So I’m playing competitive team trivia a couple of weeks ago at Pizzeria UNO in Crossgates Mall. Essentially the lead is being contested between myself and two other strong teams, Lynch’s Mob and Surf Tulsa.
The 10-point question is asked – “In what decade did an American television network first air a sports clip with ‘instant replay’ footage?”
And although I knew it was the 1960’s, and quickly wrote down and handed up the answer, it occurred to me that the only reason I knew this answer was because it was part of a plotline of a television drama that aired for a few seasons on NBC several years ago – a period teen drama called “American Dreams.”
Here’s the premise. This is a family drama set in early 1960’s Philadelphia, in which a family’s oldest daughter becomes a featured dancer on American Bandstand. Not so far-fetched; American Bandstand was produced in Philadelphia in the early 1960’s (and, believe it or not, was actually blacked out of the Albany market for many years because the ABC affiliate at the time, WTEN, would rather air movies on a Saturday afternoon).
But for the three seasons I watched American Dreams, what I hoped the show would create – a fairly accurate representation of life in the 1960’s – complete with historical references and the like – turned into a three-year-long headache of historical inaccuracy and ludicrous plotlines.
Now, of course, with episodic television, one has to suspend some disbelief. Yes, M*A*S*H lasted three times as long as the Korean War in which it takes place; Hogan’s Heroes was on longer than the US involvement in World War II, and That 70’s Show lasted so long I could have sworn it went through 1979 three times.
But with period dramas, viewers who get hooked on these shows want to be completely absorbed into that time and period. Look, for example, at Mad Men. That show takes a lot of time to make sure the historical references – the costumes – the dialogue – even the heavy amount of smoking by the main characters – accurately represents that time period.
For American Dreams, that accuracy lasted about 30 seconds into its pilot episode. A title screen appears on the television – Philadelphia, Pa. November 1963. And a few seconds later, the strains of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight – Everything’s Alright” can be heard. A song written two years AFTER 1963.
That was the first whoops. It would not be the last.
Somehow, the producers of the show were able to incorporate the TV show American Bandstand into its major plotline, as two of the main characters in the series, Meg and Roxanne, are featured dancers. Except that… by the end of 1963, the real American Bandstand moved to Los Angeles. Oops.
There were several attempts throughout the show to reference historical events, including references to Vietnam (two of the characters, Meg Pryor’s brother JJ and her Bandstand dance partner Jimmy, went off to war), the influx of the British Invasion, and the rise of social consciousness with the Summer of Love and the hippie movement.
Except that American Dreams couldn’t get past what amounted to a Cliff’s Notes version of the 1960’s – “JFK died, the Beatles arrived, we went to Woodstock and all of us got high.”
The first episode was placed in November 1963, so that the characters can experience the emotions of the Kennedy Assassination. I understand that a show might want to start its run with such a commanding portion of history – but then don’t have one of your main characters playing high six or seven school football games between Thanksgiving and Christmas! How many parochial leagues in the 1960’s played any sort of football games after Thanksgiving? Did Vincentian and Cardinal McCluskey take to the gridiron just before Santa Claus arrived?
From a music collector’s perspective and a pop culture aficionado’s impressions, American Dreams played seriously fast and loose with any semblance of accuracy. Case in point. In one of the earliest episodes, Meg’s boyfriend Luke, who worked at a record store, gave Meg a free 45 copy of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Again, remember. This is approximately November 1963. He gave her a song that Dylan never commercially released on a 45 – and when the song DID come out on a 45, it was a #1 hit by the Byrds – two years later! WOW!!
The show also tried to promote its Bandstand musical performances, with a quirk of having today’s pop singers perform as yesteryear’s 1960’s hitmakers. So I sat through a performance of Usher pretending to be Marvin Gaye, and he did a halfway decent job. Less convincing, however, was Kelly Clarkson as Brenda Lee. Just watch this clip, and see how Little Miss Dynamite throws in some historical references about Charlie Watts, Eric Clapton and Sonny & Cher before her performance. And I’m sorry, Kelly Clarkson may have the chops to SOUND like Brenda Lee, but there ain’t enough taffeta and crinoline in any of Brenda Lee’s wardrobe for Kelly Clarkson to squeeze into.
Vanessa Carlton’s performance as Dusty Springfield sounded more like Vanessa Carlton wearing a blonde fright wig. I also had a good laugh over Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys pretending to be “Jay” of Jay and the Americans (was he Jay Traynor? Was he Jay Black? Was he Jay Walking?)
Probably the least convincing of the “rockers as 60’s singers” was the appearance by Richie Sambora as Eric Clapton of the Yardbirds – I kid you not. He looked like Clapton’s grandfather in that clip. That, and performances by Brad Paisley as Ricky Nelson (Ozzie would never allow Ricky to appear on any other TV show but the Nelson family broadcast) and some other group as the Monkees (a year before anyone even filled out a casting call to make the Monkees a TV series!) That, and Jennifer Love Hewitt as Nancy Sinatra – looking like she needs to find a brass pole to lean against!
Before long, this game of “spot the cameo” extended to other performances in the series – at one point, Paris Hilton guest starred as Barbara Eden; NBC news reporter Jill Rappaport appeared as LOOK magazine reporter Jill Rappaport (and didn’t do a very good job of it), Randy “American Idol” Jackson had a cameo as the touring manager for the Temptations, and Howard Stern “Wack Pack” alum Eric the Midget even made a cameo appearance.
That essentially did it for me. I did something I swore I would never do. I never became a Trekkie. I never became a Buffyverser. But after about the third episode, I became the unofficial American Dreams online critic.
And my podium, my soapbox, my vox populi – was the old USENET message boards. I would go through every American Dreams episode, noting how far off each musical selection was from actual reality (for example, why are the kids on American Bandstand rating the Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night” three months before the Beatles have ever crossed the ocean?), how far off the historical references were from actual history (whose brilliant idea was it to move the Leonid Meteor Shower and the Great Northeast Blackout so that they occurred on the same day?), and how completely improbable and inane the dialogue and culture really were on that show. I even received a positive write-up from the Miami Herald regarding my critiques.
I had fun posting reviews on the show, it was almost cathartic.
Then I ran into a vicious organization, a cabal who treated me like Public Enemy #1 for my posts on USENET.
Yahoo Groups.
Apparently, unbeknownst to me, a cadre of hardcore American Dreams fans, who shared their undying devotion to the show on the Yahoo Groups internet forum, looked at my posts as if I was the reason the show was 4th in its timeslot and was drawing flies instead of viewers. So they would repost my reviews verbatim and then rip me apart.
Eventually I joined a couple of the Yahoo Groups that were American Dreams fanbase sites and discovered something sad. These people had gotten so engrossed into this series that they could not break free from it. One of the show’s most ardent supporters (and most fervent Chuck-bashers) actually created an American Dreams fan club, but her disdain for my posts turned into pleas of support when she couldn’t get her first newsletter published – and came crawling and begging for me to help her format the document, convert it to a PDF, and get it distributed. Good thing she wasn’t using a Smith-Corona to type that newsletter, eh?
And when one of their own, a website reporter (and Yahoo Groups moderator) named Raul Moreno announced that after he had written several glowing reviews of the show and interviewed several of the main actors from the series, that he would get a minor part in the show, and that if I kept on bringing the show down, he wouldn’t get his appearance…
Hoo boy. By the way, in case you’re curious, I saw Moreno’s performance on the show, and it made Jill Rappaport’s semi-self-portrayal Emmy-worthy.
Essentially American Dreams lurched on for three seasons, finally giving up the ghost in 2005 after 61 episodes and an unresolved cliffhanger. Plans were set in place for an epilogue episode, but it would never air. The first season of the show exists on DVD, but the music rights for the series were so cost-prohibitive that the final two seasons only exist on bootleg website downloads and YouTube clips.
Of course, there was at least one benefit of the show American Dreams.
It helped me earn ten points in trivia a couple of weeks ago.
Chuck The Writer 