Most memorable 70s TV shows

Ah, the 70s. The decade that brought us the winter of discontent, strikes, and flares. But it wasn’t all bad news. It gave us funk, Abba and Ziggy Stardust. It also produced some mighty fine television. So pop on your platform heels, and come on a trip down memory lane for a look at the best television the decade had to offer.

The Waltons (1972-81)

A homely story about a Virginia family trying to make ends meet during the Great Depression, the Waltons personified decency and community in the most trying of times. John-Boy Walton, his six siblings, and his parents, John and Olivia, were good, hard-working rural types whose dungarees contained within them hearts the size of Walton Mountain.

The phrase “Goodnight, John-Boy,” which ended every episode, became common parlance in the 70s and beyond. But when the series, a multi-award-winner and smash hit success, was launched, it was never expected to succeed. Indeed, Ralph Waite, who played the family patriarch John, was reluctant to commit to a long-term TV series, and was told by his agent to do the pilot anyway: “It will never sell. You do the pilot, you pick up a couple of bucks, then go back to New York.” It didn’t quite happen that way.

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I, Claudius (1976)

Nothing becomes an epic TV drama like a struggle for power. Whether it’s Game of Thrones or House of Cards, watching the Machiavellian plotting of those who seek power is delightfully thrilling. But no series ever did it better than I, Claudius, based on Robert Graves’ 1934 novel.

Told from the viewpoint of the elderly Emperor Claudius (Derek Jacobi) it is a study of the chaos and bloodshed surrounding the imperial seat. A tale of machinations, megalomania and murder, at its heart were two outstanding performances, by Jacobi, and by Sian Phillips as the spectacularly evil Livia (both were awarded Baftas). The supporting cast reads like a Who’s Who of acting talent, including Brian Blessed, Patrick Stewart, Ian Ogilv, Christopher Biggins, and John Hurt as the lunatic Caligula.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-74)

There had never been anything like the gloriously absurdist sketch show before on television. Come to that, there pretty much never has been since.

Over four inspired series, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam produced something so outlandish and brilliantly bizarre that 50 years later ‘Pythonesque’ is still the byword for surreal inventive comedy.

The show gave us some never-to-be-forgotten sketches, including the Ministry of Silly Walks, the Dead Parrot, Nudge Nudge, The Spanish inquisition and the Lumberjack Song, all tied together with Gilliam’s magnificently weird animations. Any show that could show both a deeply intellectual sketch about philosophers playing football, and a man being hit in the face by an oversized fish, had to have something going for it. For bonus points, it was also my dad’s favourite show, and something we bonded over.

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Starsky and Hutch (1975-79)

Was there ever a show with a more 70s feel than this tale of two street cops patrolling the fictional Bay City, California? The clothes, the music, the cars, the whole thing was so rooted in its time that it simply oozed 1970s cool. What kid back then didn’t want to be either Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) or Hutch (David Soul), the two coolest cops who ever walked the beat.

Not that they actually walked much. Why would you, when you had an incredibly cool red and white Ford Gran Torino to zip about in? The surprisingly touching friendship between the two cops was the bedrock of the show, even if the standout star was Antonio Vargas’ jive-talking informant Huggy Bear, the coolest character in the perhaps the coolest show ever made.

The Sweeney (1975-78)

Britain’s own Starsky and Hutch were altogether less glamorous and stylish than their American counterparts, but no less effective in their policing. Jack Regan (played by John Thaw) and George Carter (Dennis Waterman) of the Met’s Flying Squad, were from the era when ‘men were men’, which generally involved hard drinking, heavy smoking, and punching people. The Sweeney was a gritty, squalid, authentic show that depicted the police as imperfect people who sometimes bent the law to get results. We were a long way from Dixon of Dock Green territory here. But the show was hugely popular, its status confirmed by its ability to attract a stunning array of guest stars, including luminaries such as John Hurt, Joss Ackland, Diana Dors, Roy Kinnear, Maureen Lipman and even, rather improbably, Morecambe and Wise.

Upstairs, Downstairs (1971-75)

Long before Downton Abbey was a golden glint in ITV executives eyes, there was Upstairs, Downstairs, a period drama set above and below stairs in an aristocratic household, specifically the Bellamy residence at 165 Eaton Place, in London’s uber-posh Belgravia.

Much like Downton, it was a deliciously glamorous, soapy affair featuring illicit romantic liaisons, unwanted pregnancies, untimely deaths and society scandals. Set in the era from 1903 to 1930, it dealt with some of the key events of the period, including women’s suffrage, the sinking of the Titanic, the Great War, the Roaring 20s and the Wall Street Crash.

An excellent cast included jean Marsh, Lesley-Anne Down, Pauline Collins and, overseeing it all as the ever-dependable butler Hudson, Gordon Jackson.

All Creatures Great and Small (1978-90)

Although the majority of the series ran throughout the 80s, I’m including this classic BBC drama because, well, I loved it, and it’s my list, so there! It was perhaps the pivotal TV drama of my youth, featuring my first crush (Carol Drinkwater as Helen) and the first time I cried watching a TV show (when James went off to war).

As if you didn’t know, All Creatures Great and Small told the story of a veterinary practice in the Yorkshire Dales, featuring the magnificent triumvirate of James Herriot (Christopher Timothy), and Siegfried and Tristan Farnon (Robert Hardy and Peter Davison). The show, which currently has a more than passable remake on Channel 5, was a delightfully bucolic slice of nostalgia.

Two further things stand in its favour: It gave us the best ever TV theme tune (actually a piece of library music called Piano Parchment) and introduced us to the glorious Mrs Pumphrey and her Pekingese, Tricki Woo.

M*A*S*H *(1972-83)

The Korean war may only have gone on for three years, but this subversive comedy set during the conflict ran for eleven glorious years and was, for a while, the biggest show in the world. The story of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital was an anti-war howl of protest that was screened, in its early years, against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.

Peopled by a selection of eccentrics, misfits and cranks, the unit was a sort of dysfunctional family with the brilliant surgeon Hawkeye Pearce (Alan Alda) at its heart. The show’s brilliant trick was to be both political and deeply moving, while also managing to be funny.

The show’s feature-length finale, Goodbye, Farewell, Amen, drew an audience of 125 million in America, and remained the country’s most-watched broadcast for the next 30 years.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)

Over four decades after its release, this seven-part spy series, based on John le Carré’s book, and adapted by le Carré himself, continues to be the benchmark by which all other espionage dramas are judged.

Alec Guinness plays George Smiley, called out of semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet spy in MI6. Far from being an action-packed, thrill-a-minute, explosive-riddled bonanza, this is an intelligent, atmospheric and hugely involving drama that puts modern spy thrillers to shame.

Le Carré said it was his favourite of all the (many) adaptations of his works, largely due to the astonishing performance of Guinness as Smiley. Needless to say, he won a Bafta for his performance, declared by the New York Times to be nothing less than “a landmark in TV history.”

Fawlty Towers (1975-79)

Never mind the best TV show of the 1970s, there’s a strong argument to suggest that Fawlty Towers is the best TV show ever made. In 2000 it was named the Greatest British TV Programme of all time by industry experts. And yet it only ever ran for two series. But what series they were – 12 episodes of televisual perfection. Written by John Cleese and his first wife Connie Booth, it centered around life in a Torquay hotel run by an angry and put-upon proprietor, basil Fawlty (Cleese) and his wife Sybil (Prunella Scales).

They were ‘assisted’ in their endeavours by chambermaid Polly (Booth) and hapless Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs). The character of Basil was based upon a real life hotelier, Donald Sinclair, who ran the Gleneagles hotel in Torquay when the Pythons stayed there in 1970, and who was described by Cleese as “the rudest man I ever met.” The initial idea for the series was turned down by a BBC executive, who wrote to Cleese: I cannot see it as being anything other than a disaster.” Some disaster.

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