This show is something of a mixed bag for me. Yes, it's funny. Topher Grace and Wilmer Valderrama get most of the laughs, of course, but I love all the characters. Also, I'm glad a show finally came along to show what the 1970s were REALLY like, rather than the sanitized universe of bloodless WASPs offered up by "The Brady Bunch" and its subsequent TV specials and movies. The kids in "That '70s Show" swear, smoke pot, make out, and defy their elders - just like teenagers in any decade do. I love it!
Even so, I can't help but wonder if the show has gone downhill. I stopped watching it on a regular basis once I realized that the writers had stopped trying to satirize the Seventies and were just dressing the kids up in retro clothing and hairstyles and placing them in absurd situations. In any case, most of the characters are cartoonish stereotypes who never existed in any decade. They're all there: the gruff father, the ditzy wife, the foreign kid who gets made fun of, etc. And that Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) is such a jerk. I don't know if young men in the Seventies actually acted the way he did, but in the Nineties no girl would want to date him and he'd be lonely and bitter.
Now they're continuing the tradition with "That '80s Show." If history is any indication, they'll throw as many Reagan-era clichés against the wall as possible in the first few episodes and then revert to the standard sitcom situations like forgetting someone's birthday, etc. Then they'll expect us to laugh simply because the characters are wearing "acid-washed jeans" (whatever the hell those are) and saying bizarre things like "Gag me with a spoon." (Yeah, I'm REALLY sure that any real-life teenager in 1984 ever used that expression without irony.) I haven't seen many episodes of "Happy Days," but I can only assume that the above applied to that show as well.
I wonder if they'll continue the franchise all the way up to our own time, giving us "That '90s Show" in about five years or so. Then the young people of 2007 will be able to laugh their heads off at soul patches, reality shows, and all those candy-colored iMacs.
Even so, I can't help but wonder if the show has gone downhill. I stopped watching it on a regular basis once I realized that the writers had stopped trying to satirize the Seventies and were just dressing the kids up in retro clothing and hairstyles and placing them in absurd situations. In any case, most of the characters are cartoonish stereotypes who never existed in any decade. They're all there: the gruff father, the ditzy wife, the foreign kid who gets made fun of, etc. And that Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) is such a jerk. I don't know if young men in the Seventies actually acted the way he did, but in the Nineties no girl would want to date him and he'd be lonely and bitter.
Now they're continuing the tradition with "That '80s Show." If history is any indication, they'll throw as many Reagan-era clichés against the wall as possible in the first few episodes and then revert to the standard sitcom situations like forgetting someone's birthday, etc. Then they'll expect us to laugh simply because the characters are wearing "acid-washed jeans" (whatever the hell those are) and saying bizarre things like "Gag me with a spoon." (Yeah, I'm REALLY sure that any real-life teenager in 1984 ever used that expression without irony.) I haven't seen many episodes of "Happy Days," but I can only assume that the above applied to that show as well.
I wonder if they'll continue the franchise all the way up to our own time, giving us "That '90s Show" in about five years or so. Then the young people of 2007 will be able to laugh their heads off at soul patches, reality shows, and all those candy-colored iMacs.