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cd637299
Guest
Not that I ever watched it, but wasn't the NBC series "American Dreams" chock full of inconsistencies? In fact, I think there was a whole thread about it here a few years back.
cd
cd
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Anachronisms
- Thread starter firepoint525
- Start date
Only two words can describe all these anachronisms..."creative license".
Yes, those writers very often played fast and loose with historical facts on TV shows set in the past.
Yes, those writers very often played fast and loose with historical facts on TV shows set in the past.
I can't stand that "That 70s Show" at all, but what really chaps my hide is the lack of anything actually 1970s in the show. NO one said "Awesome!" back then. The whole "girlfriend/boyfriend" thing, girls really couldn't "date" before 16 in those days, make up wasn't allowed for girls really- the whole show is complete nonsense. The clothes appear somewhat 1970s, but fit like the 2000s. The hair is too good- 70s hair-dos were atrocious. What makes me mad is, the 70s weren't THAT long ago, they surely could have really done something with the show, any show! to showcase what the 1970s really were about. Anachronisms in film & TV is one of my biggest pet peeves. Don't get me started!
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FredLeonard
Guest
retrothoughts said:
One word: Sloppiness.
OK: Hack writing. Laziness. Bad research. Indifference.
Often writers of "classic" shows seemed to think the audience wouldn't notice, or couldn't remember from one episode to the next. They couldn't even keep things straight concerning the "history" of the show's story line and characters.
Creative license is when time lines are compressed or actual persons are combined into one character to facilitate story telling in historical dramas. The anachronisms here do not facilitate story-telling and suggest some mediocre writer didn't think.
As a general rule, today's TV series writers do have more respect for the audience and do a better job of research and maintaining continuity.
michael hagerty said:
Fair enough. Maybe those devices were slow in coming to the Southeast (I mean, we didn't get indoor plumbing until about 1971, right? ;D ;D). I truly do not remember seeing them in public restrooms in the '70s, just the regular paper towel dispensers. I know I wasn't oblivious; I was quite observant about newfangled things when I was little, so I KNOW I would have been eager to use it had I spotted one.
As for Mickey D's, I can't speak for my growing up years (late '60s-'70s), as we almost never ate inside -- 99.9% of the time we got our food "to go." Early high school (1980), I saw them regularly inside fast food restrooms.
Then again, maybe I was using bathrooms in Hooterville. I'm just thankful I didn't have to climb a pole to wash my hands!!
--Russell
As long as the characters in the show did not interact with the music used in the show (in other words, did not sing with it, dance to it, listen to it, etc.), I was okay with the use of music that had not been released yet. For example, it is 1963, and Stevie Wonder's "Uptight, Everything's Alright" (from 1966) was playing as Meg and Roxanne boarded the bus in the opening scene from the very first episode. But that was just soundtrack music for the viewer to her. Meg and Roxanne did not comment on that music, or interact with it in any other way. (Actually, what would REALLY stretch the realm of believability is how they changed clothes right there on the bus, and no one objected to it!)cd637299 said:
But these were some egregious examples of music being (mis)used in the show:
It was 1965, yet the Spencer Davis Group appeared on Bandstand to sing "Gimme Some Lovin'." Lead singer Steve Winwood was all of 19 in 1967 when it actually was a hit, so this even further stretches the realm of credibility.
The Left Banke appears at Meg's prom to sing "Walk Away Renee." It is spring 1966. At one point, Meg comments, "it's their only hit." Oops, it wasn't even a hit at all until fall 1966. (The show was mercifully canceled soon after that, and never got to fall 1966, much less into 1967.)
Martha and the Vandelas sang "Dancin' in the Street" in what was supposedly 1963. "Heatwave" would have been more appropriate there.
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FredLeonard
Guest
KeithE4 said:
All the songs in Grease were original compositions, written to sound like Oldies. The title song "Grease" was written for the movie and is not part of the Broadway score (although some school and community theater productions now use it).
It goes back to what I said earlier. The cast does not sing "Grease" (at least not in the movie), nor do they dance to it. I seem to recall that it plays as credits roll.FredLeonard said:
Grease 2, on the other hand, had positively awful songs in it. "Reproduction," anyone?
Firebird said:
There's a fair number of inaccuracies of this sort in American Graffiti. They obviously used a real junkyard for that scene - you see crushed and semi-crushed cars that are clearly identifiable as newer than 1962. But it's excusable - this was one of George Lucas's first films, and he probably didn't have the budget to create a fake '62 specific junkyard.
kinphoenix2 said:
Guess it depends on where you grew up. And I'm guessing the "That 70s Show" writers, like me, grew up in Southern California.
Surfers had been using "awesome" since the early 60s (in fact most 80s speak was simply recycling surfer language from the 60s). The first time I heard it start to be used regularly by teens outside SoCal was Reno, in 1978. Only four years later, "Totally awesome, for sure" Valley speak was all the rage, thanks to Moon Unit Zappa, but it wasn't something she heard for the first time on her way to the studio.
As for clothes, make-up and dating behavior, it might not have been what Wisconsin was like in 1976-1979...but it's exactly what it was like in California and Nevada. I was Eric (hair, clothes and athletic inability). I dated Donna, knew guys exactly like Hyde and Kelso (but not Fez), and there were a ton of Reds and Kittys.
What you describe was a "strict" family in the late 60s/very early 70s in California.
Anyway, during the years That 70s show is supposed to take place, I spent time in California and Nevada towns with populations of 3,000...10,000...200,000...1,000,000...5,000,000 and 7,000,000... and the language, clothes, hair and dating were all pretty much the same.
Michael & Kinphoenix:
RE: "awesome." I recall a Datsun campaign with the jingle "We are driven." . The somewhat purposely pompous deep-voiced announcer would refer to the car (the 280ZX as "AWWESSOMMME" - stretcing the word out for effect. For some reason, this ad stuck in my brain, because for years, if somebody said the word "awesome," I'd think of that ad.
This was 1978.
Naturally, it's on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwRP_wy0xG0
And I could never stand That 70s Show either. It's interesting that so many current stars (Kutcher, Kunis - and Topher Grace was hot for awhile) came out of that show.
RE: "awesome." I recall a Datsun campaign with the jingle "We are driven." . The somewhat purposely pompous deep-voiced announcer would refer to the car (the 280ZX as "AWWESSOMMME" - stretcing the word out for effect. For some reason, this ad stuck in my brain, because for years, if somebody said the word "awesome," I'd think of that ad.
This was 1978.
Naturally, it's on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwRP_wy0xG0
And I could never stand That 70s Show either. It's interesting that so many current stars (Kutcher, Kunis - and Topher Grace was hot for awhile) came out of that show.
Lkeller said:
Well, that's only two, if we don't count Topher. Kutcher staked his claim early on with "Punk'd", being married to Demi Moore was guaranteed to keep him in print, he said yes to commercials that played off his image (was it Canon or Nikon?), he was a logical choice to replace Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men, and he looks like Steve Jobs.
Mila? Well, she's just gorgeous. She can do drama, she can do comedy and she does voices. Hollywood's gonna love her for a decade or two.
But I really haven't seen many of the others.
I hated the show, based on the promos alone, when it was on FOX, but I was a father of young children. I didn't actually see an episode until 10 years later when the kids were teens and I had to see why they were laughing so damn hard.
Marijuana wasn't as common in my world (or taken anywhere near as casually) as it is in the show, but just about everything else in that show is pretty much on target, if played for comic effect. It captures mid-'76 to the end of '79 really well.
michael hagerty said:
Oh - marijuana was about that common in my world. I was in my mid 20s, not in high school, but I was one of few people in my circle of friends that didn't smoke pot - I always hated the smell, the taste, the choking and coughing on the smoke, not to mention the way it made me feel....kind of paranoid - never 'mellow.'
My dislike for That 70s Show is that I just didn't find it funny...and I don't think my standards are all that high.
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Hal Erickson
Guest
One of the all-time anachronism champs was McHALE'S NAVY.
The show had references to (or featured) tape recorders, tranquilizer pills, bikinis (using that word) and James Bond, none of which existed or was available to American sailors in WW2.
Once the characters went into a small Italian ticket booth. On the wall was a poster for an airline. A jet airline. In 1944.
The show had references to (or featured) tape recorders, tranquilizer pills, bikinis (using that word) and James Bond, none of which existed or was available to American sailors in WW2.
Once the characters went into a small Italian ticket booth. On the wall was a poster for an airline. A jet airline. In 1944.
Hal Erickson said:
The perfect cue to dredge up these threads from last season about ABC's Pan Am and its inaccuracies. Those threads (and this one!) rank right up there among my favorites on RD.
http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=197970.0
http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=199257.0
ixnay
Russell W. said:
I spent my entire childhood and adolescence living in the Philadelphia area and remember seeing my first bathroom push button blow dryer around 1972 or '3 (I turned 11 in 1972). Even then, I used them where available.
I was a fairly avid reader of Mad magazine in the '70s and '80s, especially Dave Berg's "The Lighter Side of..." cartoons. One time around 1978, Berg did a 'toon about the then-newfangled bathroom blow dryers. Two men are in a public gents' room, at the sinks. I'll call them Men #1 and 2. Man #1 (with a beard [not hippie beard or hair, mind you]) says, "Where the heck are the paper towels?" Man #2 (clean shaven) says, "Welcome to the late 20th century, buddy! We now have these new wall-mounted blow dryers." And Man #2 turns on the blow dryer and dries his hands underneath them as Man #1 exclaims, "That's great, I also washed my face!", as he points to his own dripping beard!
ixnay
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