I don’t know what was going on in television during the 1970s. From what little I can remember, it was wall to wall cheap television.

Some of the cheapest television was all the variety shows, endless variety shows. It was like TV executives had found the perfect formula for making cheap television. It wasn’t like we were going to turn the channel. There were only 2 others to chose from, unless you counted that funky UHF channel you could never quite tune to.

Then there was Sid and Marty Krofft. I don’t know enough about them, but I remember enough to know they really loved colorful fabric, and they may or may not have done a little acid in the 1960s.

Sometime in the 1970s I remember my aunt freaking out when she found out Peter Frampton was going to perform on some live award show. She literally fell down in front to the television sobbing and occasionally reaching up to touch the screen. That’s how magical television was, too. It wasn’t like she could turn on MTV or pop in a VCR tape of Peter Frampton. It was the 1970s, for crimony’s sake. It could be special at times.

Well before E! and Entertainment Tonight, we had Ricardo Montalbán and his little sidekick on Fantasy Island, the cast of the Love Boat, and the Muppet Show trotting out the stars on a weekly basis. These shows were the only thing Hollywood had to remind us they were all still alive.

I can go on and on, but this morning Newscoma sent me right back to the 1970s with this reminder of television’s ebb and flow. Television is people, so it will probably always suck in one way or another, and in one way or another I’ll probably be a sucker for it.