Redartz: Greetings, and welcome once again to another excursion back in time on the Retro Metro! For today's trip we are returning back to the earlier Bronze age, back to November 1972. We woke up this morning to news that Richard Nixon was re-elected to the U.S. Presidency in a landslide. We note that East and West Germany have signed a treaty to normalize relations. But time for looking over the morning newspaper is over (although we do skim the comics quickly); the school bus is almost here.
Climbing on a grabbing a seat, we hear the current top song on the American Billboard Hot 100: Johnny Nash, "I Can See Clearly Now". A great, optimistic tune that seems to be playing everywhere.
Rounding out the top five:
2. The Moody Blues, "Nights in White Satin"
3. Lobo, "I'd Love You to Want Me"
4. Curtis Mayfield, "Freddie's Dead (Theme from Superfly)"
5. The Spinners, "I'll Be Around"
The Spinners, "I'll Be Around"
I love that Moody Blues epic, some incredible symphonic rock there. Of course we usually only hear the short version on the radio. And that Spinners song is very cool, always good to hear it come on. Of course there are some other notable tunes on the top 40 right now: Alice Cooper's "Elected" (amusingly timed with the US elections this week). America's "Ventura Highway" (another great tune from that new group). Seals and Crofts "Summer Breeze" and The Temptations "Papa Was a Rolling Stone"- two more favorites; "Breeze" is mellow, and "Papa"packs a soulful wallop.
Tops in the UK: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Clair"
Oh, but hey; it's Thursday, some great stuff on tv tonight! Let's check the listings...
U.S. Television Schedule:
ABC: The Mod Squad, Kung Fu, The Streets of San Francisco
Kung Fu is a highlight of my week! Watching David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, wandering the West and spreading wisdom? Count me in. That show is unlike any other I've ever seen. It's hugely popular among those at our school.
CBS: The Waltons, CBS Thursday Night Movie
My folks never miss The Waltons, nor do many other folks. But my tastes at that hour run to NBC.
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| Flip Wilson |
NBC: The Flip Wilson Show, Ironside, The Dean Martin Show
Comedian Flip Wilson's variety show is cool, hilarious, and oriented a bit more towards younger folk than, say, Dean Martin's show. And Wilson often features big current musical guests.
BBC1: Tomorrow's World in Israel, Top of the Pops, Sykes Ankle, One Man's China, Colditz, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Midweek
BBC2: Europa, War and Peace, Backstage, Horizon, Thirty Minute Theatre, Paul Williams
A big "thank you" to the UK, and to public television (PBS) here in the states for 'Monty Python". My cousin turned me on to the show, and now I devour each wild episode. Eric Idle, John Cleese, Michael Palin and the whole crew faithfully deliver a half hour of sheer madness. It's great for the soul and spirit!
Turning our attention now to the printed element of our pop cultural triumvirate, let's see what's out on the spinner racks:
At this point, I'm pretty much buying humor books, but I got that Archie at Riverdale High issue, and Barney and Betty Rubble. I notice the cool photo cover on Action comics, and that Marvel Team-up features two eternally popular characters. But for now I pass on them (but in about two more years, I'll be frantically hunting them down- oh, if I'd only had the foresight).
But what about you? How many of these did you grab up? Were you a Kung Fu-natic, or did other shows get your patronage? What were your memories of '72; and if you were too young, what looks (looked?) good to you now? Let us all in on it; and be sure to 'stay tuned' for the next episode of "Retro Metro"; coming soon!
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21 comments:
Dude - this was really my sweet spot for pop culture as I was all of 11 years old! You certainly are causing my mind to swirl at 6:20 AM, LOL!
But Kung FU was special in that my brother and I only watched the last couple minutes to watch him unload a bucket of Billy Jack hurt on the antagonist, LOL. We were way too impatient for the story to develop, lol!
Little before my time - I was 3 and then 4 years old then, so this goes back to some of my very earliest coherent memories. I do vaguely recall watching - on the family's litle black and white TV - the Mod Squad, as my older siblings liked that show, although a bit later they switched loyalties to the Waltons, as I recall seeing that on and off at that early stage in my life. (As for Monty Python, yes, thanks so much to PBS for bringing that to us Statesiders.)
Obviously, I wasn't reading comics yet, although I did later read some of these offerings from 1972.
I just have to say that on the topic of music, I'm a bit surprised that a song from from the Superfly soundtrack charted so high, and it's interesting that it was "Freddie's Dead" and not the theme song, "Pusherman" (although, considering the lyrics, I'm sure a lot of AM top 40 stations would have been leery about playing that track on the air). Regardless, that entire album is simply a masterpiece.
There's not much on the BBC that appeals to me, but my TV highlight of the day is, "Colditz," which I love, David McCallum, Robert Wagner and others trying to escape the notorious German prison. Bernard Hepton as the Kommandant, trying to shield the prisoners from the worst excesses of the SS. Hans Meyer as his hard-as-rock but ultimately decent second-in-command. Anthony Valentine as a chilling major, placed there by Hitler to keep his beady eye on things. Easily one of the best acted TV shows of all time.
As for those American shows, I'd definitely watch, "Kung Fu," and, "The Streets of San Franciso." I'll watch anything that begins with the words, "A Quinn Martin Production. Act One." On the other hand, I'd definitely avoid, "The Waltons," which was far too wholesome for my tastes.
When it comes to the charts, the UK Top 5 is abysmal. Gilbert O'Sullivan's determinedly pedestrian, "Clair," at Number One. Lieutenant Pigeon's, "Mouldy Old Dough," at Two. 10CC's, "Donna," at Three. "Loop Di Love," by, erm... ...Shag, at Five. It was definitely not a week for connoisseurs of fine music.
Not only that but Chuck Berry's woeful, "My Ding-A-Ling," was at Number Six.
Anyway, among the tracks that I did approve of that week were:
7 - "In a Broken Dream," by Python Lee Jackson/Rod Stewart.
20 - "Crocodile Rock," by Elton John.
27 - "Crazy Horses," by the Osmonds.
34 - "America," by Simon and Garfunkel.
45 - "House of the Rising Sun," by the Animals, which seemed to be a permanent fixture on the charts between 1965 and 1985.
Just a few scant months before entering the Marvel Universe.., it was a wonderful time. Some of the old classics like 'Hogans Heroes', Ed Sullivan and other 60s left-overs were still on the tube, holding on for dear life. I never quite got into the Kung Fu stuff (ever...), but like most I remember 'Longstreet' had just ended and you were still in midst of all the rash of 'detectives-with-a-handicap', like Ironsides. Also watched were the Partridges, the Bradys, Hawaii 5-0 and Laugh-In.
I do really need to pick up 'Colditz', I love Wagner and McCallum, so I'll look for it on DVD. Other than my parents breaking up at that time.., it was alright. First started getting my GI Joes, the removable-mask Mego Batman and Robin were just a few months away. In grade school, we were 'voting' for either Nixon or McGovern. For me, 'the times were a-changin'...'
Well, I was only about 6 months old, so no memories of this time. You're right about The Waltons, though; my parents were still watching it 6 or 7 years later.
I've read a few of the comics you featured; I seem to remember that Hulk/Tiger Shark fight at Niagara Falls being pretty cool.
Not yet reading comic books, but I remember watching Kung Fu and The Waltons. Oddly enough I enjoyed both programs even though I suspect they had different target audiences. My memories of both programs are probably from later seasons.
I always loved the opening sequence where Cain picked up the red hot brazier with his forearms leaving tattoos on both arms. Was also fond of the walking on rice paper sequence.
A little too early for me but wow, doesn't that Action cover look good!
And how worthy and dry the BBC scheduling. No wonder us British young uns were so into American pop culture throughout the 70s.
Happily, my family never got into watching The Waltons. But, man - I miss Flip Wilson. To a youngster, the Dean Martin show was rather surreal. We just didn't have a solid reference for much of the dialog, and the show felt like one of the Officer's Parties we'd peek at from the landing.
We watched Kung Fu, but it was a comedy after returning from Asia. Somehow, though, the silly slo-mo effects worked so much better a few years later when The Six Million Dollar Man added sound effects.
On the comics front, i hunted every corner market with a spinner rack for those old Joe Kubert Tarzans. I was reading ERB's novels & short stories obsessively from the library, and Kubert's art seemed so perfect for the book.
And, like Colin said - doesn't that Action cover look good!
This was pre comics for me by a couple of years.
I did go to my first ball game, White Sox vs Tigers in Tiger Stadium. That would launch my life long love of the game.
On tv, the shows that I know for sure the family was watching were;
Flip Wilson
Room 222
Emergency!
Kung Fu- loved it, even collected the trading cards.
Great music there. I'll add Frankenstein from the Edgar Winter Group.
It was a little too early for me as well. From November at DC all I have is Supergirl who was pretty ubiquitous at the time.
At Marvel, though, Daredevil was co-habitating with Black Widow (he even shared title honors!), although I think because shacking up before marriage was way out in 1972, so it was played that they just lived in the same building on different floors. Iron Man was in a bit of a slump though--lots of really mediocre villains and stories. Both houses were still cranking out the romances, and wow, now that I look at it did Marvel have a lot of western stuff, too. I think that's the one genre of which I own really next to zero, save for the Atlas Kid Cody stuff just for completion's sake.
And on westerns, I caught Kung Fu on reruns when I got older, but I was completely baffled by what folks saw in it. A karate western with so little action from both sides? I just couldn't dig it.
Selenarch - I was like you regarding Kung Fu. Except for the few seconds of our hero going Billy Jack on the antagonists it was much too slow for this kid.
Knights in White Satin - I clearly remember my buddies and I arguing at summer camp which was better "Riders on the Storm" released in June 1971 or Knights in White Satin released in 1972? 1971 is plausible b/c I just wiki'd that K in WS was first released 1967 by the Moody Blues and re-released in 1972. So... was I arguing with my buddies in 71 or 72?
Loved Room 222 which must have been based on To Sir With Love - I have to assume you UK gents know To Sir With Love which is a fine film. Did you guys like it?
Partridge Family - I work next to a bunch of ladies in HR. A few years ago, I youtubed "I Think I love You" and played it just loud enough for them to hear it through the walls. The older girls went craaaazy, LOL!!! It's a great tune.
And DD with the Black Widow... I still recall cutting out a splash page from DD 93 or 94 of the two of them swinging into action and posting on the bedroom wall. Gene the Dean was in superb form!
From Terry in Virginia:
Looking back at 1972, some highs (and a few lows) in the entertainment world. Some of these I didn’t really get into until a couple years later, but based on release dates… here goes:
Movies:
Slaughterhouse-Five (an excellent adaption of the Kurt Vonnegut novel)
La Valle (The Valley) (My favorite all-time film. By French director Barbet Schroeder; music by Pink Floyd)
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Herzog’s finest -- if you’re into existential darkness, that is)
The Godfather (My Dad took me since it was Rated “R”; and to be honest, I didn’t like it and still don’t).
Play it Again, Sam (Possibly Woody Allen’s best movie; and that actor playing Bogart? Dead-on!)
The Cowboys (my 2nd favorite John Wayne movie, afte True Grit)
Deliverance (a dark and disturbing film, but really well-done; plus, who can forget Dueling Banjos?)
The Posiedon Adventure (an awful movie that I really liked at the time)
TV Shows:
M*A*S*H: The first (and best) season. The show got pretty heavy-handed later on, but the first couple of seasons kept a nice balance of seriousness and laugh-out-loud comedy.
All in the Family (2nd season -- still really good and funny, and, like M*A*S*H, it hadn’t gotten stale yet)
Kung-Fu: Loved it. A weird combination of philosophy and kicking-butt.
Comics
Swamp Thing #1 (and we lost both of it’s creators in 2017)
Tarzan #207 (premiere issue of Joe Kubert’s version)
Weird Worlds (John Carter of Mars by Wolfman/Anderson; Pellucidar drawn by Alan Weiss)
New Gods #7 (This issue revealed for the first time “The Pact” between Darkseid and Highfather -- trading their sons, Orion and Scott Free, for a peace accord between their warring worlds)
Justice League of America #96-98 (Mike Friedrich’s Starbreaker trilogy was one of the best JLA tales of the period).
Superman #252: 100 Page Super-Spectacular. Almost every story in this collection of reprints was from the 1940s, exposing my 14-year old self to Sheldon Moldoff’s Hawkman, Lou Fine’s The Ray and Black Condor, and Jack Burnley’s Starman, among others.
DC’s Golden Age reprints in general: Again, my first experience with Simon and Kirby’s Newsboy Legion, Sandman, Manhunter, and Boy Commandos; Bernard Baily’s Spectre and Hourman; Jerry Robinson’s Batman; Mac Raboy’s Kid Eternity; Chuck Cuirdera’s Blackhawk, Reed Crandall’s Doll Man, etc…..
Music:
Jefferson Airplane’s final album, Long John Silver (still one of my favorite albums)
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s Trilogy (this was the age of “Prog-Rock,” after all)
Pink Floyd: Meddle and Obscured by Clouds
Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street (old-school, back to basics rock ‘n’ roll)
Genesis: Foxtrot (the best from the Peter Gabriel era version of the band)
Black Sabbath Volume 4 (despite the band’s excessive abuse of drugs, this was still a good album; put another way: I knew Black Sabbath was kinda dumb even at 14, but I still love ‘em!)
Allman Brothers Band: Eat a Peach (the last album to feature Duane Allman)
And remember Comedy Albums? A lost art form. From 1972:
George Carlin: Class Clown
Cheech and Chong: Big Bambu
Lily Tomlin: This is a Recording (“Mr. Hoover? Mr. Jedger Hoover? Love your vacuum cleaners!”)
From Terry in Virginia:
Just in case my earlier post was too -- er -- "erudite/pompous" -- I reluctantly admit that I liked both The Partridge Family and The Waltons. And, yes, Charlie Horse, "I Think I Love You" was a great single (just don't tell my friends that I said so).
And, yeah, Days of Future Passed was indeed re-released in 1972 -- great album and trippy cover art!
Daredevil and Black Widow: Good stuff. I liked Bob Brown's pencil work on some of those, although I think I bought them as back issues a couple years after they came out. I just recently picked-up a couple of those issues at a convention in the dollar bin!
During my little read on The Moody's, Knights in White Satin was released at least 3 times and rose up the charts.
Someone has to explain to me how in the UK a song/album can re-chart several times? Whereas here in the USA you are basically "one and done?"
And by the way, having grown up in Gary, Indiana, Charlie has a deep, abiding and profound love for those Motown tunes that have been mentioned. "Freddy's Dead" and "Superfly" and indeed! I was lucky enough to see The Temptations and Micheal Jackson.
Keep on truckin, baby, keep on truckin!
Thanks for all the comments and memoirs, crew!
Charlie- we were close to the same age; I had a year on you. But I too loved "Partridge Family", and have a few of their tunes even now on my tablet. And "To Sir With Love" was a fine movie indeed...
Steve DC- glad you expounded a bit on "Colditz", now there's another film to look up.
david_b- yes, that was a great time. The last remnants of 60's culture blending with the burgeoning 70's. A fine time to be a kid (we were lucky). And we also did a mock election at school, if memory serves Nixon won handily in our classroom.
Eric- "Kung Fu" had a great intro, as you noted. The reliance on flashback sequences was a particularly cool, and effective, element of the series.
Killraven- Kung Fu had a trading card set? Wow, that would have been great. I had a few paperback novels based upon the show, but missed out on those cards. You still have any?
Terry- love your in-depth commentary on the era! That Cheech and Chong lp was the first comedy album I ever had. I don't think my parents would have approved, if they had known what it contained...
And fear not, you are far from alone in enjoying the Partridges; many of us here probably tuned in regularly to see that wild school bus and hear some fine pop songs. I always did.
I think I heard somewhere that over half the TV sets in the US of A, every Friday night, could be found watching The Brady Bunch and chasing that down with the Partridge Family (on ABC?)
It was a mass-marketer's dream to be able to reach so, so many people with one TV ad. (Much like you were able to reach 95% of women by advertising in 3 magazines: Home Journal, McCalls, and..?)
And, as Charlie digresses, I have to wonder do they even teach "mass marketing" in college anymore since we all live in our bubble, so to speak?
Regarding the Partridge Family, I recall the "big talk" when Keith posed neked in Tiger Beat or something like that? Wow... you'd a thunk the world just turned upside down!
Hey, Charlie, if mass marketing still exists it is probably about brand management. After all, bad news travels faster than good in the world these days...
Why did songs unexpectedly go back up the charts in the UK and not in the US?
Most likely, a song would get belated exposure on national media, esp. Top of the Pops. The US just didn't have the same integrated national market.
Alternatively and rarely, a song might get banned by the BBC thereby making it more popular (which is an amusing thought) or a media event or news story might raise the profile of a song or artist. Or a song made popular in clubs - like Blue Monday by New Order - would continue to get long-term sales from the dancefloor.
And sometimes, it was just a mystery!
Hey CB! Glad you are back as a regular, btw! (How'd your Seahawks do last night? I haven't checked the scores, yet.)
Anyhow, my only recollection of a song re-charting here in the USA was The Beatles "Got to Get You into My Life" which re-charted around 1976ish when Sir Paul had a hugely popular tune/album "Listen to What the Man Says." Of course AM Top-40 still ruled the airwaves and it was cool for a teen to, sort of, have a chance to live Beatlemania! I recall Time Magazine saying that there were a handful of other Beatle's tunes that re-charted in those few months too. Time had him on the cover with"Paul Comes Back!"
O/wise it seems to be "one and done" LOL.
Terry - You are so spot on about those DC Reprints! You listed my "Hall of Fame" from that time period! At $.50 for a 100 pages it was one heck of a deal! Alas it took Steranko's Historys (is that correct or should it be "Histories" since he wrote two History of Comics?) for me to put it all in perspective a few years later, LOL.
Thanks Charlie!
*shh* I haven't watched the game yet (it started at 1.30am GMT) so I don't know the score. Ask me again in a few hours...
"cue the circus music" play of the game from Russell Wilson. Seahawks 22 Cardinals 16. Tra la la.
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