Spin Cycle: Role Models circa 1970
Let’s spin the dial!
I was an unabashed TV junkie when I was growing up in the 1970s and having two working parents meant that my sister and I could gorge ourselves on “vintage” television for hours after school and then do it again with new programs for an hour or two after dinner. And “sick days?” Holy crap … since my mom was at work, it was basically an orgy of television all day long (with breaks for hoarse moaning and groaning when she called to check on me).
Honest to God, if television truly rots the brain, mine has been polenta since the second grade.
I admired many, many of the female characters on my favorite shows and swore to do my utmost to be as much like them as possible. Looking back, it mostly had to do with either a) their outstanding physical attributes or b) their bubbly personalities … neither of which I felt I had. So, for now, let’s wander down memory lane, shall we, and take a gander at my childhood role-models, a handful of gals who I thought were the pinnacle of American girl/womanhood:
Cissy from Family Affair. Cute, rich, spoiled, wrapped men around her finger. Check!
I Dream of Jeannie. Gorgeous, cute clothes, bubbly, magical, wrapped men around her finger. Check!
Samantha from Bewitched. Beautiful, magical, so in love with Derwood that she'd give up everything that makes her special, could get anything she wanted by wiggling her nose. Awesome!
Anne Marie of That Girl. Cute, cute, cute ... attempting to be a liberated gal but too adorable to be taken seriously. Fantastic!
Ginger from Gilligan's Island. Do I need to explain this? Seriously?
Mary Anne from Gilligan's Island. Isn't this the girl we all really wanted to be? Wholesome, nice, pretty, athletic, fab body, smart, loyal ... who am I kidding? I still want to be her!
Elly Mae from the Beverly Hillbillies. Pretty but doesn't know it and doesn't care, can talk to animals and beat the living crap out of boys if she wants to.
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Oh, c'mon. Don't pretend you didn't want to be her!
Laurie from The Partridge Family ... if for no other reason than that she got to hang out with David Cassidy. Be still my heart!
As luck would have it, I don’t think I turned out to be like any of these girls. If pressed, I might say I have a little of the Cissy (spoiled), Jeannie (finger-wrapping of men), somewhat bubbly (Anne Marie), Samantha (head over heels for my husband) and Mary Anne (smart enough to get off a desert island if I wanted to .. but what kind of jackass would do that and leave the Professor? HAWT!).
But my real role model? The pinnacle of womanhood which I most resemble today and, truly, the one that I actually aspired to be …
(Warning: if you’re a feminist, don’t scroll down! It’ll burn your retinas and twist your soul!)
That's right. It's June Cleaver. So kill me ... but how fab were her clothes? Her little suburban life? Her shiny appliances? Her squeaky clean kids? Her hunkahunka husband? Her cocktail hour and her perfect little dinners?
Now go outside and play, you little scamps, and check out the rest of the Spin Cycle while you’re there!
We must be of the same generation! I remember staying home all day watching Days of Our Lives! And Star Trek reruns every afternoon. I worked with Susan Dey several years ago, and I was so excited I couldn’t stand it.
Wasn’t staying home the best? Even now, I look around at mid-day, mid-week and think, “Woo-hoo!” I’m playing hooky!” Only bad thing I can remember about those days at home as a kid was that we had to get our arses off the couch to change the channel with our actual hands. The dark ages!
Argh, by the time I was able to stay home alone when sick, the days were filled with talk shows and, if we were lucky, since we didn’t have a TV Guide and no program menu back then, we would find an old Gilligans Island or Brady Bunch on by flipping through the stations. If my mom was home, I was stuck watching soaps all day.
You’re linked!
*I* wish I could have done that! My mom stayed home so if we were home sick, it meant the day in bed. And perhaps Sesame Street in the afternoon. But there was no faking it! She could sniff out the ‘sick’ days versus the ‘hooky’ days quicker than anyone else I know. I was so deprived…
Hey! Remember when we had “Mono” and had to stay home for 2-3 weeks? Too bad we only had 4 channels. Mostly I remember watching I Love Lucy, Hogan’s Heroes, Dobie Gillis, My Three Sons………..Oh, also too bad the wooden armed danish modern sofa was never that comfy……L
What I remember is that I had to dissect a fetal pig on the white table downstairs during those three weeks and it stunk up the whole house! Hey, do you remember how upside down our sleeping schedules got when we had mono? We were up watching TV at 3 in the morning and sleeping until noon (which is what I still do when left to my own devices) … and btw, Jud thought it was hilarious that you think that couch is uncomfortable. It’s in our den and I always wax rhapsodic over how I used to lay on it when I was sick and he just says, “WTF? That bony couch is the most uncomfortable thing in our house!” Whateva … it’s MIDCENTURY, dude. I’m keeping it.
I think I was partial to being Laurie from the Partridge Family. I loved how she faked playing the keyboards in her plush velvet band outfit with the flouncy white ascot. She was adorable with the braces and had a pretty good pout going even in the best of times.
Your list is a good one. I think you hit all the winners. Marcia surprises a bit. She was kind of a whiner. I remember you drinking buckets of ice tea or was it Tab? I think you threw in Romance novel or two during those long and lovely days?
I also loved those marathon tv days. How I long for them. Now you have to have a legit temp of 101 and boils breaking out to get even 2 straight hours of alone time with the tube.
My parents thought TV was evil, so they got rid of it when we were growing up. So when I played hooky…I mean, was sick…it was to avoid something or someone at school or finish the book I was reading.
Now though? I’m a TV addict. I blame it on not getting any TV growing up. 
Great Spin!! I was nodding during the whole thing – especially the dream to be like June Cleaver – I was born in the wrong era I tellya!
I love this! I think Ellie May was my favorite, but I was quite the tomboy growing up.
As much as I love not having a TV (I just can’t be moderate with it), I know that I am turning my son into a junkie. It’s already happened, really … when we go to a restaurant, he stares across the room at the TVs no matter what is on … basketball, food channel, ads (especially ads!), Formula One, it just doesn’t matter as long as it’s happening on the “magical box.” I try not to be a freak when we visit someone else’s house but one summer when we were staying with some other families at a beach house, I got so sick of all that sassy crap on Nickolodeon that I bought him the complete set of Leave it to Beaver shows on DVD … he LOVES it!
umm, so yeah, you’re so in the club you don’t even understand how in you are. These are my favorite people. You forgot Laura Ingalls Wilder, but she wasn’t on TV, except for Melissa Gilbert, who only partially counts, but you know, you gotta take what you can get.
Super great blog, Julie H. Super great.
I always loved Jeanie and Samantha–envied the magic bit, but loved watching them.
Awesome spin! We watched all the same shows. Yeah, and I don’t care what they say June Cleaver rocks!