When Television Brought Us Together, Take Two

You've probably already noticed the new book cover with a familiar title just a few inches to the right of what you’re reading now. What’s the story? Glad you asked.

When Television Brought Us Together was first published in 2020, at the height of the COVID pandemic. Some writers have reported that their book sales increased during a time when people were forced to stay inside and away from others. I was not one of those writers. Sales were slow, and with the passage of time I can see the blame for that largely falls on myself.

This was not my first book – there were 15 others that preceded it – so I have no excuse for not remembering that in many ways writing the book is the easy part, or at least the part that is most enjoyable. What follows is marketing, promotion, and begging for attention from anyone who will listen. 

I never liked that part of the job, but I did it, and in most cases received help from prominent publishers who set me up with radio and podcast interviews, and got those previous titles reviewed (favorably, I’m happy to say) in publications like Entertainment Weekly.

None of that happened this time. I was working with a smaller publisher that did its best, and I was also dealing with family health issues that pulled my focus away from the attention that every new book requires to be successful. By the following year I was ready to write the whole experience off as a missed opportunity and move on.

Thankfully, the publisher was not ready to give up. Last year they came back to me and said, “Let’s give this another try.” And by then I was eager to oblige. “And if we’re going to do it again,” I said, “This time we’re going to do it right.”

What does that mean – for starters, it’s not just the same book with a new cover. There are about 20 new chapters, and revisions and updates to previous ones. And this time there are lots of photos as well, which I think are essential in a book about a visual medium, and that also make the reading experience more enjoyable.

I’m also in a much different place than I was in my life back in 2020. Being semi-retired I now have the time and the motivation to give this work the support it deserves.

What’s the Book About?

Based on sales numbers it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that most of you who have visited this blog more than 2.6 million times didn’t buy the first edition. If enough of you had then you wouldn’t be reading this now, and I’d be on a beach in the Seychelles. So let me try to change your mind.

Start with the obvious – it’s about the classic television shows we both love: Ozzie & Harriet, Donna Reed, Patty Duke, Dragnet, Bewitched, Jeannie, The Fugitive, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Lucy, Father Knows Best, Bob Newhart, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, That Girl…more than 50 shows profiled, plus soaps, westerns, superheroes and Saturday morning cartoons. The book covers why they’re special and selects the best episodes.

But it’s more than that. It’s also about how they reflected everyday life in America 40, 50, 60 years ago. About what that meant at the time, and why we still carry some of what we experienced from those shows with us. And it’s about the things we watched in those series, that we no longer see when we step outside our front door. That last point is expanded upon in “How Times Have Changed” essays, covering everything from magazines and gas stations to healthcare and air travel.

If that sounds like this is a “woe is me” or “angry man shakes fist at clouds” book, it’s not. I wanted to reinvigorate happy memories. I want readers to be inspired to pull a series off the DVD shelf, or find it on a streaming service, and enjoy it again (or perhaps experience it for the first time). I think you’ll smile and laugh, and for those times when it might make you wistful for the better rudiments of our past, it will also make you grateful that you came of age at a time before the culture went stupid in the head.

It’s also undeniable that subsequent generations had and will have a much different perspective on television that we did. The TV screen is no longer the only one in the house, and it’s certainly not as interesting or important to them as TikTok and other social media channels. Countless new shows debut every year and disappear just as quickly, and even the best of them are noticed by a tiny fraction of our population. That’s not what television used to be – and perhaps this is a book to share with the teens and 20-somethings in your life, and to talk about why we bonded with our favorite shows back then and maybe introduce them to a few examples. I think they hold up pretty well after all these years.

I’m happy to report that since the official publication date of September 1, the new book is already doing better than it was the first time around. If you’d like to check it out just click on the link below the book cover – and if you enjoy it, please leave a review on amazon or barnesandnoble.com, as that provides algorithmic support and boosts core search rankings.

Thanks.

The Twilight Zone, Season Five: 3 Classics and 3 Wasted Trips

And so we arrive at last to the fifth and final season of The Twilight Zone. As a refresher: I started these season reviews because, familiar as I’ve been with this landmark series, I’ve never owned it or experienced all the episodes in order in their entirety.

Now I have, and it’s clear from this last batch of 36 episodes that the premise had started to run out of steam. Time travelers, dystopian futures, machines replacing humans, ill-fated voyages to outer space – viewers have seen them all before, and in most cases better than these variations.

While I still enjoyed more than half of these episodes, it’s never been easier to select a top three because there were not as many close runners-up.

The Three Best

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
One of two no-brainer contenders for the best episode of season five, and one that would likely rank in the top five from the entire series. William Shatner plays a man still recovering from a nervous breakdown, who boards an airplane and is terrified when he sees a creature perched on the wing, about to destroy an engine.

In his introduction Rod Serling warns that this story will take us into the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone, and that was not hyperbole. Every element – Shatner’s frenzied performance, Richard Donner’s direction, and the perfect final scene – all exemplify the series at its very best. And if that’s not enough, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” contains what is indisputably the best jump scare of any TZ episode.

Living Doll
There have been eight films in the Child’s Play series about a killer doll named Chucky, but none of them were as exciting as this TZ installment in which a malevolent doll called Talky Tina plots against a little girl’s brutish stepfather, played by Telly Savales. 

June Foray, who voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel among many other beloved characters, indulges her dark side, uttering chilling lines in the sweetest tones. Can a small plastic doll murder a full-grown American male? You’d be surprised.

Number 12 Looks Just Like You
Whether this is the best episode of the season or merely the most prescient is a matter of conjecture. But it’s amazing how a 60-year-old TV show could so accurately foresee challenges now being confronted by the US in 2026.

The original inspiration for its story was not a glimpse into the future but remembrance of the past, specifically Germany under Hitler, the demand for conformity within a totalitarian state, and the Nazi's pursuit of a so-called superior Aryan race.

In the futuristic society depicted in this episode, a young woman named Marilyn has reached the age of ‘transformation,’ where she may choose a new face and body from a catalog of attractive options. It’s presented as a voluntary procedure, but Marilyn soon discovers it is mandatory after she objects to it.

There’s so much to unpack in this one – our culture’s worship of youth, how some pursue physical perfection through plastic surgery – but it also speaks to one party’s current flirtation with socialism, with its promise of classless equality. It’s good for you, we are told, no matter how many who lived under such societies protest. Trust us, they say – we know what’s best, and that freedom of choice you’ll have to sacrifice for the good of the state – you won’t even miss it after a while. Scary stuff – and it’s inching its way into the mainstream.

If I had a fourth ‘best’ pick it would be “I am the Night – Color Me Black,” in which the sun fails to rise over a small town on the morning of a public execution. It shares many of the over-written, heavy-handed qualities found in Rod Serling’s least memorable scripts but this time it still works, thanks to strong performances from Michael Constantine, Ivan Dixon, and George Lindsay.

Some fans rank “The Masks” among the series’ classics – for me it was just okay, as was “Spur of the Moment,” though it opens with one of the season’s most unsettling scenes. There were also mediocre episodes elevated by a strong lead performance – Mickey Rooney in “The Last Night of a Jockey,” Sir Cedric Hardwicke in “Uncle Simon,” John Dehner in “Mr. Gerrity and the Graves.”

Finally, “Black Leather Jackets” is silly but it has Shelley Fabares, so it automatically gets a pass.


The Three Worst

Sounds and Silences
It hurts my heart to single out anything starring John McGiver, one of my favorite character actors, on a “worst” list. But there’s no defending this headache-inducing episode about a CEO obsessed with noise, which grates on the nerves of his employees, not to mention those of us watching from home.

From Agnes with Love
Computers taking on human qualities and doing more harm than good? Maybe that wasn’t the cliché in 1964 than it is now, but here once again we get proof that The Twilight Zone was not a series that excelled at comedy. Wally Cox stars as a programmer hoping Agnes, a super-computer, can help him win his dream girl, unaware that Agnes has already fallen for him.

The Encounter
Simply one of the most repugnant half-hours of television I’ve ever watched, and one that some sources claim was banned from syndication for more than 50 years. If anyone wondered what they were missing all that time, the answer is nothing.

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Wednesday Nights, 1978

As has become all too typical in reviewing these late 1970s schedules, ABC has once again mowed down its competition, which tonight seems mostly content with airing movies and not even trying to compete on the series front.

ABC
Eight is Enough
Charlie’s Angels
Vegas

All three of ABC’s Wednesday offering finished in the top 25, while CBS and NBC failed to land a single show that high in the ratings.

Looking back, I was a bit surprised that in its second season Eight is Enough (#11) ranked one spot higher than the third season of Charlie’s Angels (#12). 

This was, after all, the only Angels season without any cast turnover. Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd all returned, as did Farrah Fawcett for two episodes. But the Bradford family proved slightly more popular, and the addition of Betty Buckley to the cast after the passing of Diana Hyland helped to ease what might have been a difficult transition for the audience.

This was year one for Vegas (or Vega$ as it was promoted), starring Robert Urich as Las Vegas private investigator Dan Tanna. It ranked #23 in its debut season, certainly an impressive start. 

It was not a favorite show of mine, but as someone who has lived in and around Las Vegas since 1982, I enjoy revisiting the series occasionally to remember what the town was like back when the mob was in charge and resorts didn’t nickel-and-dime every visitor with parking and resort fees.

NBC
Dick Clark’s Live Wednesday
NBC Wednesday Night Movie

Dick Clark had been a fixture on television since American Bandstand went national and was already serving as host of the $10,000 Pyramid when NBC brought him into prime time in this surprisingly short-lived variety series.

It was an ambitious attempt to bring live TV back and reading the guest lineups it sounds like a show that couldn’t miss – Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Melissa Manchester, Billy Crystal, Rodney Dangerfield, Connie Francis – but even that star power wasn’t enough to lure viewers away from Eight is Enough.

Moving a show with this much potential into a new day would have been the wise move, but NBC opted to cancel instead. The final episode aired on December 27, to be replaced in its timeslot by a new series called Supertrain, which ranked #20 in my book about the 100 Dumbest Events in Television History. Serves ‘em right.


CBS
The Jeffersons
In the Beginning
CBS Wednesday Night Movie

Every year in the classic TV era had its share of sitcoms that didn’t work, but many still had likeable stars and a good-natured quality that compensated for creative shortcomings. That cannot be said for In the Beginning, which is one of the most awful shows of the decade. Looking back, probably even worse than Supertrain.

We all know the McLean Stevenson story: left a hit series in M*A*S*H for top billing elsewhere, only to star in four consecutive bombs. This is the worst of the bunch - lousy writing, dreadful characters, stilted performances, and a seething enmity toward the Catholic church.

Stevenson plays shallow, conniving, materialistic Father Dan Cleary, who is transferred from a well-to-do parish into a ghetto, where he butts heads with streetwise Sister Agnes (Priscilla Lopez), whom he dubs “Sister Mary Jackass.” Viewers are clearly being urged to side with the plucky nun over the frustrated priest, even though she proudly rides on the Planned Parenthood float in the Thanksgiving parade.

Full disclosure: I’ve laughed at Louis CK routines about Christianity that were far more blasphemous than this. But I believe God has a sense of humor and appreciates clever material. In the Beginning was not clever or funny, despite the dialed-up-to-11 laugh track desperately trying to convince viewers otherwise. It was canceled after just five episodes, a fitting response to the arrogance of its creators.


Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)
Ball Four (1976)
Young Dan’l Boone (1977)
Rafferty (1977)
Mulligan’s Stew (1977)
Big Hawaii (1977)
We’ve Got Each Other (1977)
Lifeline (1978)

Another Brady Bunch Life Lesson

Soon I'll be providing details about the new, expanded edition of my book When Television Brought Us Together, which has an official publication date of September 1. For the uninitiated, the book is about the classic TV era and how the country has changed since then, as well as the lessons the shows from this era taught us about living our best life in the real world.

Every so often I see something that reminds me of how much our culture has changed since these shows first aired, and that happened again when I saw a Facebook post about the Brady Bunch episode “And Now a Word from Our Sponsor.” In this episode, as you may recall, the Brady family is grocery shopping when they are approached to appear in a commercial for Safe Detergent.

It’s not one of my favorite episodes – the character of Skip Farnum (Paul Winchell), the beatnik director who stalks the family in a parking lot before inviting them to appear in the commercial, is an exaggerated eccentric that disrupts what is usually a more reality-based sitcom. 

We are also led to believe that Carol has a friend like Myrna (pronounced “Meer-na”), a flaky theater vet who coaches them on how to read their lines, resulting in the commercial never getting shot.

It was not a favorite for Robert Reed, either. In Barry Williams’ book Growing Up Brady he shares a lengthy memo Reed wrote citing numerous criticisms of the story, the dialogue, character inconsistencies and other flaws: “Once again, ‘The Brady Bunch’ takes an inconsistent literary leap from semi-real situation comedy into thinly motivated farce bordering on slapstick.”

To his credit however when it was time to go to work, he played material he found wanting with the same stalwart professionalism he always brought to his role and to the show (at least until the series’ final episode – if you know, you know).

Getting back to that Facebook post: it didn’t echo any of Reed’s complaints, nor was it critical of having two such hyperbolic characters as Skip and Myrna in the same show. 

This is what was considered so ridiculous:

“Mike Brady is a clown, OK? The whole family gets scouted and receives a contract to do a commercial for a laundry detergent for good money…but he just told Carol that they can’t do it because they don’t actually use that brand of laundry detergent…he wouldn’t feel right???!!!!!!!!!!!??????”

Indeed, there is a scene in the show when Carol tells Mike they don’t use Safe Detergent. He responds, “How are we going to get in front of millions of people and lie?” Carol then asks if everyone who appears in commercials really uses the product or service they’re endorsing. Mike admits he doesn’t know – but he says they probably should.

I agree, and I was taken aback that someone would dismiss Mike as a clown for having an issue with telling a mass audience something is good, without knowing that to be true.

No, it’s not a crime like stealing a car, or a moral failing as serious as cheating on your spouse, but it’s still a poor reflection on one’s character. There was a time most people understood that. I hope they still do. But it’s hard to blame those who see nothing dishonest with that type of deception when doing so appears to be a national epidemic.

You’ve probably lost count at the number of organizations and people in authority that have issued statements later proven to be false – and that they knew were false at the time. Your list may be different than mine, but whether it begins with “I can end the war in Ukraine in five minutes” or “the vaccine poses no risk to pregnant women,” that only illustrates how no one group has a monopoly on integrity.

Saying something without knowing it to be true, as millions of people do on social media every day, is wrong. It violates one of the foundational principles closely associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition that are the only things that truly underwrite our freedom and dignity. And any time and any place we still get a reminder of that, even if it comes from a couple of lines of dialogue in a 50-year-old Brady Bunch episode, I hope the message sinks in.

A postscript: If any of this has inspired you to revisit “Now a Word from Our Sponsor” I’d suggest pairing it for a pleasant evening with the Partridge Family episode “Bedknobs and Drumsticks,” in which that family also agrees to do a TV commercial. Then finish off your classic TV theme night with Lucy Ricardo’s commercial for Vitameatavegamin. I’ll take that lineup over anything on Netflix.

Top TV Moments: Joanna Pettet

I was saddened by the recent news that Joanna Pettet had died. In the Comfort TV era she was a frequent guest star on several quality shows and was always memorable regardless of her role. To me she was television’s equivalent to the cool patrician blondes favored by Alfred Hitchcock in films like Vertigo and Marnie, and I’d argue she was a better actress than either Kim Novak or Tippi Hedren.

In her personal life she played a bit part in one of the most infamous crime stories of the 20th century, having had lunch with Sharon Tate in Tate’s home just hours before she was murdered by the Manson Family. Rumer Willis played Pettet in Quentin Tarantino’s film Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood.

Unlike many performers from that era, she was also busy in feature films, appearing in the first (sort of) James Bond movie, Casino Royale, the wartime mystery The Night of the Generals, and the underrated cult horror hit The Evil (trust me, it’s good). But it was on television that most of us came to know her, starting back in 1964.

Route 66 (1964)
In “Child of a Night” Tod and Linc are determined to carry out a dying man’s wish of getting a large sum of money to its rightful recipient. Making her TV debut, the British-born Pettet manages a convincing southern accent as a would-be claimant of the fortune.

The Doctors (1964)
As nurse Judy Lloyd, Pettet appeared in 18 episodes of this daytime drama that debuted the same year as General Hospital.

The Fugitive (1966)
A traveling carnival provides a colorful backdrop to this typically strong episode, featuring Joanna Pettet as an emotionally troubled young woman who falls for Kimble, and jeopardizes his freedom after she is rejected. She would have an equally doomed romance with David Janssen eight years later in the Harry O episode “Forty Reasons to Kill.”

Night Gallery (1971)
Series fans have dubbed Pettet the Queen of Night Gallery, since she appeared in four different episodes. “The Caterpillar” may be the most satisfying but she’s just a supporting player in that tale of lust and murder. More interesting, at least until its climax, is “The House,” in which she plays a woman who tells her psychiatrist about a recurring dream she’s had for ten years: she is driving along a country road and sees a beautiful house – she knocks on the door but wakes up before anyone answers.

On the day she is released from a sanitarium, she spots the house from her dream and finds out it’s for sale. What happens next? No spoilers here, except to say that even Joanna Pettet wasn’t satisfied. “The ending makes absolutely no sense at all,” she said in an interview. 

Banacek (1972)
One reason Joanna Pettet was always in demand is how she seemed to have chemistry no matter who she was paired with on screen. Here she brings out a softer side of George Peppard’s smug, sexist hero. 

In “Project Phoenix” Pettet plays an automotive engineer who falls under suspicion after an experimental vehicle disappears from a moving train. Lots of familiar faces in this one – William Windom, Bert Convy, Peter Mark Richman, Herb Edelman, John Fiedler – what a wonderful era of television this was, with so many great character actors making every part memorable.

The Captains and the Kings (1976)
The 1970s were awash in ‘prestigious’ miniseries adaptations of popular novels, and while this one never made the same splash as Roots or Rich Man, Poor Man, it’s good trashy fun. It’s a multi-generational story of one Irish American family, loosely based on the Kennedys (unofficially to avoid any lawsuits). Amidst a huge all-star cast, Pettet appears as Katherine Hennessey, an early object of desire for young Joe Kenn…er, Armagh, who helps to smooth his rougher edges before his rise to power.

Charlie’s Angels (1980)
“Nips and Tucks” is one of the better fourth season (Shelley Hack) episodes, thanks in part to guest star Louis Jourdan as a renowned plastic surgeon being blackmailed into changing the appearance of a wanted racketeer. Pettet plays the crook’s girlfriend, who’s ready to kill anyone getting in the way.

The Love Boat (1981)
Most of Pettet’s resume consists of heavy dramatic roles, so it’s fun to see her playing light comedy for a change. In “I Love You Too, Smith” she plays a fussy customs agent whom Gopher despises, until she sails on the Pacific Princess, and you can guess what happens next.

Knots Landing (1983)
This was Pettet’s last recurring series role; she appeared in nine episodes as police detective Janet Baines.

The Fall Guy (1984)
Colt and company are shooting a James Bond-type movie (“Always Say Always”), but that’s not what makes this episode memorable. It’s the guest appearances by three former Bond girls that made it more fun – Pettet (Casino Royale), Lana Wood (Diamonds are Forever) and Britt Ekland (The Man with the Golden Gun).

And as it turned out, 1984 was Pettet’s last busy working year. She also appeared in episodes of Hotel, Knight Rider, The Yellow Rose and Finder of Lost Loves. After that IMDB lists only four more projects before she began more than 30 years of (hopefully happy) retirement.

My Journey Through 1970s TV: Tuesday Nights, 1978

CBS and NBC tried their best with new and returning offerings, but neither had a chance against the juggernaut that was ABC’s Tuesday night hit factory. Four of the season’s top ten shows aired back-to-back this evening, and while one must applaud the network for tapping into what America liked to watch, it’s also unfortunate that their dominance claimed one series on a rival network that deserved a better fate.


CBS
The Paper Chase
CBS Tuesday Night Movie

“You teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush and if you survive, you’ll leave thinking like a lawyer.”

After a long and distinguished career, John Houseman at age 71 found the role that defined his career as law professor Charles Kingsfield in The Paper Chase (1973).

After receiving the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Houseman reprised the role in this series that, despite such a pedigree, was canceled after one season. The Showtime network brought it back for three more seasons five years later, but only about one-third of American households had cable back then. It remains one of 1970s television’s largely undiscovered treasures. There were DVDs released but they’re long out of print, available only at inflated prices on the secondary market.



ABC
Happy Days
Laverne & Shirley
Three’s Company
Taxi
Starsky & Hutch

The first three shows were in ABC’s Tuesday lineup in the previous year and are still topping the charts: Happy Days at #3, Laverne & Shirley at #1, and Three’s Company at #2. Taxi replaced Soap and finished the season at #9.

The excellent series Family was moved from Tuesdays to Thursdays, but that did not improve its rating. In its place on Tuesday – Starsky & Hutch, then limping through its final year.

NBC
Grandpa Goes to Washington
The Big Event

With Chico and the Man canceled shortly after the death of Freddie Prinze, NBC immediately put Jack Albertson into another series, and into a very different role. Political science professor Joe Kelley is forced into retirement at age 66 and decides to explore how political theory meets reality when he runs for a Senate seat and wins.

Grandpa Goes to Washington borrowed from Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, though Albertson’s Joe was not as wide-eyed and naïve. A time slot change and a stronger supporting cast might have kept the series around longer – Larry Linville played Joe’s son, once again the butt of every joke after years of similar abuse on MASH.

Shows Missed:
The Don Knotts Show (1970)
San Francisco International Airport (1970)
Nancy (1970)
The Headmaster (1970)
The Man and the City (1971)
Search (1972)
Assignment: Vienna (1972)
The Delphi Bureau (1972)
Jigsaw (1972)
The Little People (1972)
The Sixth Sense (1972)
Faraday & Company (1973)
Kodiak (1974)
The New Land (1974)
McCoy (1975)
Joe and Sons (1975)
Beacon Hill (1975)
Mobile One (1975)
Big Eddie (1975)
Executive Suite (1976)
Ball Four (1976)
Young Dan’l Boone (1977)
Rafferty (1977)
Mulligan’s Stew (1977)
Big Hawaii (1977)
We’ve Got Each Other (1977)
Lifeline (1978)

Still Stuck in the 1970s, Part Two

The 1970s returned to the news recently as older Americans wondered why the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding did not generate the same national pride as the Bicentennial in 1976.

A YouTube video entitled “The 12 Things That Made Americans Happier in the 1970s (That We Destroyed)” provides some insightful answers into how the country has changed in the last 50 years. The first six of those things, and how many of them were connected to television or were reflected in the shows of that decade, were covered last week (just scroll down to read that post).

We left off on a particularly salient point related to Comfort TV: “Entertainment was shared.” It relates how, on a single evening in 1972, more than half the people in the United States were watching shows on one of the handful of channels available. Then, the next day at work and school and at the grocery store there was something to talk about: “a common thread running through the entire country."

Now, of course we consume entertainment on personal devices, individually, with thousands of programming options instead of four channels. That common thread no longer exists.

Moving on to point #7: “Food was just food.” I love this one. Food wasn’t as closely examined then as it is now, when it has become a source of anxiety and moral judgement. Mothers took their kids to McDonald’s without feeling guilty. Saturday mornings were spent wolfing down sugar coated cereals while watching cartoons. 

No one talked about probiotics or keto or meat and dairy alternatives, which is why ‘70s shows were blissfully free of any such references. And for those who think all this nanny state nonsense has produced a healthier populace, every study shows there were fewer obese people in the 1970s than there are now.

Point #8: “You were not comparing yourself to anyone.” This is like an observation in the previous blog about how social media gave us a barometer to measure ourselves against everyone else in the world, which for some added pressure to be doing better. “Keeping up with the Jones” is not a new sentiment, but in the ‘70s it was a localized phenomenon. If someone down the street bought a new car, or put a pool in their backyard, you might have felt some pressure to do the same. But your summer vacation at the King’s Island Amusement Park shouldn’t seem less enjoyable because someone you’ve never met was swimming with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands and shared the video on Facebook.

Next, “Institutions could be trusted.” Oh, boy. Our confidence has been shaken in government, media, church, schools, and the medical establishment. As reflected on TV shows in the ‘70s, if a student was sent to the principal’s office, or a kid like Danny Partridge was caught shoplifting, there was an automatic assumption that the authority figure was in the right. 

That assumption no longer exists, leaving each of us to personally adjudicate the truth of everything. That’s stressful, and exhausting.

Point #10. “There was a clear path, and it worked.” We all knew what it was, and how it was reinforced by most family shows on TV: finish school, get a job, get married, buy a house, have children, retire with a pension. I didn’t follow that path exactly, but I still saw the value in it. Fewer people do so now and even doing so does not guarantee a stable future.

Next, “Aging had a place.” Our older relatives were a respected source of wisdom to convey to grandchildren. Now they are “a problem to be managed, rather than a resource to be valued.”

The video’s final point is one that connects to many of those it preceded: “Time.” We just don’t have as much of it anymore. Is it better to be time-rich and money-poor? Or Money-rich and time-poor? Money can’t buy happiness but leisure hours, away from work, from computer screens, can add immeasurably to our peace of mind.

What do you think? The video has drawn more than 200 comments. Most are what you might expect – some blame the political left for our present perilous state (“Feminists ruined the one paycheck model”), while others blame the right (“Then we got Reaganomics and it just went downhill ever since.”). For others it’s just politicians regardless of party, or the media, lawyers (Shakespeare would approve) or technology (some truth there). And there are the usual voices condemning millionaires for not giving everyone more of their money.

But in many ways, we are to blame because we’ve done this to ourselves. The good news is we could reverse course if we wished to do so. Before televisions needed software updates. Before the internet put idiots on Tik Tok on equal footing with experts who have studied an issue for decades (with the idiots always getting more clicks). Before heads of prestigious medical schools could testify with a straight face that men can get pregnant. Before exposure to a 24-hour news cycle that has us convinced the country and the world are in far worse shape than they are.

“We are not going to pretend the 1970s were perfect. There were real injustices that needed fixing, and some were fixed, and that was good,” the video states in its conclusion. “But the things in this video were not injustices. They were the load-bearing structures of an ordinary contented life, and we knocked them down without noticing they held up the ceiling.”