This Week on "Dateline: 1971": Mail-Order Catalog from 1970

This week's post on "Dateline: 1971" is a really interesting Flickr gallery of a mail-order catalog from 1970. Filled with knick-knacks and other '70s-era household objects, it triggered nostalgic memories on my part, and will likely do the same for anyone who grew up in the 1970s.

Dateline: 1971, Blogging the Year of My Birth

In addition to "Chris' MediaLog" I have another blog called "Dateline: 1971." "D:71" features items related to the year 1971, the year of my birth. My general fascination with history, especially cultural and pop cultural history, finds more specific form in looking for things connected to 1971, to better understand the world and the culture I was born into. "Dateline: 1971" has (and will have, as it is just starting up) video clips and images, links to historical items related to U.S. and international events, and other miscellany, all related to 1971. To broaden the scope a little bit (and perhaps also the interest level of readers), I will probably include some stuff related to the early-1970s more generally.

I intend to make a posting to "Dateline: 1971" about once a week. This week's posting is a video clip from a 1971 "Tonight Show" episode guest hosted by Burt Reynolds. If you're a child of the 1970s, like me, you might find it interesting.

The MediaLog MediaFix: "Hot Hero Sandwich" (1979)

As I (sort of) promised last week, this MediaFix is the final installment of the great 1970s trilogy of kids shows with the word "hot" in the title and having something to do with food. (See also, "Hot Dog" from 1970 and "Hot Fudge" from c. 1976.) "Hot Hero Sandwich" was, in the words of YouTube user 70sKidVid (who posted the clip), "a kind of Saturday Morning Live, it was taped at the same studio as SNL, the show featured comedy sketches, musical performances, as well as interviews with various celebrities."

The celebrities certainly were varied. The episode from which this excerpt is drawn featured the incredible celebrity guest line-up of Loretta Lynn, Leonard Nimoy, and Richard Pryor. This clip is the show's extended opening credits sequence, naming the regular cast as well as the guest stars (alas, it contains none of the actual show itself, though). "Hot Hero Sandwich" aired for only a few months, between November 1979 and April 1980, on NBC at noon on Saturdays.

(Length: 2:20; source: YouTube, user 70sKidVid)

The MediaLog MediaFix: "Hot Fudge" (c. 1976)

Earlier this week, the MediaFix featured a quirky early-1970s kids' show called "Hot Dog." Here's a dessert serving of the same kind of show, from a little later in the '70s, called "Hot Fudge." "Hot Fudge" was a somewhat different show, perhaps even more in the "Laugh-In," quick cuts, non sequitur style I mentioned in the "Hot Dog" post. "Hot Fudge," which was syndicated from 1976-1980, also borrowed significantly from "Sesame Street," namely in the puppet characters here called "Mits." The show's first season, from which this excerpt is drawn, also featured a "Laugh-In" cast member, Arte Johnson, just as "Hot Dog" did (with JoAnne Worley).

The excerpt begins with the opening theme segment for "Hot Fudge" ("It's the Hot Fudge Show comin' on!"), proceeds to a short bit with a couple of Mits, continues with a viewer-mail segment called "Write On!" (don't groan, it was the '70s) that features a Mit that looks and acts like Groucho Marx (complete with cigar), and closes with Arte Johnson presenting some "Hug Awards."

Not all of the shows from this subgenre had "hot" in the title, although I may have to complete the trilogy next week by trying to find a clip from "Hot Hero Sandwich"!

(Length: 5:42; video source: FuzzyMemories.TV via YouTube)

The MediaLog MediaFix: "Hot Dog" (1970)

Much of the TV programming from the late-1960s and early-1970s looks very strange to us now, and the children's show "Hot Dog" certainly qualifies. There was a wave of kids' programs during this period that featured short (often comic) bits, animation, non sequiturs, and other "Laugh-In"-inspired segments. ("Sesame Street" is perhaps the most influential such show.) "Hot Dog" was a program that featured segments explaining how different things worked, such as this excerpt about how a baseball glove is made. Jonathan Winters and Woody Allen (for whom "Hot Dog" was his only regular TV series) were series regulars, and both appear in the clip above. (JoAnne Worley, best known from "Laugh-In" itself, was another regular.) As far as I can tell, the series title, "Hot Dog," is simply a goofy name meant, I guess, to appeal to kids. The show only lasted a single year, airing midday on Saturdays on NBC, from the fall of 1970 to the fall of 1971, winning a Peabody award in 1971.

(Length: 4:27; source: Google Video)