The 1970's Were Tough

There is a new show on TV that is both hilarious and painful for me to watch. It’s called “The ‘70s House.”

This reality show features a group of eight young men and women, most of them barely in their 20s, who must live together in a house that represents the lifestyle of the 1970s. They have to eat, talk, dress and act exactly the way people did back in that decade. Every time one of them breaks the rules, he or she will be evicted from the house. The last person remaining will win an assortment of expensive prizes, including a new car.

I don’t think I realized just how tough we had it back in the 1970s until I saw the reactions of the contestants on the show.

“Look at this phone!” one of them exclaimed. “It’s attached to the wall and has a… cord… on it!” The group gathered to stare at the relic, which also had a rotary dial.

“No microwave?” another one asked, his eyes scanning the kitchen.

But their faces really paled when one of the show’s hosts announced that they had to hand over all of their modern-day items. “I want your cell phones, your CD players, your iPods, your laptop computers and your name-brand cosmetics and hair products,” she said. “None of those were around in the ‘70s.”

If she had told the group that all of them were about to undergo appendectomies without anesthesia, they couldn’t have looked more stricken.

“And now for a tour of the house,” the host said.

As she led the contestants through rooms of flowered wallpaper and shag carpeting, their eyes widened in disbelief, especially when the host pointed out the state-of-the-art stereo system that included a record turntable and an 8-track tape player.

“I’ve never seen an 8-track before,” one of the girls, visibly awed, said.

My eyes immediately darted toward my own stereo, which had a Bay City Rollers tape still sticking out of the 8-track player.

The contestants also laughed when they were given a crash course in the language of the 1970s and were told that they had to begin using words such as “groovy,” “flower power,” “outta sight” and “far out.”

But what cracked them up the most was the clothing of the 1970s, which the show provided for them and insisted that they wear.

“This polyester isn’t very comfortable,” one guy said, wincing as he tried to adjust the crotch of his pants, which clung to him like a second skin.

When I saw the guys standing there in their hideous plaid polyester bell-bottoms, matching vests and Frankenstein-like platform shoes, I dissolved into laughter.

My husband frowned at me. “I had a pair of pants just like those green and blue ones!”

“Now that you mention it, didn’t they go with your green leisure-suit jacket?” I laughed even harder.

I stopped laughing, however, when the girls emerged from the bedroom and one of them was wearing a wildly flowered sack-dress that practically was a clone of one of my favorite dresses back in the ‘70s. Even worse, the girls were standing on some ugly carpeting that looked exactly like the one we still have in our living room.

“Now, I’m going to teach all of you how to do a popular 1970s’ dance called the Hustle!” the host said brightly.

Ironically, just the other day my husband and I had been talking about the “good old days” when we used to go out dancing and do a pretty mean Hustle, and how over the years, we’d completely forgotten how to do the dance.

We were offered a refresher course as the contestants on TV lined up in their polyester finery and attempted to learn the Hustle. Awkwardly they flapped their arms and clomped around with all of the grace of a herd of elephants…drunken elephants.

“Did we look that ridiculous when we used to do the Hustle?” my husband finally asked me.

“Lord, I hope not.”

Half of the show’s contestants, because they’d won an earlier basketball challenge, were told that they were going to be treated to a special meal that was really popular back in the 1970s…fondue. They seemed less than thrilled, mainly because most of them had no clue what fondue was.

As one of the guys popped a speared melted-cheese-covered cube of bread into his mouth, he made a face that usually would be reserved for smelling a stink bomb.

“This tastes more like fon-don’t!” he muttered.

The show ended with one of the contestants being evicted because he mentioned that he wanted to get Botox, a procedure that was unheard of back in the 1970s.

To be honest, I can’t wait to see next week’s show. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up spotting a clone of my current living-room set on there.