The 70's Were Way Cooler Than They Get Credit For

 

(I unfortunatly had to shrink the above image down a bunch to fit on this page, but if you click on the image itself you'll be able to see the image in it's full sized glory. You can also click here.)

 

Looking at the above painting by Artist Dusty Abell of television's sci-fi heroes of the 1970's, I can't help but get a little Nostalgic for the days of yore when the classic sci-fi shows I loved as a kid ruled television's airwaves.  Yet at the same time I can't help but marvel at how many of the shows I grew up loving are back in some form or another today and are still going strong.

 

The most obvious examples I can think of are Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who.  Both of those shows were staples of 1970's sci-fi television, and as such are featured prominently in the above picture.  Yet both shows are once again currently ruling the television airwaves through either remakes or modernizations or whatever you wish to call them.  Sure, the Doctor may not be wearing a colorful scarf anymore, and Starbuck is no longer a dude, but the shows are still going strong and are once again leading a wave of great new sci-fi TV.

 

Even other properties shown in the pic are still with us.  Spider-man has been ruling the box office lately.  Last summer's The Incredible Hulk was a giant movie sized love letter to the classic Bill Bixby series.  Even Captain America and Buck Rogers are about to get big screen adaptations made of them.  The point is this, the 70's were a helluva lot cooler than people give them credit for.  Were they perfect years?  Of course not.  But the same decade that gave us disco also gave us Wonder Woman on TV, the Six Million Dollar Man, Cylons, that sad song that played as Bruce Banner walked down that lonely road and so much more. 

 

I heard a lot of talk last year about how we were living in the "Era of the Geek".  How the Dark Knights success, along with all of the other great comic book films from last summer, had heralded in a new age where it was cool to be a geek.  Upon further reflection, I disagree with that statement.  We've been living in the era of the geek for quite some time now.  It's just that now is when the rest of society is starting to realize it.  Science fiction and comic books have been what kids have been raised on since the 60's.  Whether it was Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar galactica, Buck Rogers, Doctor Who, The Greatest American Hero, Spider-man, The Super Friends or about a thousand other great geek shows . . . . . comics and sci-fi has been ruling entertainment for generations now.  So is it any wonder then that we can enjoy something like the Dark Knight in theaters while watching shows like Heroes and Lost and Battlestar on TV? 

 

The more I think about it, the less and less it suprises me.  What started as an underground culture in the 50's and 60's has grown to become the mainstream of the 21st century.  The progress has been slow and steady, but that's how social change works.  I'm just happy to say that I've been a part of the scene since I was a little kid.

 

(Via IO9)