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Found via Metafilter: This is what passed for TV entertainment in 1978. Donny and Marie singing an inexplicably peppy cover of Steely Dan's "Reelin' In the Years" on their show, accompanied by singing ice skaters. I could not make it more than halfway through the video before the smiling, happy people singing about a bitter breakup got to me and I had to leave.

I (vaguely) remember being a kid in the late 1970s and at the time, Donny and Marie were cool. But that was before I grasped the concept of TV schedules*, so I never knew what night or time the show was on, and relied on the old concept of turning on the TV and just hoping that the thing I wanted to see was airing, which means that I saw maybe two episodes of Donny and Marie during the time it was on.

* It was something that came late to me. I blame living in Africa without TV for that.

ETA: Head over to the Metafilter comment thread for other clips including one from The Lawrence Welk Show where Gale & Dale sang "One Toke Over the Line" which leads one to wonder how on earth they didn't realize (or figured their audience wouldn't realize) what it was about...they didn't even change it to "one toe over the line," which I'd think would be de rigueur for The Lawrence Welk Show.

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I always assumed that what they and the audience actually heard in that was "Blah blah blah-blah blah blah SWEET JESUS, blah blah blah-blah blah blah..."

An example of dogwhistle conditioning in a human audience, perhaps...

Welk referred to it as a "modern spiritual," so perhaps that was the case. As a kid, when hearing that song, I remember that I had no idea what a toke was, but I liked the catchiness of the music.

It could also be in part due to not having the faintest, slightest clue what a toke is and rolling confidently along anyway, rather like Browning and the "cowls and twats" of Pippa Passes.

I was exposed to a lot of literature when scanning my parents' library for salacious bits, and I remember eagerly reading Pippa Passes once I heard that there was a dirty word in it...but I had no idea what "twat" was either, so I never found the word until much, much later!

Oh my god the Donnie and Marie. The song is bad enough, and that's fine, but what the hell is going on with that opening? Apparently, that was every episode. What is going on.

I kind of think of the 1970s as the intersection of oncroaching senility and lead poisoning. My housemate Paul adds, "And low-quality drugs," as they'd only recently been made illegal and the startup illegal producers made particularly crappy product.

The 1970s: even the people who weren't on drugs were on drugs!

I'd claim the moral high ground for having never been a big Donny and Marie fan, but really, former hard-core Barry Manilow fans can't throw stones.

Edited 2014-06-23 17:55 (UTC)

:) I took a twirling class (yes! me!) and we had a choreographed routine to "Copacabana," which was THE COOLEST SONG EVAR at the time, so hey, glass houses.

Last year "Copacabana" actually got a bit of a reputation for being edgy amongst my nieces' Catholic grade school peers after they found out there was a bit about a murder in the lyrics that was cut out of the version they would perform for the school show.

Hee!

I remember watching Donnie and Marie! And as I recall, it was better than a good bit of what there was on TV, which gives you an idea of how bad TV was at the time. It was nothing on M.A.S.H. and the Carol Burnett Show, which were my family's favorites, but if they had good guests it could be quite entertaining.

And it was something the whole family could watch, and be on in the background while people were talking without missing any plot--I remember having it on at my grandparents' house when we were visiting.

The Muppet Show was, of course, the best variety show around! XD

Oh, yes! The Muppet Show, another family favorite.

And people actually used to ask why I did not own a TV until I married, and a tiny B&W came along with the spouse.

I had the Marie Osmond doll. My family also watched Sha-Na-Na and the Mandrell sisters' variety show--at the age of 5 I burned my hand with an iron from ironing while watching a Mandrell sisters episode, and all of that would be foreign to the youth of today--but at least we watched The Carol Burnett Show and The Muppet Show too.

Sha Na Na! I used to bike home with a friend and we'd watch it together!

Oh, God bless the Lawrence Welk show. My (late) mother and I watched them ironically on PBS in the late 1990s/early 2000s. I do remember WTF-ing "One Toke Over the Line." You should see the show where Lawrence decides to "be hip" and comes out in stereotypical hippie garb (think very early Sonny Bono) and made the audience just HOWL. Amazing entertainment in a way Mr. Welk never intended.