Thursday, February 17, 2005

Happy Days and the late 70s

The other night ABC had a 30 year retrospective/reunion show on HAPPY DAYS. Very nice show; they even had a segment on the "jumping the shark" episode, although they were a bit, hmmm, nuanced on the exact definition.

Of course, this also got me thinking about other things going on circa 25-30 years ago:

Cell phones were the size of bricks (A "brick" is something that used to be employed more often in the building of houses.).

Music came on vinyl disks the size of dinner plates.

Beta vs. VHS

8-track vs. cassette.

There were only three television networks. Most of the country received them via a piece of wire called an "antenna."

64K was considered a lot of memory for a computer.

There was only one long distance telephone company.

Saturday morning cartoons were actually cool and an entire generation learned the words of the Preamble to the Constitution during the commercial breaks.

Chrysler was still an American company (although the recipient of a government bailout) and its most prominent product was the K car.

Chicago had a mayor who was not named Richard Daley.

Jimmy Carter, a former peanut farmer and submariner, was president of the United States. (On February 19, the Navy will commission the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter, a Seawolf-class attack submarine, in his honor).

Ellen Raskin won the 1979 Newbery Award for The Westing Game.

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