Have you been living free in harmony and majesty like we did back in the 1970s?
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Charles Sellier Jr., the man who created "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams,” has died at the age of 67.
Loosely based on an actual person who escaped into the wilderness in 1853 after being accused of a murder he didn’t commit, Grizzly Adams is a bearded, barrel-chested man (played by Dan Haggerty) who counts among his friends raccoons, skunks, ferrets, deer, coyotes, porcupines, an eagle and, of course, the abandoned grizzly bear cub who matures into a powerful companion named Ben.ADDED: Did you have the same question I had?: Is Ben the same Ben as "Gentle Ben"? The answer is no: "there is no connection between the bears."
Wow! The 60s were so different from the 70s. The 60s had a lot of 50s in them, and the 70s had a lot of 60s, but not the part of the 60s that was leftover from the 50s. If you're not old like me, maybe those distinctions sound meaningless, but if you are, I bet you know exactly what I mean.
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Michael Jackson was the original 1970's animal whisperer: Link
I know exactly what you mean.
The titles and the music kind of give it away, don't they?
That's the exact question I was asking! And already an answer.
And I know what you mean, even if I wasn't born until the 70s
Both Bens deny any relationship to Michael Jackson....real or implied
Which reminds me of the rarely seen followup to the Barbra Streisand movie where she disguised herself as a boy, studied at yeshiva, came to the US. In the sequel she traveled to the west and befriended a bear. It was called "Yentl Ben".
I stick to feeding the birds because they can't eat me. At least while I'm alive.
At age 66, yes I DO, Ann. And your description is dead on. Of course that cross-over point during the decade when the previous decades' imprint varies with geography as, say, between Berkeley and Baton Rouge, but I always put it at my graduation date of '66 to summer of 67 as the cross-over point--certainly NO LATER than summer, '67 (the "summer of love" remember "the song "Are you going to San Francisco?")
The general atmosphere of the early 60's was one of optimism and good-feeling all-round beginning with the election of JFK in '60. This was because the conservatives thought everything was going to stay the same, but "improve" without really "changing" (as one commentator said: "We didn't want to change '*anything*, we just wanted to improve *everything.*) while the left thought EVERYTHING was going to change for the better. As events were to subsequently prove, both camps were sadly, utterly, mistaken..
Can't believe how bad the TV show music was.
I know exactly what you mean too. But, if you lay it down on a continuum, it all makes a sort of sense. What intrigues me is trying to pinpoint those moments in the 60's where the transtion between the two commenced. I say it was somewhere between JFK's assassination and the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan (it's a little strange by itself to realize it was only 2-1/2 months between those events).
Grizzly Adams was one of those few shows we got in Germany in the 70's on the Armed Forces network. I remember as a 5-6-7 year old loving this show.
Yep. I graduated high school in 1966, and we were pretty 50s. It was like my younger brother, who graduated in 1970, lived in an entirely different culture.
Sixty, a trualy awful pun. Wish I'd thought of it - and I will if I retell it. Ha ha ha
Loosely based on a real person is putting it mildly. Real Adams was a grizzly hunter. Killed or captured a lot of bears.
I don't know exactly what you mean (I was born in 1962). I haven't thought of the show Gentle Ben in years. I have thought of the Brady Bunch (a show in the 70s) off and on over the years. I'll have to reflect on what part of the 60s the Brady Bunch had in it.
"The 60s had a lot of 50s in them . . . "
For sure. I was in college 61-65, and it was the 50's socially, but the 60's political and intellectual mood was creeping in.
Socially it changed more in the last half of the decade.
The real Grizzly Adams was a character.
Wasn't Michael Jackson the Macaulay whisperer?
I remember Gentle Ben. But Flipper was better.
Wasn't Michael Jackson the Macaulay whisperer?
...too soon...
Three observations are in order here: 1)The times they were a changing.2) But didn't we have fun. and 3)Youth is wasted on the young. Sellier was a producer looked for the good in our cultural traditions and he found it. Not that there is anything wrong with the bad.
The "Sixties" as popular culture seems to think of them, didn't really exist until about 1967 or 1968, and lasted until about 1975. (Perhaps April 30th, 1975, if you want a precise date.)
The "Fifties" on the other hand, lasted from about 1946 to 1966.
"if you are, I bet you know exactly what I mean. . ."
I think I do, because certain things like the music changed so quickly then. By the time we got to Woodstock (1969) 1950s doo-wop music sounded hilarious, which is why Shanana presented it as comedy. The same with some of the other pop music of the early 60s. Since then, with the exception of the addition of rap and hip-hop, the music doesn't seem to have changed much; the 1970s-1990s music they play on the radio doesn't sound particularly foolish.
Also, by the end of the 60s the car styles of the 50s and early 60s looked really bizarre. Car styles don't change in the same way anymore.
However, I admit that I'm not the best judge of the zeitgeist as I'm in late middle age and living like a hermit.
When did Althouse turn into Lileks?
Yes it is tough explaining these things to people younger than you (i.e., didn't live in the 60's) so you seek out your cronies. Five Easy Pieces (1970) was on TCM this week and that really brought me back. I watched Easy Rider with my wife a couple of weeks ago and she couldn't believe that someone would shoot some nice but deluded hippies.
The past seems so passed.
Although the 60s really start when Doc Spock and Stokely Carmichael walked arm in arm up Telegraph Hill in the first big anti-war protest in the spring of '66, the 50s don't end culturally until the spring of '68.
As to Grizzly Adams, the cultural 60s were a vacation from reality. A mountain man was always looking for food - and that meant lots of meat. Those guys were about as non-vegan (and non hopey-changey, peace-and-love, New Age) as you could get.
PS Also anent Griz, the last good Westerns died out in '67.
Were short neck ties "in" during the 1950s or 1960s?
It appears Gentle Ben is wearing a short necktie in that intro video.
I totally get it. By the way, where is the 90s nostalgia. Weird right? By this time in 2001, we had already lived through 5 years of 80s nostalgia.
Because of Gentle Ben, every kid at my elementary school wanted an air-boat.
I watched the tv version of Alice's Restaurant the other day. Guys were being beaten by citizens and harassed by the police just because they had long hair. Ah, those were the days. I was thankful for having run track and cross country - where I lived the vigilantes tended to not be in such good physical shape - they never caught me, try as they might.
WV: fluxe - a type of capacitor, in France. What ever happened to 80s nostalgia?
Dennis Weaver, UT track star, faked a limp on Gun Smoke, somehow recovered on Gentle Ben, but Opie was still clueless.
Wv:purgati US went through purgati in late 60s.
Will this overemphasis on nostalgia disappear when the baby boomers do?
At 59, I do know what you mean. And I think it can be explained by pointing out that the iconographic 50s began in earnest the day the Korean War ended in '53. They didn't end -- and the 60s didn't begin -- until November 22, 1963. The 70s began on August 9, 1974. As for the 80s, I'd point out to either the day the "Gay Plague" got its name, or the Dow began its rapid ascent, which in memory were about the same time.
"By the way, where is the 90s nostalgia."
Portland.
The change started with the twist, when couples didn't dance together, and was complete when they stopped
dancing and sat down to listen to
music. Sargent Pepper's, Cream, Mother's of Invention.
...who counts among his friends raccoons, skunks, ferrets,...
He was in Congress?
@ g joubert: Remember the Berkeley riots? Mario Savio? From my viewpoint that was when it first started to go pearshaped.
@Rich B: One of my favorite memories of the old Tonight Show was Al Capp (a frequent Carson guest), who was intensely conservative was when he was asked for his opinion of "Easy Rider": he paused for effect, then said sweetly, "Well, at least it had a happy ending."
Read about Dan Haggerty who played the lead role here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Haggerty
I was born in '47, my brother and sister, twins, in '52. I graduated high school in '66, they in '71. We grew up in totally different worlds.
I know exactly what you mean. I had a relative by marriage who was 8 years older than me. Her teens were formed by Jackie O and Cosmopolitan, mine were formed by the the Beatles and the Summer of Love. We were clearly from 2 different generations
"Although the 60s really start when Doc Spock and Stokely Carmichael walked arm in arm up Telegraph Hill".
The 60s started with the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in Feb 1964. Ended sometime in the early 70s, maybe when cocaine replaced pot as the hip drug of choice. Maybe when the Vietnam War ended.
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