“That ‘70s Show” is very near and dear to my heart. If your childhood was anything like mine, on occasion—if you were really lucky and had been behaving really well—your parents let you join them later at night in watching their shows. They were never worried about corrupting my young mind or anything, because I preferred the more PG programs anyway. By the time it got late enough for stuff like “Law and Order,” I was out the door faster than the scene change could say “dun-dun.”
That said, “That ‘70s Show” has always been one of my favorites. I got into it again during early high school, and viewed the characters as some of the coolest role models. I watched it yet again during my first semester in college, and was able to compare episodes to times I had just had. I fully believe that, even further down the line, I’ll be able to re-watch and connect to it in a whole new way. It just has something for everyone, even if the decade and setting and community are as particular as they come.
That’s exactly what got me thinking about the authenticity of it, though. My mom and everyone else in her age group were actually high school teenagers in the late '70s. “That ‘70s Show” could never just be a quirky sitcom to her and her peers. It was a representation of them. I decided to find out just how well it did that from her, and from friends of hers who grew up in different locations across the country.
Tracy Leekley, 53, Hollywood Hills
Q: A lot of the elements of the show centered around their small town environment, so their "hot spots" were Eric Forman's basement, the local diner, etc. What were your hot spots?
A: Ice skating rink at the mall. We'd all go Friday night, whether we were good or bad at it. And the latch-key syndrome I think began... a lot of the kids were alone in the afternoons and evenings with a lot of freedom. If you think about it, how many parents would willingly be upstairs if they knew their kids were smoking pot in the basement?
Q: What other traits or even lingo from the show can you attest to being spot-on?
A: I feel like the character with red hair, the way she spoke...
Q: Donna?
A: Donna, I felt, used words that were accurate at that time. We would say "killer" a lot. In terms of things that were relatable, her radio show—KROQ was an example of a cutting-edge, new-age rock station back in the day. The funny thing is, they're still cutting-edge...
Q: They're still "killer." Ha ha.
A: [laughs] And they're still killer now. Music was so important. Going to concerts back then was part of history; they got all that right.
Tom Swanson, 53, New York City
Q: What was your general experience in the '70s? Did you like it? What were some of the major differences between then and now?
A: Well I went to boarding school. It was very cliquey, and I was an outcast. I was into art, which wasn't cool back then. And the people were much more blunt and disciplinarian. Like Red calling his kid "dumbass" all the time... it was kinda like that.
Q: Yeah, it seems like now we're a lot more careful as a whole.
A: Everyone held each other accountable. Like when Eric scratched Red's Corvette, the times on the water tower... we all did pranks like that. It was really exciting and cool because if you got caught, you got in a lot of trouble. Now nobody cares, or they're afraid to care.
Irene Tully, 56, Northern Jersey
Q: One of the prominent parts of the show was that the foreign character was very much the underdog; they were always poking fun at his funny accent or his inability to understand things. Nowadays that wouldn't fly, but was that kind of the norm back then?
A: I was always a bleeding heart for people like that. Growing up in an upper middle class suburb, anyone who wasn't "mainstream American" was bullied. You were different? You were definitely some sort of nerd or a geek.
Q: What do you remember about the fashion and the hair? What fads were you into?
A: I was a Farrah Fawcett wannabe. [laughs] I had her hair, and I worked that for many, many years.
Q: I love that hair!
A: It suited me really well. For the most part, I was the flower child rather than the disco queen.
Bianca Yarber, 53, Hollywood Hills
Q: When the show first came out in 1998, were you excited? Was there any sort of anticipation?
A: No there wasn't, because I lived that era.
Q: Got ya. So what do you remember about '70s drug culture? In the media, stoners are often portrayed as these dumb, lazy, not-very-layered people. This was the first program I remember painting a more dynamic picture.
A: The stoners back then—some of them were very kickback and lackadaisical and didn't typically get good grades, but a lot of them did too. A lot of them were super smart.
Q: Speaking of the cast's personalities, although Kitty and Red (the mom and dad) seemed to have a pretty respectful relationship, they did relatively follow the mold of breadwinner and housewife. Gender roles have shifted since, but can you concede that, back then, parents basically fit those stereotypes?
A: Yup. You know, there was this commercial back in the '70s: "bring home the bacon, fry it in a pan, never let him forget he's the man." But the women could do it all; they were like these superheroes. They could be the doting housewife, they could be the perfect mom, they could make money and contribute...
Vince Rohr, 54, Colorado
Q: How did you enjoy working on the show? What was your role?
A: I was the production sound mixer. I remember when we did the pilot, we were all so busy the first couple of days that we actually had no idea how funny the show was gonna be. The audience flooded in, and we shot it in order... and from the beginning, we knew it was going to be great.
Q: Nice. Were there any memorable scenes, character or directing choices that made you go, "OK, they nailed it. That was the epitome of that time period."?
A: Across the board, everybody that worked on the show put a lot of effort—into not only the props, the hair and makeup—but to really set the feel of the '70s. An audience member once asked one of the show runners (trying to find a goof, like people do) something like, "Well the show is supposed to be set in '76, and that prop didn't come out till late '77," and they responded, "You do know that this is a comedy and not a documentary, right?" [laughs] The point of the show was to capture the feel, and I really think they did a great job of doing that. Still, it's funny—having grown up then, I would look at the stuff in all the sets and go, "Oh my gosh, I remember that when I was a kid. I remember that type of bowl that was sitting on the coffee table."
Q: So cool! So what was some of the research that went on?
A: The cast was clearly very young, so for certain bits, they would have to go back and watch reruns of shows like "Charlie's Angels." Because obviously they didn't know anything about "Charlie's Angels," you know? Mila was 15-16 years old... but they all did that—they all took the time to go back and get the references so they seemed natural.
Q: The nature of the show frequently centered on them being in a small town. Were their simple daily lives exclusively a Point Place thing?
A: Where I grew up it was pretty isolated, and the simplicity of it was actually a blessing. It fostered creativity in a lot of ways, because there weren't so many easily-available distractions. The Internet and satellite TV didn't exist then.
Q: Right.
A: And something really remarkable happened—I graduated high school in 1980 and went back in 1990 for my 10 year reunion, and in between, MTV happened. In a big way. And what it did was homogenize music... when I grew up it was FM stations, rock or country. When I went back, everyone was listening to the same thing. There was no longer a sense of regional culture.
"That '70s Show" was first and foremost about relationships: the friendships and innocent romances, reckless times spent together, and trials and triumphs that people could associate with at any age. I'm glad they evidently stuck to their brand. However, the primary thing was always capturing the time frame's essence, and secondary was capturing the details. What we can take away from these interviews is that there was a reason the '70s were selected from all other decades to be celebrated. It was so much more than psychedelics, bell bottoms and vinyl. It was hometown pride, straying from antiquated thinking and artistic experimentation. It was innovation from boredom, open hearts and uninhibited mentality. It was perfectly imperfect—it was all alright.
