by Paul Simon. Two of my cousins and I actually made up a dance to this song. Yeah, I know, sad, sad, sad.

1977

‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba. Abba’s a group that, at the time, I thought ‘ehh’, but now I totally dig their stuff. If they'd only agree to tour one more time...

‘You Light Up My Life’ by Debby Boone. Even I was too cool for this song, but I can still sing every word...not that anyone's ever asked...

‘Sir Duke’ by Stevie Wonder. I defy you to not start bobbing your head after hearing the first few notes of this song!

1978

‘Last Dance’ by Donna Summer. No doubt she was the queen of disco. Should I confess how many times I 'discoed' in my room...by myself...to her songs? Probably not.

‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees. If Donna was the queen, these guys were totally the kings.

‘Shadow Dancing’ by Andy Gibb. Lesser brother to the Bee Gees, but he was the one in ‘Tiger Beat’ every month.

1979

‘Y.M.C.A.’ by the Village People. If you can believe it, this was the first ‘big boy’ album my grandparents bought me. I don't think they quite got it... ; )

‘My Sharona’ by The Knack. One of those songs that after you heard it on the radio you couldn’t get it out of your head the rest of the day. Not a good thing...

'Le Freak' by Chic. Ahhh, freak out!