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Retro Television Review: The Love Boat 3.27 “Invisible Maniac/September Song/Peekaboo”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986!  The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, The Love Boat has a very special passengers!

Episode 3.27 “Invisible Maniac/September Song/Peekaboo”

(Dir by George Tyne, originally aired on April 19th, 1980)

This week, the pop cultural stars align as a young David Hasselhoff boards the Love Boat!

Hasselhoff plays Tom Bell, a 20-something attorney who is dating a 30-something attorney named Cathy (Shelley Fabares).  Cathy insists that they keep their romance a secret due to the age difference.  She doesn’t want people to think that she’s a cradle robber or an older woman with a gigolo.  (Cathy might also want to consider that she’s a senior partner at the firm while Tom is just a junior partner.)  Tom doesn’t care about the age difference.  In fact, he wants to marry Cathy!

And yes, they do eventually get married.  Tom even has his grandparents waiting for them when the boat docks in Los Angeles so that they can act as witnesses.  There’s not really any suspense as to whether or not Tom and Cathy will end up married because this is The Love Boat, the show that combined the swinging culture of the 70s with the morality of the 50s.  The Hoff is his usual dramatic but self-aware self while Shelley Fabares is endlessly likable.  They’re a cute couple and, minor age difference aside, they just look like they belong together.  It was a sweet story.

As for the other passengers:

Fay Piermont (Peggy Cass) is married to Bill (Gordon Jump).  Bill’s a nice guy but Fay fears that they’ve become a boring couple.  She wants to be an exciting couple and she’s figured out that the way to do this is to get a makeover, buy a new wardrobe, and then toss her glasses and all of her frumpy clothes overboard.  (At first, both Julie and Vicki are worried that Fay is planning on throwing herself overboard.  One would think that would be cause for ship-wide alarm but Julie and Vicki just check on Fay occasionally to make sure she’s still alive.)  At first, Bill is freaked out by Fay’s new attitude but, eventually, he comes to accept it and Fay comes to realize that she loves Bill, even if he is a bit reserved.  This is the type of story that The Love Boat did frequently.  Fay and Bill are a nice couple, even if they’re no Tom and Cathy.

Finally, Isaac is reunited with a former high school classmate, a model named Janet (BernNadette Stanis).  Janet is upset that her husband (Clifton Davis) is more into sports than romance so she tries to make him jealous by lying about what a womanizer Isaac was in high school.  Gopher overhears and tells Isaac that Janet referred to him as being “all hands” in high school.  Now, most people would understand that Janet was just trying to make her husband jealous but Isaac somehow becomes convinced that he is a womanizer but he just can’t remember his actions because he suffers from dissociative identity disorder and he even goes to Doc Bricker for help!  Why would Isaac believe that?  It makes no sense that Isaac — cool, calm Isaac — would suddenly be so stupid.  This is something that would happen to Gopher not Isaac.

That one silly storyline aside, this was a pleasant cruise on The Love Boat.  I’m glad things worked out for Tom and Cathy.  Seriously, the world is so lucky to have The Hoff.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Baywatch Nights 1.11 “Takeover”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, an detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on Youtube!

This week, Baywatch Nights reboots for the first time and gets a brand new opening.

Episodes 1.11 “Takeover”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on February 3rd, 1996)

This week’s episode opens with Mitch arriving at Nights early in the morning.  Ryan and Garner are waiting for him and so are all of the club’s waitresses.  Some expositional dialogue establishes that Lou Raymond has sold Nights to “D.M. Marco.”  The waitresses are waiting to see if they still have jobs.  Ryan, Garner, and Mitch are waiting so that they can re-sign a lease for their detective agency….

Eleven episodes into the first season and Baywatch Nights has already rebooted itself!  It’s usually not a good sign when a show drastically changes its format or starts writing out old characters and replacing them with new people.  Usually, when this happens, it’s because the show’s rating have suddenly declined and the producers are desperately trying to inject some new life into things.  It’s never a good sign when something like this happens before the first season is even halfway finished.

As Mitch waits, a blonde wearing a short but not particularly flattering blue dress steps into the club.  Mitch assumes that she’s a waitress and starts hitting on her.  Ha ha!  Joke’s on you, Mitch!  She’s Donna Marco (Donna D’Errico) and she’s your new landlord and a new regular on the show!  Mitch is stunned to discover that women can be successful in business.  This kind of goes against everything that the viewer has previously learned about Mitch but whatever.  It’s a reboot!  It’s a new world!  And now Mitch is apparently one of those guys who is left with his mouth agape over the idea of a woman being the boss.

As for this week’s case, it’s also about business.  Someone is targeting the executives of a company called Rancor.  Two of those executives went to high school with Mitch so he’s not going to let anyone kill them.  That said, a lot of executives who don’t have a previous Mitch connection do end up dying.  In fact, this episode has the highest body count of Baywatch Nights so far.  At first, Mitch assumes that the murders are being orchestrated by a corporate raider who wants to take over the business and who has apparently never learned how to buy stock.  But instead, the murderer turns out to be a blonde executive named Nicki (Sandra Hess), who blames the company for death of her father.  Despite her murderous ways, there are some sparks of romance between Nicki and Mitch but that comes to an end when Nicki blows herself up while trying to take out the final Rancor executive.

This was a weird episode, as the pacing felt off and the story was far more violent than any of the ones that came before it.  At one point, Mitch gets a favor from an IRS agent by promising him a date with Donna and that just felt really icky.  There’s another extended scene where both a businessman and the show’s cameraman spends several minutes leering at Ryan’s legs and again, it just felt off.  Previously, the show had never been shy about showing off Angie Harmon’s legs and, speaking as someone who enjoys showing off her own legs, there’s nothing wrong with that but, in this particular episode, it crosses the line from being appreciative to being tacky.  One could tell that the show’s producers brainstormed and couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Let’s make Baywatch Nights more like Baywatch!”

What’s sad is that Baywatch Nights really didn’t need a reboot.  The first ten episodes were, for the most part, fun and entertaining in their vapid way.  This episode, though, feels like it’s begging for attention and that’s never a good look.  Don’t worry, though.  Not all reboots are bad, as we’ll see in another 11 episodes.  That is when we will reach season 2 of Baywatch Nights.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 4.10 “High Off The Hog/Reprisal”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming is on Youtube, Daily Motion, and a few other sites.

The plane has arrived!

Episode 4.10 “High Off The Hog/Reprisal”

(Dir by Michael Vejar, originally aired on January 10th 1981)

This week’s episode of Fantasy Island is all about being someone that you’re not.

For instance, Hadley Boggs (Stephen Shortridge) wants to thank his family for taking out a mortgage on the family farm, just so he could go to MIT.  Hadley has a great future ahead of him but he just wants his dad (Noah Beery, Jr.), mother (Dody Goodman), and sister (Misty Rowe) to have a chance to be live like rich people for the weekend.

Fantasy Island to the rescue!

When the Boggs family arrives, they are shocked to discover that they are going to be living in a mansion.  Mr. Roarke has arranged for them to host a cocktail party with ten of the richest men on the island.  Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of telling Tattoo to place an invite for the party in the Fantasy Island Chronicle.  (Yes, Fantasy Island has a newspaper and, in this episode, it appears to be printed in red ink.)  Tattoo decides to spice things up by claiming that the Boggs family owns a uranium mine.  Mr. Roarke is not happy.

“But, boss,” Tattoo says, “I am your best assistant!”

“That does not matter,” Roarke snaps before explaining that the Boggs family could be in a lot of trouble if they start buying things with money they don’t have or selling property they don’t own.

And, of course, that’s just what happens.  Roger Fox (Shecky Greene) offers the father of the family a few million dollars for the mine.  Thinking that it’s all part of the fantasy, Dad agrees.  Roger then sells the non-existent mine to someone else because it turns out that Roger is a con artist at heart.  Fortunately, with Roarke’s help, the family is able to con Roger into giving them back the non-existent mine and Hadley even falls in love with Roger’s daughter, Kathi (Kathrine Baumann).  To be honest, I had a hard time following exactly how Mr. Roarke conned Roger into giving up his fake mine but I’m glad things worked out.

This fantasy was …. eh.  The problem is that Hadley’s family was presented as being borderline idiots, what with their amazed reaction to existence of cars, airplanes, servants, and checking accounts.  It’s one thing to make them a poor farm family.  It’s another to treat them as if they’re the members of a cargo cult that has never had contact with modern human beings before.  West Virginia is not the Amazon Rain Forest.

The other fantasy featured Maureen McCormick in one of her six trips to the Island.  This time, she plays Trudy Brown (Maureen McCormick), an orphaned gymnast who is treated terribly by her aunt (Janis Paige) and her cousin (Holly Gagnier).  Trudy wants to win the Fantasy Island Gymnastics Competition and, in the process, she wants to defeat her cousin.  Mr. Roarke gives her the power of telekinesis, which Trudy promptly used to make her cousin fall off the high beam.  Roarke gives Trudy a stern talking to.

It’s a struggle but eventually, Trudy realizes that she doesn’t want to win through magic powers.  Nor does she want to hurt her cousin or anyone else competing.  Roarke takes away her powers and Trudy, having learned a valuable lesson, wins the competition on her own.

This fantasy was actually a lot of fun, just because it gave the viewer a chance to see what Carrie would have been like if Maureen McCormick had played the title role instead of Sissy Spacek.  McCormick seems to be having lot of fun loosening screws with her mind.  Toss in some gymnastics with the telekinesis and you have classic Island fantasy!

This episode had one boring fantasy and one good fantasy.  Luckily, the good overshadowed the boring.

Film Review: A Stranger In The Woods (dir by József Gallai)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“My humor is a bit abstract.”

— Victor Browning (Bill Oberst, Jr.)

“He’s a very strange guy.”

— Edith (Laura Ellen Wilson)

A Stranger In The Woods opens with a car driving into the woods.  The skies are cloudy.  The road is isolated.  It’s unsettling because, other than the driver of the car, there aren’t any other people around.  Other than the road, there are no signs of civilization.  It’s the type of image that causes the viewer to consider just how much we take for granted the idea of interacting with other people and living in a world where our needs are taken care of.  Today, we view anyone who would separate themselves from civilization as being an eccentric.  In the past, though, that was how most people lived.  They lived alone in home that they built for themselves and visitors and strangers were viewed with suspicion.  It’s a way of life that many people had forced upon them from 2020 to 2021 and it led to the anger and societal anxiety that is still shaking the world today.  Living in isolation is not easy for most people in the modern world, which is perhaps why we are so fascinated with people who can actually handle it.

Driving the car is Edith (Laura Ellen Wilson), a 20-something film student who has been given a tip by one of her professors.  There is a man named Victor Browning (Bill Oberst, Jr.) who lives by himself in the woods.  He’s known for being a bit off-key but he is considered to be generally harmless.  He lives in a cabin, spending his time in what appears to be self-imposed exile from the world.  He only occasionally leaves his cabin so he can get supplies.  Victor has agreed to be interviewed by Edith for a student documentary.

The first meeting with Victor is a bit awkward but he soon starts to open up to Edith.  Victor seems to be friendly and polite, even if he does appear to be a bit haunted by things that happened in the past.  Then again, Edith has things in her past that haunt her as well.  However, as Edith’s stay with Victor continues, she starts to notice some odd and eventually disturbing things about Victor and his isolated existence….

A Stranger In The Woods is a found footage film, playing out as a combination of the footage that Edith shot for her documentary and audio recordings of phone calls that she placed to various people.  As a result, we learn about Victor’s secrets along with Edith.  Like Edith, we start the film liking Victor for his shy manners and his seemingly gentle sense of humor and, just like Edith, we are shocked to witness his sudden changes in mood and his seeming reluctance to discuss certain aspects of his life.  Bill Oberst, Jr. gives a performance that keeps you guessing about just who Victor is and what he’s doing out in the woods.  Oberst is sometimes likable and sometimes frightening and he always keeps the audience from getting too complacent while watching the story unfold.  Victor Browning’s name brings to mind such Universal horror icons as Victor Frankenstein and director Tod Browning and, like the characters who appeared in those classic horror films, he is compelling even when we’re not sure what’s going on inside his head.

A Stranger In The Woods is an atmospheric film, one that understands that there’s nothing scarier than being alone in the middle of nowhere in the dark.  Victor is a fascinating character and fans of 70s horror will want to watch for Lynn Lowry’s cameo during the second half of the film.  A Stranger In The Woods is an effectively creepy portrait of a very strange guy.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 1.11 “Name Your Price”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!

This week, Ponch again fails to get rich.

Episode 1.11 “Name Your Price”

(Dir by Ric Rondell, originally aired on December 8th, 1977)

This week’s episode opens on an unusually somber note for CHiPs.  It begins in a cemetery.  A woman (Jaime Lynn Bauer) is dressed in chic funeral black and appears to be attending a service.  But it soon turns out that she’s actually just making sure that everyone is so distracted by mourning that they won’t notice her stealing a Rolls Royce!

It turns out that a Rolls is not quite as easy to steal as she thought and soon, she finds herself being pursued by Ponch and Baker.  It’s a chase that leads from the highway and into the city and, to Ponch and Baker’s shock, they lose sight of the stolen car.

“How does a Rolls Royce vanish!?” Ponch asks, in shock.

Ponch is a bit distracted himself this episode.  He has been accepted as a contestant on a game show called Name Your Price!  Name Your Price is obviously meant to be The Price Is Right and Ponch spends the majority of the episode memorizing the price tags on appliances.  Unfortunately, Ponch does not memorize the price tag of a motorcycle and therefore, he turns out to be a bit of a bust when he appears on the show.  As Baker and his date sneak out of the studio, Ponch is humiliated as the show’s host wonders how a motorcycle cop could not know how much a motorcycle costs.

Oh, Ponch — will you ever win!?

It’s not all bad for Ponch.  He and Baker pull over a car and Ponch is excited to discover that it’s occupied by the two stars of his favorite soap opera.  (Does Ponch do anything other than watch television?)  And Ponch also gets to help out when a chicken truck is involved in a minor accident and dozens of chickens end up running around the highway.  As usual, the main emphasis of this episode is on the idea of the members of the highway patrol working together and keeping the streets safe for chickens and humans.  Yes, this episode says, the CHiPs do chase car thieves and arrest criminals.  But usually, they’re just taking care of mundane tasks and getting little thanks and little pay.

This episode was entertaining.  I enjoyed looking at the cars that were stolen.  If you’re going to commit a crime, you might as well commit it for a Rolls Royce.  And the ending with the game show was a lot more effective than the typical CHiPs ending.  Ponch has spent the first 11 episodes of this show destroying motorcycles so it’s a nice bit of humor that a motorcycle would destroy his chance to get rich.  That’s karma!

Next week, Baker and Ponch continue to keep L.A. safe!

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 1.19 “The Home Invaders”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Crockett and Castillo take down some home invaders.  Yes, Crockett and Castillo.  Not Crockett and Tubbs.  Read on to find out why.

Episode 1.19 “The Home Invaders”

(Dir by Abel Ferrara, originally produced by March 15th, 1985)

Always do your research.

Philip Michael Thomas does not appear in this episode of Miami Vice.  At the start of the episode, it’s mentioned that he’s in New York, visiting Valerie Gordon.  It’s a line that sounds like it was written at the spur of the moment and, when I heard it, I assumed that there had been some sort of behind-the-scenes drama between Thomas and the producers.  Fortunately, before I went with that and said something snarky, I actually looked up the reason for Thomas’s absence and I discovered that he was injured performing a stunt in the previous episode.  Thomas missed this episode because he was recovering.  As well, this was the only episode that he missed during the entire run of Miami Vice.

Thomas may be absent but that doesn’t mean that crime is going to take a break in Miami.  A series of violent home invasions lead to Crockett and Castillo getting temporarily assigned to the robbery division.  Crockett is excited to be working under his former boss and mentor, Lt. John Malone (Jack Kehoe).  Castillo quickly realizes that Malone has gotten rusty and that his investigation into the robberies has been sloppy.

This is a moody episode, with the emphasis as much on Crockett’s disillusionment with his old boss as with the efforts to catch the home invaders.  That said, the home invaders are a scary bunch.  Led by Esai Morales and David Patrick Kelly, they are totally ruthless and willing to kill anyone who fails to move quickly enough.  The scenes in which they break into various mansions and threaten the inhabitants are difficult to watch and it definitely captures the trauma of having your personal space invaded and your sense of safety destroyed.

(When I was 17, our house was broken into and, for months, I couldn’t sleep through the night.  Almost every night, I was woken up by what I thought was the sound of someone breaking into my house and I would end up walking through the house in my nightclothes, carrying a golf club for protection.  One night, I nearly hit my sister when she came out of the kitchen with a midnight snack.  It may sound funny now but, at the time, it was terrifying.)

It ends with a shootout that’s violent even by the standards of Miami Vice.  Castillo and Crockett gun down the bad guys and it’s hard not to notice that, while Crockett seems to be clearly upset by the fact that he had to kill a few men, Castillo barely shows any emotion at all.  Castillo is effective because he holds back his feelings about everything.  That’s also why Castillo, and not Crockett, is capable of seeing that Lt. Malone is past his prime.  With the home invaders neutralized, Malone tells Crockett that he’s quitting the force.  His days of being an effective detective are over.  The job and all of the terrible stuff that he deals with on a daily basis has left him burned out and it’s hard not to notice that he and Crockett are the same age.  Fighting crime in Miami takes a toll.

This episode was directed by Abel Ferrara, who keeps the action moving quickly and who fills the screen with ennui-drenched images of people who are not sure whether they’re making any difference at all.  This is an effective episode, even without the presence of Ricardo Tubbs.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Degrassi Junior High 2.4 “Dinner & A Show”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

In yourself, you must believe….

Episode 2.4 “Dinner & A Show”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on January 25th, 1988)

It’s a night of awkward dates and dinners on this week’s episode of Degrassi Junior High!

Yick Yu finally works up the courage to ask Melanie if she would like to go to a movie with him.  While Kathleen rolls her eyes in the background, Melanie says that she’d love to see a movie with Yick.  Yick suggests that they see Revenge of the Reptile, which is really gory and features killer reptiles!  Melanie says that she’s not into any of that and suggests that they instead see Crying Into The Wind.  Yick agrees, even though it’s obvious that Crying Into The Wind is not a film that is going to appeal to a typical 13 year-old male.

After Yick leaves, Kathleen makes fun of Melanie for having a date.  Melanie replies that it’s not a date.  She and Yick are just friends and Melanie is looking for “a man.”  Right on schedule, Snake walks up and asks Melanie if she wants to see a movie.  Melanie, forgetting all about her plans with Yick, says, “Sure!”  Snake suggests Revenge of the Reptile.  Melanie, forgetting that she’s not into gory reptile films, says, “Sure!”

Poor Yick is heartbroken when Melanie tells him that something has come up and she won’t be able to go to the movies with him.  Arthur suggests that Yick cheer himself up by going to see Revenge of the Reptile….

Meanwhile, Shane’s parents want to have dinner with Spike and her mother.  Shane’s parents have decided a few things.  First off, the baby is going to be given up for adoption.  Secondly, Shane is going to private school.  While sending Shane to a private school might not be a bad idea, deciding what’s going to happen to the baby before they’ve even met Spike or her mother is definitely not cool.  Shane’s parents are the first of many bad parents that will show up over the course of Degrassi’s long history.

Spike decides to just not tell her mom about the dinner invitation.  But then Shane’s parents call personally and invite them to a fancy restaurant.  Needless to say, it’s not a pleasant dinner.  Shane’s father not only wants to send Shane to private school but he also thinks that Spike should be sent to a home for unwed mothers, like a character in a 1930s farm melodrama.  Shane’s mother, meanwhile, makes no secret of the fact that she blames Spike more than she blames her son.  Finally, Shane stands up for himself and says that he’s not going to go to private school.  Of course, Shane then ruins the moment by saying that he’s ready to be a father.  No, Shane, you’re not.  You’re barely ready to be in the 8th Grade.

At the movie theater, Snake and Melanie discover that they really don’t have much in common.  Snake may be a nice guy but he’s a terrible conversationalist.  Joey and Wheels, upset that they don’t have dates, show up and spend the whole time making snarky comments.  (Joey brings along a toy Godzilla that he uses to try to scare Melanie.)  Worst of all, Yick shows up and finds himself staring straight at Melanie.  Melanie smiles awkwardly while Yick’s heart breaks once again.

The next day, at school, Melanie tells Kathleen that her date wasn’t that great.  Meanwhile, Spike asks Shane if he even wants her to have the baby and Shane can’t answer.

I loved the way the episode contrasted the awkwardness of Melanie’s date with the awkwardness of Spike’s dinner.  Melanie’s problems are nowhere near as serious as Spike’s but both of them are a result of immature people trying to make mature decisions.  The main theme of this episode is that no one is ready to be an adult.  Melanie says that she’s ready to date “a man,” but she can’t even find it in herself to be honest with Yick.  Yick and Snake both want to start dating but they’re still incapable of understanding that Revenge of the Reptile is not exactly a romantic movie.  Shane wants to be a father but can barely stand up to his own parents.  Shane’s parents may be adults but they don’t understand that being an adult means talking to other people before deciding their lives for them.  The only person who truly understands how lost everyone is Spike and all she can do is try to make it day-by-day.

Watching an episode like this, it’s nice to know that Spike will eventually find happiness with Snake and that her daughter will grow up to be Emma.  I can only imagine how emotionally devastating all of this must have been for people watching it for the first time in 1988.  Degrassi Junior High rarely offered false hope, which is why it remains relevant today.

 

 

Retro Television Reviews: The Hippie Temptation (dir by Warren Wallace)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1967’s The Hippie Temptation!  It  can be viewed on YouTube.

“This is a hippie,” a sober and serious voice says over the image of a rather clean-cut young man sitting in a park.

So starts the 1967 CBS news documentary, The Hippie Temptation.  Hosted by a white-haired and distinguished voiced journalist named Harry Reasoner, The Hippie Temptation takes a look at the subculture that, in 1967, was taking the youth of America by storm.  Reasoner walks through the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, followed by a group of hippies who hang on every word.

Hippies, Harry explains, their very name suggests that they are hip!

Harry Reasoner talks about how the hippies are predominantly liberal and say that they are dropping out of a society that they consider to be hypocritical.  They have no interest in what their straight parents are concerned with.  Harry’s tone goes from being gently condescending to rather alarmed as he explains that hippies use a new illegal drug called LSD to try to open up their minds.  The bad trip, Harry says, is always a possibility and suddenly, the screen is full of Dutch angle images of San Francisco.

The majority of this documentary focuses on the dangers of LSD.  A pipe-smoking scientist shows a diagram of a chromosome of a repeated LSD user.  The repeated use of LSD is compared to having epilepsy.  Harry says that LSD is illegal in California but it’s still easy to find in San Francisco.  No mention is made of marijuana or heroin or any of the other drugs that may have been a part of the Haight Ashbury scene.

Harry is a bit surprised that the hippies are not particularly concerned about what the scientists think about LSD.  The Hippie Temptation is to not care about consequences and to instead do whatever you want.  Harry discusses how the hippies claim not to care about money or material things but, as he points out, some people are getting rich in Haight Ashbury.  He drops in to visit a local band called the Grateful Dead “who appear to be living in affluence.”  The members of the band admit that they also use LSD and other drugs.  Harry shows us a performance of the Grateful Dead performing and comments on how the light show is designed to imitate a psychedelic experience.

(Along with the Grateful Dead, future actor Peter Coyote also appears briefly, giving out free food as a member of a collective called The Diggers.)

Hippies can make money, Harry says, if they can find an employer who doesn’t mind long hair and strange clothing.  It’s hard not to smile at this comment because, by today’s standards, the hippies in this documentary look remarkably preppy and almost conservative.  Turtlenecks, colorful shirts, and neck length hair no longer come across as being the height of rebellion.  The majority of the hippies that Harry talks to look like they could be accountants.

This is one of those documentaries where the older generation tries to figure out why their kids are so weird.  It’s hard not to smile at the sight of a clearly uncomfortable Harry Reasoner being surrounded by a bunch of future accountants and middle managers.  That said, this documentary was an interesting time capsule.  It was a chance to see a firsthand account of what people were worried about in 1967.