I Love the '70s

i was lucky enough to catch this 10 episode miniseries on vh1 during the summer of 2003. being a child of the 80s, i initially wasnt much interested in watching. but after 5 minutes, i was hooked and ive been watching the repeats every time i see them on.

i love the 70s offers an hour long recap of a particular year of the decade, complete with all of the wacky toys, stupid movies, memorable tv shows and some of the most familiar faces of the 70s. commentary is offered by such second rate stars as mo rocca, michael ian black, and greg proops, although after seeing their sardonic, comedic genius on the show you wonder why their careers havent taken off as of yet, mo and michael in particular.

i love watching the witty one liners and the various stars playing with pet rocks and sea monkeys, and even though i wasnt alive yet in the 70s, i feel as if im reliving a part of my childhood that never existed. i love the 70s made me wish i had caught the previous i love the 80s, where im sure i would have had as much fun (and probably would have remembered a lot more). i loved these 70s!

I Love the 70s, which has in the years following its first on-air release, spawned off I Love the 80s, 90's, and their decade's sequels, is a show that is not immediately accessible, or at least wasn't for me. But the more I watched it the more I got into it. Especially because, well, I do love the 70's, however in the sense of the films, (some of the) music, the pop-culture stuff at times. It takes a little getting used to, perhaps, because the commentators on the shows can be a little much at times, or maybe just not too funny. But there are just some comedians or lesser-than-A-celebrities that need some time to grow on a viewer. A prime example of this is Michael Ian Black, who started out with the crew from the funny show the State, and also did Wet Hot American Summer. Here is is without a doubt the most deadpan sarcastic of the commentators, and at first it's sort of not funny. Then the more times I've watched him since, on this and the spin-offs, he's become pretty amusing. The same goes for a lot of the others on the show, which include dozens of celebrities from the period to comment on the shows, the music, the fashion, the toys, movies, and news stories that changed the decade from Vietnam to Watergate to disco and Jimmy Carter and onward. It's not Ken Burns type documentary stuff, it's just goofy entertainment that becomes good, watchable junk food TV. But that being said, it's probably one of my favorite kinds of junk-food TV on now, and is certainly one of the only things worth checking out (at least once) on the VH1 station.

I have been totally sucked into the VH1 I LOVE THE 70s,I LOVE THE 80s and I LOVE THE 80s STRIKES BACK. I started watching because I am a big fan of 70s and 80s pop culture. But along the way I realized that Hal Sparks is the real reason to watch. He's the funniest person I've ever seen on tv in my life. I would watch him to enema infommercials if that was the only gig he could get.(Oh yeah,the other commentators where good too.)

Not as good as "I Love the 80s" but it was still pretty good. But they didn't mention the nixon thing or elvis dying... hmm still good though. I love Hal Spark, Michael Ian Black and all the comedians, it was funny. kinda funny that all the years (practically) mentioned porn... neways can't wait for "80s Strike Back"

VH1 scored a hit with "I Love The '80s." It was funny, accurate, covered a wide range of subjects, kept a good pace, and it had a lot of interesting comments from people who knew what they were talking about. The latter point is the very thing that I feel "I Love the '70s." was lacking.

The majority of the people making their comments on the 1970s were from people who were not even 10 years old by the time the 70s were over! Drew Barrymore, for instance, was only alive for 5 years of the 1970s. Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child wasn't even born until 1981! How do these people have any credibility what-so-ever when talking about the 1970s? And the worst part is that their lines, this time around, are clearly scripted and therefore totally unoriginal and not credible at all.

These children of the 80s are talking about the 70s in such a nostalgic manner that you'd think they were 20 years older than they actually are. Hal Sparks was born in 1971, and yet in the 1971 (I believe it was 71, perhaps 72, but that's all just semantics and completely besides the point) episode he was reminiscing about the introduction of the waterbed and talking about how it turned out to be such a miserable invention as if he were there and fully developed to remember it actually happening. The point is, the man was anywhere from not even born yet, to a maximum of 2 years old when these events were going on... And I'm supposed to think his opinion on the subject is credible? I may as well talk to a middle schooler about the 1960s.

In addition to these (in my opinion serious) quibbles, I would also say that the jokes were lackluster, the humor was minimal, the picture quality was annoying (all of the old commercials and ads were so grainy that it was almost intolerable to look at...only the clips of films here have held up the test of time in the visibility department, in my opinion), the pacing was just too rapid and there was far too much coverage of topics that I just personally did not find interesting. There should have been a far greater emphasis on the ways in which music evolved and all sorts of new genres were created throughout the course of the 1970s, and less emphasis on TV commercials, crappy consumer products, political BS, and little "Do you remember this?" garbage... Why not show the stuff that succeeded and is loved to this day, not what failed and is completely useless to speak of unless good, witty jokes are associated with them (which, I felt, were not, in this series). More music and film coverage and the ways that both media were revolutionized, expanded upon, and experimented with throughout the 70s would have been welcome.

Overall, I'd say that "I Love the 70's" left a lot to be desired. And that's a shame, because - dammit - I love the 70s!