Syndication Files 07.15.09: That '70s Show

Posted by Porfirio Diaz on 07.15.2009

That ‘70s Show brought pop culture back from the 1970s and presented them in a certain format where people of all ages can appreciate its reflective slapstick humor. Pull up a seat in the Circle and revive the many memorable moments and clips of the hit show. Just don’t let Red put his foot in your ass.

Before we move on to this week's nostalgia trip, I would first like to point something out from last week's comment section.

I listed some of Couteney Cox Arquette's previous roles in the Friends column and I totally forgot about some of the other significant roles she played, such as co-starring in Misfits of Science (pointed out by fellow 411 columnist Shawn S. Lealos) and Alex P. Keaton's girlfriend in Family Ties (pointed out by Guest#4646). But it was "nadanada" that pointed out something I didn't know. Cox was in Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark music video. She played the girl who was randomly picked out of the crowd to dance with Bruce. I knew my readers were good for something. Thanks guys!

Okay, that's out of the way. Now we can move on to the main event. This week's show depicts the lives of six friends who frequently gather together in a battle of relationships and life...again. I guess this week's installment is the 1970s version of Friends, now filled with 50% more dumbassery.


Syndication Files # 5

That ‘70s Show


"In the Street" performed by Cheap Trick & Ben Vaughn

That ‘70s Show was created by the husband and wife team of Terry and Bonnie Turner, along with writer Mark Brazil. The history of how the show got its main title is semi-popular. The show went through various working title changes during the creation process: Teenage Wasteland, The Kids Are Alright, Feelin' All Right, and Reeling in the Years. If you didn't know, all of those titles were lines from popular songs of the 1970s. Since the first two names were lyrics to songs by The Who, legal issues arose and prevented the creators use of their name. The other two didn't catch on with the audience as well either. The search for a new title continued. Then the creators noticed that audiences in focus groups would say how they liked "that ‘70s show". Suddenly an appropriate title was born and the show was thus called That ‘70s Show. The series made its debut on the Fox Network on August 23, 1998.

The show focused on the lives of six individuals in the fictional Wisconsin town of Point Place: Eric Forman (Topher Grace), Steven Hyde (Danny Masterson), Michael Kelso (Ashton Kutcher), Donna Pinciotti (Laura Prepon), Jackie Burkhart (Mila Kunis), and Fez (Wilmer Valderrama).

Let's take a brief description of those troublesome teenagers:

Eric: Eric is the main protagonist of the show, which means most of the story is centered on him. On the outside, there's nothing much to note on Eric. He's scrawny, physically weak, geeky and unable to make smart decisions in the game of love. On the inside, he's generally nice at heart and often cares about those around him. Despite the lack of physical strength, he is still willing to stand up to anyone if he feels threatened. He's also a wisecracker, especially when he has conversations when his father, Red Forman. One of his better attributes is his deadpan punch line deliveries. The way he just casually carries himself when attacked by insults or through conversation cannot be overlooked since that is often when he's most entertaining. Grace became the perfect choice to play a smart mouth, sarcastic teenager. But whenever his next-door neighbor and girlfriend Donna shows him up in anything (and usually does), he gets knocked down a peg. You could just feel his manhood slipping away from him every time that happens.


Eric is also a super huge fan of Star Wars. Scary huge.

Hyde: The rebellious drug junkie of the group but is often times the most wise in life and in romance. He's Eric's best friend and it was that friendship that helped convince Hyde to move in with the Forman family after his mother willingly abandoned him. That turned out to be a good decision by the show creators when it became apparent that Hyde is a popular character due to his mischief behavior and coolness factor. His masculine nature rivals that of Red Forman and does not worry about petty things like feelings, emotions, and romantic relationships. His feelings on the government are well known in the series but often times his government paranoia gets disregarded by the rest of the group ("the government has a car that runs on water, man!"). Hyde prefers to live the stoner lifestyle but due to his respect of the Forman family for letting him live in their home, he can display moments of responsibility and modesty around them but its usually done to spite Eric. He also loves "brownies".


From one of my favorite episodes ever

Kelso: This is the role that made Ashton Kutcher's career. Kelso spent his entire life getting by on his good looks, looking every bit like a true supermodel (which was how Kutcher was discovered for the role). Too bad he can't compare his looks to his smarts, as he's incredibly stupid. Along with that he's juvenile, sensitive, lazy, and unreasonable yet he was the character that audiences loved the most. He was the comic relief character and people loved him for it. Kelso received more attention once the series later shifted a little favorably towards him than with Eric. Kelso also loved to point out his attractiveness to the rest of the group, especially to his main squeeze, Jackie. But his attractiveness has gotten him into trouble with woman as well and has led to numerous breakups with Jackie until the two painfully realized that they were not meant to be. When he became an illegitimate father of a baby girl near the end of the series, he becomes the first of the group to break away from puberty and enter the world of adulthood.


One of many Kelso's attempt to woo Jackie

Donna: She is the Forman's next door neighbor as well as the object of Eric's affection. She's quite intelligent and has strong views on feminist ideology. Donna is everything that goes against the traditional view of women in that she dislikes girly things such as makeup and fancy clothing. She's often seen wearing jeans and plaid shirts, and is considered to be the strongest person of the group. That doesn't mean that Donna totally rejects the feminine style of life, since she still dresses up for special occasions and loves to be perceived as an object of aspiration. She embraced the role as "Hot Donna" at a local radio station (although at one point denied wearing a bikini for a publicity stunt) and even dyed her hair blonde near the end of the series (fun fact: she dyed her hair for her title role in the film Karla) to look more attractive. She just doesn't like those girly activities that her best friend (not by choice) Jackie is into. Her relationship with Eric was chaotic at times but they battled through all the tough obstacles and eventually ended up together at the end of the series.


Young love

Jackie: Jackie is the opposite of Donna, in that she's spoiled, stuck-up, and self-absorbed. She believes she has a free pass into the circle of friends as well as admission to the basement because of her relationship with Kelso. The others (sans Kelso and Fez) never viewed her as one of them and had no trouble announcing how annoying she is. She's very rich and very popular at school though why she would want to hang out with this bunch is a mystery. Jackie also underwent the most radical character change out of the group as the series worn on. The personalities described above ever so slowly began to fade out and grew into a more mature person. Her difficult trails in life such as her failed romantic relationships and her parent's neglect caused her to show a vulnerable side and began to rely more on her friends rather than her wealth. The group eventually accepted her as a part of the group, to the point where Hyde even had romantic feelings for Jackie. In the end of the series, she decided that Fez, the only one that accepted her from the beginning, was the right man for her.


Whipped

Fez: The name "Fez" is short for "foreign exchange student". You may be wondering why his name is spelled that way. First of all, since his real name is unknown and apparently unpronounceable, the gang decided to name him "Fez". According to the official That ‘70s Show website, "the spelling is poetic license." There you go. As for his personality, well…he's a weird little perverted guy. He spies on Donna and Jackie on numerous occasions, and begs for that special someone to take his virginity away. He loves woman, candy, and porno. Give the guy these things and he's set for life. He's had copious relationships during the series, including his memorably one with that crazy chick Caroline. However, each relationship ended up in dumpsville, though he finally did lose his virginity to his DMV co-worker Nina. Jackie wanted Fez, but Fez did not wanted to be her "sloppy thirds". Eventually, Fez realized he was destined to be with the woman he had longed for throughout the whole series and the two eventually became one.


Classic Fez

I can't forgot about the rest of the cast: Kitty Forman (Debra Jo Rupp) as Eric's loving yet pushy mother, Laurie (Lisa Robin Kelly, 1998-2003) as Eric's slutty sister, Bob and Midge Pinciotti (Don Stark and Tanya Roberts) as Donna's easily manipulative parents, and Leo Chingkwake (Tommy Chong), the cool hippie that mentors Hyde on the walks of life…or maybe it's the other way around.

Then there's Red. Red Forman. Kurtwood Smith has been in movie and television roles before he joined with That ‘70s Show but this is the role that he will be remembered for: Eric's overbearing, blue collar, government loving, friend hating, Japanese shooting, shut the hell up or he will put his foot up your ass for being a "dumbass" father. He's so awesome and is my favorite character on the show. In general, he's very harsh towards Eric and very loving towards his daughter Laurie. Some say Red's like that to Eric so he can teach him how to become a man because looking at Eric, he's anything but one. Their father-son conversations usually end in hilarity, causing Red to tell Eric to stop being a "smartass" or to creatively tell him about how he will shove his foot up Eric's ass. He would often yet reluctantly act as the father figure for Eric's friends. He hates them for hanging out in his home for the majority of their time but he's found some nice qualities about all of them as well. Red turned out to be the perfect role for Kurtwood Smith and was so good that he carried that personality over to another television show called Worst Week.


The best of Red is just three phrases but who cares? He's awesome!

As you very well know from the title, the show started on the date of May 17, 1976. The first two seasons focused on the events that happened during that time period, such as when Gerald Ford was president. However that style of story was dropped and shifted to a more sitcom orientated plot.

To be honestly, I didn't think the show would last one or two seasons. I remember watching a couple of episodes during the first season and thought it was meh. Uncharacteristically, FOX continued to support the show, give them time to establish their characters and settings. I grew to love the show over time after watching it again in later seasons.

Eric and his friends usually hang out in the basement of his house, where most of the show takes place. After all, if Wayne's World can do it, so can they. I'm guessing that's where That ‘70s Show got their influence from. The basement is viewed as a haunt for teenage rebellion, a perfect setting for these teenagers to hang out in and to…uh…smoke on the "stash".

That's where the show's signature element comes in, The Circle. It's where the group (usually with 4 people) sits in a circle to engage in conversations while under the influence of marijuana. The show avoided mostly any term (they usually call it "stuff") or any visualization of drug substances but we are to imagine that's what the kids are under. To make the point extremely clear, thick clouds of smoke appear in the background. The uniqueness comes from the camera slowly spinning around in a circle, stopping at each character as they speak, as well as adding an extreme wide-angle shots. Sometimes the characters exit the circle still under the influence and the results are less than pleasant for them, but funny to us. I think it's cleverly done and is needed to help the story move along. You may say it's a gimmick, but at least it works.


The final Circle scene with the main cast members

Besides the Circle, there are many other elements found that are unique to the show: the Water Tower (where the main characters once in a while hang out), the scene transitions of the main characters doing goofy stuff, and the split screens. The split screen scenes illustrate a split screen in which two groups of two characters speak out to one another. The humor is while the conversations are similar, the conclusion is completely different. The one negative aspect of the screen split is that the silence of one group while the other is talking does get awkward and unrealistic. Who says nothing during a conversation for that long period of time?



There is another element to the show called the dream sequences. It's been done on other shows, but no one could pull them off quite like That ‘70s Show. The dream sequences include surreal pop culture references to portray the character's imaginations or dreams. Whether it's Donna reenacting as Lucy in I Love Lucy or Fez imagining the cast is performing musical numbers (which was the 100th episode titled "That ‘70s Musical"), these dreams sequences were always a blast to watch.


My personal favorite dream sequence

The show continued to thrive in television land for seven seasons. Unfortunately, two of its main stars were going to be written out for the eighth and final season: Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher. Grace was going to star as "Eddie Brock, Jr." (Venom) in Super-man 3 while Kutched went on to star in The Guardian. In the show, Eric accepted a teaching job in Africa which would explain his departure from the show. As for Kelso, he did appear in the first four episodes as a special guest star before moving to Chicago. Both would come back for the series finale. I say it's good that the show ended things there. They were never going to survive the loss of losing its two biggest stars. Plus the new characters that were introduced during the eighth season did nothing for me. Even if either Kutcher or Grace had a chance to come back, both probably would have been too big time for the show.

That ‘70s Show concluded its eight season run with the 200th episode on May 18, 2006. In the timeline of the show, the finale took place a day before the start of the 1980s and eventually ended by the time the new decade rolled around on January 1, 1980.

Say what you want about That ‘70s Show, but it did wonders for some of the young cast's careers. Ashton Kutcher's stock rose the highest, scoring several successful movie roles (including Dude, Where's My Car? and The Butterfly Effect) and even starred in his own series, MTV's Punk'd. Mila Kunis used her popularity on the show to become Meg Griffin on Family Guy, along with several movie roles as well.

The show currently enjoys a large syndication run on television, including showing repeats on The CW, FX, ABC Family, and The N. The show encountered tribulations during the beginning of its initial run but enjoyed an unexpected longevity on television. In fact, it was the only television series in 1998 on Fox that survived cancellation.

That about does it for That ‘70s Show. As always, please enjoy a final clip of one of my favorite moments of the show.


Leaving panties in someone else's car…what could possibly go wrong?


Commercial Break


That's a lot of work for a phone commercial

Seriously, does anyone use a cell phone to make phone calls these days? I would give the Palm Pre its due credit. It looks fantastic. Eat it, iPhone.


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Ending Credits

I saw UFC 100 and it was a good show, though not the blow away show I was expecting. Hendo's dragon punch and Brock Lesnar's post victory antics were the main highlights and both were awesome. Brock's fight may not have been 5-star material, but his speech sure was. Yeah, lots of people found Brock's speech sickening but Brock is never one to be a company guy. He's there to pound the crap out of people. He is now the guy of that company.

I just bought a crapload of HD DVD's to go along with my new HD DVD player. The HD format war may be over but you can't beat cheap HD DVDs for nearly 4 bucks. I even bought Heroes Season One and Battlestar Galactica Season One for about 7 bucks. I heard Battlestar Galactica was a good series and though I'm not a fan of science fiction series, I figured I'll give this one a shot.

And with that, I'm out of time. Out like Michael Bisping!