When you think of the 1970s, what do you think of? Disco? Watergate? The end of the Viet Nam war? Awful chain restaurants? Cocaine?
Those are all good answers, but if you want to really experience the 1970s in the U.S. of A (or at least my suburban bit of it)., there’s one cultural touchstone that sums it up better than any other and you seldom hear about it anymore: The TV variety show. Now, maybe this collective amnesia is a defense mechanism or maybe it’s just that we all remember it but we’re too embarrassed to talk about it, but it was there. It was a thing. It was everywhere.
What was a “variety show”? It was weird. The most common form was an hour-long show featuring a somewhat-popular musical artist which would feature monologues, skits, comedy, and, of course, musical numbers. Many of these features would follow the same format from week to week: “It’s now time for everyone’s favorite part of the show, ‘He’s a little bit country; she’s a little bit rock and roll!’”
If that sounds awful, then I’ve done a good job describing it. Most of these shows were not good. They were something you’d watch because there was almost guaranteed to be something that someone in the family would enjoy…sort of. It was the Bennigan’s approach to television: If we put enough stuff on the menu, everyone will be able to find something they can eat.
One of the biggest was a holdover from the 60s. It was called “Hee Haw” and it starred country and western legends Buck Owens and Roy Clark. I doubt I can describe just how deeply weird this show was, but I’ll give it a shot. Everyone looked like they’d stolen their outfits from a high school production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. They sang (of course), they did stand up, they did singing comedy, they did comedy interspersed with both “pickin’” and “grinnin’”, I think there were some farmer’s-daughter type girls for some jiggle.
Many others followed this same formula. Sonny and Cher were probably the most successful, especially if you count the post-Sonny Cher show (there would be no solo Sonny show). Donnie and Marie Osmond had a show. The Jacksons did, as did Flip Wilson*, Mac Davis, Tony Orlando & Dawn, and Bobby Goldsboro. The Captain and Tennille had a moderately successful show in spite of (or because of) the fact that “The Captain” was the living avatar of what would become known as “yacht rock”. Sha-Na-Na apparently had a show although now one remembers it, even the members of Sha-Na-Na.
The cast of the Brady Bunch had a variety show. If that doesn’t fill you with lurking horror, I’m not sure what will. If you ever saw the Simpsons’ short where they had a variety show, please understand this one thing: It wasn’t parody; it was exactly the same as the shows of that era.
Skip to 16:06. I apologize for the quality, but needs must when copyrights are being violated.
The pinnacle of this trend would have to be the Shields and Yarnell show. Remember Shields and Yarnell? No? Let me educate you. Shields and Yarnell were popular mimes in the 1970s. Think on that for a moment. They were actually pretty funny, but the idea that there were mimes popular enough to get their own TV show tells you more about the decade than any history book is likely to do.
Now, the ones that didn’t quite hew to the same formula weren’t all bad. Laugh In was terrific, as was Soul Train, and Carol Burnett. Oh, and technically, Saturday Night Live was (and still is) a variety show. What these shows had in common was some sense of an edge. The rest of them were uniformly populated by bland, middle of the road artists doing safe routines and safe music and telling safe jokes.
Honestly, it would be much cooler if the 1970s were best represented by disaster movies, polyester suits, and the Ford years. Alas, none of those were the true character of the decade. Just like we remember New Wave music from the 80s and tend to forget that what people were really listening to was Huey Lewis, Lionel Richie, and Phil Collins, we tend to forget the bland-but-genuinely-popular aspects of the culture and latch on to the more interesting stuff. Which, honestly, is probably for the best.
* I hate lumping Flip Wilson in with this group because Flip was awesome. He deserves better, but his show didn’t.