The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 176

A to o- nm tltd lb Brian Courtis the horror, the horror! As I watch That 70s Show, with the thwack-thwack- thwacking of the overhead fan mimicking IP C3 the chopper blades and chilling the beads of perspiration on the fevered brow, I take the misty journey up the Mekong of memories into the age of darkness. What madness draws us back into such jungles of mediocrity? Why ravage the soul to tread in the manic footsteps of Austin Powers? Why try to make sense of the hellish 70s at all? Think back. We had a future then. After swinging through the agonies and ecstasies of the 60s, we were young enough to think it could only get better. Elvis was the old king and the Stones were young rock.

And then came that first polyester-packed assault on the senses. Disco! Oh yeah, groovy baby. Stayin 'Alive, chilling out, and trying not to look too "spaz" in our tank tops or tube shirts and bell-bottoms, that was what that was all about. Meanwhile, The Brady Bunch and Charlie's Angels were sailing on with The Love Boat, and Gerald Ford was inspiring have-a-nice-day smiley buttons as he tried to move both feet forward simultaneously. The kids were watching Kimba The White Lion (remember Dan'I Baboon and King Speckle George Negus was wearing safari suits and big sister was making out with mood rings, Manilow and moonrocks.

At home we re-invented sex. We sniggered a lot over Alvin Purple and claimed world records for full-frontal television with Number 96. Earth, Wind Fire, Santana and Neil Sedaka fed the party scene, but Donna Summer, The Commodores and falsettoed Bee Gees were soon reminding us to Play That Funky Music, White Guy and Thank God It's Friday. If this wasn't the era in which pina coladas were created, it should have been. That 70s Show sees it all through a rosier lava lamp.

Seven's "retro-hip" sitcom, produced by Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach (of The Cosby Show and Roseanne) and Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner and Mark Brazill (of Third Rock From The Sun), turns it all into a mildly amusing, updated Happy Days somewhere in the suburbs of Wisconsin. The focus is on high school student Eric Forman (Topher Grace) and his friends. They all hang out in the family basement, stimulating hormones and former 101st Airborne paratrooper who actually supported US involvement. Or that in his later drug-befuddled years, the shy wild thing of Purple Haze, Hey Joe and All Along The Watchtower, was being ripped off by his manager and a Mafia mob. Producer David Marks takes us from Hendrix's abandonment as a baby through to his death at 27 in a West London flat, the vivid footage and photography superbly edited around his story of "the skeleton on whom others hung their Eric Burdon of The Animals remembers his whirlwind of music, one-time girlfriend Kathy Etchingham talks of her "charming, very gentle" lover.

Bass player Noel Reddings recalls his Experience. In the end, it seems, the audience only wanted to hear the old hits and just weren't interested in where Jimi Hendrix wanted to take them. The 70s were on their way. Oh the waste, the waste! That 70s Show Thursday, Channel 7, 7.30pm The Big Picture: Jimi Hendrix The Man They Made God Thursday, ABC, 9.30pm plotting how to sneak some beer away from the folks partying upstairs. The 70s petrol crisis is in full swing and Eric's parents are expected to hand over the keys to their gas-guzzling Vista Cruiser.

The thing is, will it be in time to get Eric and the gang off to the Todd Rungren concert? Nostalgia like that can be as compelling as a BJ And The Bear Quizathon. On the other hand, it doesn't come much sweeter than Jimi Hendrix The Man They Made God, another intimate biographical documentary in the BBC series Reputations. Hendrix, acclaimed as rock's greatest guitarist, a performer who kept astonishing audiences and fellow musos alike with ecstatic riffs and almost surrealistic compositions, was a little-known club player until his arrival in Britain in 1966. Although he had played with The Isley Brothers, Sam Cooke and Little Richard, it was Chas Chandler of The Animals who first brought Hendrix to London and ultimately international fame. That part of the story is a familiar one.

Not so well known perhaps is the fact that Hendrix, whose music became so closely associated with the Vietnam War and the peace movement, was a 3 PRINTED BV HANNANPRINT. VICTORIA. B04 PRINCE8 HIGHWAY, NOBLE PARK, VK. TfteWlfon IS INSERTED INTO THCSUNDAVAOe, DECEMBER S.1MI. AdnrtMng Saba ELLENIE GEORGIOU 03 9601 2666 AdvartWng Co-onfrator KARINA BLACK 03 9249 9902.

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