Thrilled with the rug I bought on a whim via West Elm’s deal of the day last week…
Perfect for Bix’s room and it only took two years to find it! 100% wool. No latex backing to outgas. For almost half price. Sometimes it pays to be spontaneous. It belongs with our crazy color scheme…
It’ll be a while before the cork floor goes down, so I just rolled it over the hideous carpeting. You didn’t think I’d wait, did you?
The first-grader announced that whoever wins a game of…
… will win this fabulous vacation home he has recently constructed in California…
It has a modernist sensibility, dontcha think?
View of the back. (The 7-year-old architect informs me that the green and red blocks just inside the back door are the stove)…
How about that sweet upper deck?
I am so gonna win this game! Afterwards, you’ll find me on the lounger…
In my Luke Skywalker clothes and random blue helmet. The furrowed brow? I must be waiting for my icy cold margarita.
Have you forgiven me for last week yet? Get over it. Your flight to Fantasy Island circa 1978 is boarding now! That’s right, de plane! de plane!
Awaiting your arrival are Mr. Roark (aka Khan)…
… and Tatoo.
Just decide who you want to be…
and the next thing you know,
you’ll be landing.
Will you fare better as the Star Ship Captain or the Famous TV Actor? It’s up to fate.
My only recommendation: stay on Tattoo’s good side.
Turns out he’s pretty particular for an underling…
Piss him off and you could get dumped by the starlet…
Or worse, end up looking like this guy…
Did you order extra cheese? Cuz I got it right here. When it comes to ’70s TV show board games, inevitably there will be a few clinkers in the bunch. Here are a few: Happy Days (’76) and Laverne & Shirley (’77). Oof.
HAPPY DAYS
There were only two things that were actually cool about The Fonz: his old flame Pinky Tuscadero and the Malachi Crunch. Jumping the shark, not cool.
*shudder*
LAVERNE & SHIRLEY
You will never, ever be able to get that song out of your head once you hear it. Hmm, what else? Lenny and Squiggy. That’s it.
Excuse me while I wash down all that primetime emptytainment with a bourbon.
’70s TV show board game day! Sitcom laugh track + the 12th Precinct squad room in Greenwich Village = Barney Miller. Fish? Dietrich? WO-ja-HO-its? Ringin’ a bell, anybody? The show dates to 1975. The game dates to 1977. About a million years ago…
A bunch of cranky cops busting hookers and pimps and pickpockets. I can’t for the life of me imagine any child, in the ’70s or now, wanting to watch this show or play this game. Ever. More for the adults in the house…
Maybe you never saw the show but I bet you’ve heard that bassline from the opening theme.
Object: Be the first detective to catch all four suspects.
Remember that hilarious episode where Wojo brings in the hash brownies? No? Me neither…
Hey, remember when network television was all about reality shows? No, really. How about Howard Cosell announcing the Battle of the Network Stars — the ’79 episode in which Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers) beats the pants off of Wojo in the relay. (Heads up: Kristy McNichol sighting.) Or Eight is Enough vs Barney Miller on Family Feud.
Someday you’ll thank me for this.
After a month off, ’70s TV show board game Fridays are back! Yeah, I can see you’re psyched. This time: Battlestar Gallactica, 1978. This might be the coolest of all the games I own.
Object: Capture the Cylon Raider. The gameplay has some original thinking behind it and it’s pretty fun.
You can use the black holes to jump your ship through to another quadrant. Nice.
That’s the Cylon Raider there in the middle…
Hey Cylons, consider yourselves pwned!
No sign of dreamy Richard Hatch or Dirk Benedict from the original cast on the box. By the way, how did Lorne Greene manage to go from playing Ben Cartright on Bonanza to playing Commander Adama on BG? It’s a helluva long way from the ponderosa to intergalactic space.
“There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians or the Toltecs or the Mayans. Some believe that there may be brothers of man who even now fight to survive… somewhere beyond the heavens.”
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Betcha didn’t know that line comes from Baretta, the TV show so cool that Sammy Davis Jr. agreed to sing the theme song. Do yourself a favor and give a listen to that funky bass.
This week’s ’70s TV show board game: Baretta circa 1976. A master of disguise, Robert Blake played an undercover police detective who relied on a pimped-up informant to help him root out street criminals.
Object: Find the real criminal.
I considered ripping open the cellophane to reveal the minty goodness beneath. In the end, I resisted the urge. Still in the packaging…
Baretta had a pet cockatoo named Fred. Fred may have gained an even bigger following than Robert Blake. That bird was huge….
In real life, Fred was actually called Lala. Owned by animal trainer, Ray Berwick, Lala was born in Hong Kong in 1967 and originally spoke only Chinese before Ray Berwick brought him home to America. His bird was a quick study and soon learned English and a number of clever tricks. For the series, Lala had a bird stunt double named Weird Harold used for flying sequences. Lala won a PATSY award in 1976-77 and Photoplay magazine awarded him with a Gold Medal for being their favorite animal star. — Yahoo Answers
Game imitates TV show. And 25 years later, life imitates TV show, too. Don’t go to bed with no price on your head. No, no, don’t do it.
A rainy Friday. Good day to pull out another ’70s TV show board game. How about a little Columbo circa 1973, the year after our house was built.
Dressed in a trench coat (no matter how sunny L.A. is) with ever-present cigar in hand, Peter Falk played Lieutenant Columbo to be disheveled, clumsy and bumbling. You’d never guess he was a genius homicide detective. He was the Monk of his day.
Object: Be the first player to figure out whodunit, with what weapon. And what was the motive for the crime.
As far as I can tell, the Columbo game is Clue only with hipper decor…
Uh-oh, Columbo’s at the door…
Miss Scarlett?
With the gun?
“Oh, just one more thing…”
It’s Friday again, kids! This week’s redneck ’70s TV show board game is The Dukes of Hazzard.The game actually came out in ’81 but the show debuted in ’79, so I think it deserves to make the cut.
Confession: It just wasn’t my cup of moonshine so I never watched the show. It’s true. Not even once. How the theme song is etched into my psyche I’ll never know. The 60-second recap of the first episode is all you need to watch to feel like you’ve seen the show’s entire 6-year run.
Object: Take the dirt road or the highway and be the first player to get to Uncle Jesse’s farm. Look out for Boss Hogg!
The Duke boys can boast a number of fan sites for their TV series, so obviously somebody out there still loves them. The plotline was lifted from Moonrunners but, honestly, they should thank Smokey and the Bandit (the highest grossing film of ’77, second only to Star Wars*) for their continued popularity.
That said, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane is no Sheriff Buford T. Justice. Just sayin’.
Friday again already? This week’s ’70s TV show board game: The Hardy Boys Secret of Thunder Mountain. Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson. Such polite boys with perfect, perfect hair. And motorcycles that never got dirty.
The boys and their fabulous hair travelled to Hong Kong. They windsurfed in Hawaii. They visited King Tut’s tomb. They stumbled into the world’s most vexing mysteries and solved every one of them. Sometimes Nancy Drew helped. I have no idea why. Just because.
For some inexplicable reason, Shaun Cassidy was also big on the music charts. Can somebody, anybody, please tell me why he’s singing in front of a completely incongruous conestoga in this video? That hurts my head.