It Was Alright in the 70s (2014–2016) User Reviews

Television in the stone age

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 1 December 2014]

Well Channel 4 did not start broadcasting until 1982 so there will be no exhibits from that channel's output on this show. However let us give a Hall of Shame mention to Channel 4 programmes such as Minipops and After Dark where guests in order to be controversial were plied with drink and smoked like chimneys.

It was alright in the 70s is a smug and sneering look at some of the programmes on the BBC & ITV in less enlightened times. In sitcoms where men were louts and women were dolly birds.

Still Channel 4 took the opportunity in showing clips out of context such as the one in Butterflies which was a rare sitcom as it had a female writer and dealt with the frustrations of a middle aged married woman.

The second episode examined race and sexuality where we had flamboyant gay men in sitcoms and white people blacking up in the Black & White Minstrel shows. The non ironic commentary is from Matt Lucas well known for being the last gay in the village and blacking/browning up in comedy shows for over the last 10 years.

This is just a clips show to demonstrate how horrid television was 40 years ago and we had comments from not so famous comedians and television personalities. I agree some of the television output was bad but why show The Goodies clips on racism which itself was a satirical and political critique of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. That's right a kids show daring to be controversial, something you will be less likely to see these days.

Ironically it was left to black entertainers such as Derek Griffiths and Kenny Lynch who were there at the time to stand up for the television shows they did. Lynch lets not forget was always politically active and got his MBE many years before his showbiz pal Bruce Forsyth and was a pacesetter for black comedians from the 1960s onwards.

It Was Alright in the 70s - cracking stuff!

[Ask_Aspel · 8/10 · 17 December 2015]

In my humble opinion, It Was Alright in the 70s is one of the most intriguing clip shows made in recent years and I feel the other reviewers have somewhat missed the message. For me the starting point of the show was to consider how we don't often see outrageously offensive casual racism, sexism and homophobia on television these days, in our popular mainstream entertainment.

Yes there are exceptions - Little Britain & The League of Gentlemen among them - but you don't find popular presenters using the n-word these days, nor do you hear mainstream singers perform ballads in which they express the hope that their unborn child doesn't turn out to be gay. But sometimes this would happen on TV in the 70s, as the clips demonstrated. They had absorbing clips of other things we don't see too often now, things that used to happen A LOT - like middle-aged male TV personalities lusting after nubile young women at beauty pageants, or generally being patronising to them.

When you hear a 70s female sitcom character say that she wants to be raped, or you hear a 70s male GP sitcom character say that he likes young school girls and can't wait to go and examine them, it sounds jarring to us. We like to think that we've moved on a bit. Not everyone has, of course, but most people probably have.

No one denies that in the 1970s, we made some of our best TV in the UK - comedy shows like Fawlty Towers, or dramas like and Colditz and I Claudius. Programmes which became the envy of the world. But It Was Alright in the 70s never said that the 70s were terrible, or that 70s TV was terrible. For the other reviewers to say that this is "just a clips show to demonstrate how horrid television was 40 years ago" does not make sense. I think it was trying to point out the way in which popular, everyday TV like sitcoms, chat-shows and music shows reflected the way most people thought at the time. Unfortunately a lot of people at the time were casually sexist, racist and homophobic. These days we put a little more thought into trying to be less sexist, racist and homophobic, on TV anyway, which can only be a good thing. We've got a long way to go, of course...

I think there was balance in the choice of the on-camera commentators too. Many of them expressed the view that you have to judge 70s TV by the standards of the time. For instance, Toby Young said that since it's perfectly right for us today to tolerate people of different ethnicities, people who have different sexualities and people from different cultures, then we should show the same consideration and toleration of people from different eras and the ways in which they made TV. Which I do.

So this show gets a big thumbs-up from me.

It was Brilliant in the 70's!

[Robsnide · 1/10 · 13 February 2015]

There's not much more I can add to the excellent reviews here already, so just let me state for the record that I strongly believe the 1970's to have been the highpoint of British television. You want proof? 'I Claudius', 'Jesus Of Nazareth', 'Elisabeth R', 'Callan', 'Colditz', 'Secret Army', 'Upstairs Downstairs', 'Doomwatch', 'Survivors', 'Shoestring' and groundbreaking documentaries like 'The World At War', 'Johnny Go Home', and 'Disappearing World'. What have we got today? 'Big Brother', 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!', 'The Only Way Is Essex', 'Bring Back Borstal', 'The X-Factor', and 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'. 'Dr.Who' was far better then than it is now, even with its inferior special effects.

'It Was Alright In The 70's' was akin to watching a bald-headed man laughing at a man with a receding hairline. At a time when television companies are struggling to put out anything of quality, it beggars belief that anyone has the nerve to go in front of a camera and put the boot into what was on forty years ago. Matt Lucas, the narrator, is no stranger to bad programmes, having co- starred and co-written the single worst comedy sketch show of all time - 'Little Britain'.

Yes, there was some bad stuff around, such as 'Crossroads'. Yes, there was racism, sexism, and homophobia on television then, but that was because it existed in the real world ( as it sadly does today ). The difference is that 1970's television was not afraid to tell the truth about the world we live in. Characters like 'Alf Garnett' were accurate depictions of small-minded bigots. We were invited to laugh at him, and that's how it should be.

Comedy? Right. There was 'Fawlty Towers', 'Steptoe And Son', 'Dad's Army', 'The Morecambe & Wise Show', 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', 'The Goodies', Rising Damp' 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads', 'Porridge', 'The Good Life', 'The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin', and 'Ripping Yarns'. Its telling that the most successful sitcoms of recent years - Mrs.Brown's Boys' and 'Miranda' - have imitated the style of some of these shows.

So get off your high horse, Channel 4. 1970's television standards have never been equalled, much less surpassed.

Funny and shocking (in a good way)

[emmarobinson-69067 · 8/10 · 20 April 2021]

I feel compelled to write my first ever review to defend this program.

The reviews, I suspect are all from users of the age where they enjoyed all the programs in the 70s that are featured and scrutinsed in this, and are just defending it and trying to explain why it's funny.

I watched this show with my father and he had the exact reaction; when I was gasping in shock at some of the scenes- he was vehemently explaining that it was "out of context" and that it wasn't as "offensive" as the comedians who help narrate the show are making it out to be.

I'm here to say that these statements and these reviews are completely missing the point.

I'm quite a young user (to some anyway), I watched all the series; it was alright in the 70s, 80s, 90s etc and obviously in this day and age where cancel culture is becoming the norm, and cults of victimhood is replacing real scholarship, my shock was just simply that it was there! On the tv! I definitely didn't think to myself that it was terrible and im glad that it's not on the tv anymore, but more simply admiring the fact that once upon a time, content like that existed.

It's a reflection into the past and viewing what content was appropriate at that time and making comparisons today and how we view it differently and more importantly, why we are viewing it so differently.

I dont think the show was trying to say that these programs were bad, it's just that it's a sign of the times where in the 70s for example (as featured on this show), you would watch a commercial about the yellow pages and it makes some racial asian overtones compared to today where people are losing their rag over actors who tweeted something a decade ago.

I watched it and really enjoyed it because of that shock value. I think that its a important reminder of how far we have come and that's all. Don't take it too seriously (Since when did people take anything Matt lucas narrated seriously, anyway?!) and you'll enjoy it.

More unnecessary attacks against the 70's

[BJJManchester · 4/10 · 28 November 2014]

'It Was Alright in the 70's' was another smug,sneering look at a controversial decade with conveniently picked clips and partial commentators trying to tell us how more enlightened we all are now.

For every bit of dated sexism,racism and homophobia you would still get far more moments of classic drama,entertainment,documentary and comedy,predictably glossed over as good dramas,intelligent documentaries and outstanding comedy is very difficult to pick out from hundreds of channels in this day and age as we are saturated with wall-to-wall reality TV,incredulous celebrities,hackneyed dramas and soaps,sensationalist documentaries and mean-spirited,foul-mouthed comedians.

We should have had a programme on such modern cultural and TV retrograde steps accompanied by sneering critics as that would've been justified,and Dapper Laughs is a whole lot more sexist and offensive than Benny Hill was,plus he didn't imply jokes about rape,he 100% included it in one of his 'jokes' recently.Now that was a lot worse than what happened in the 70's,plus Big Brother,I'm a Celeb and TOWIE too.

All in all,a huge disappointment,save the archive clips from the period,one or two of which had not been broadcast before,even in the overtly non-PC 70's when the material was too strong even then (from the forgotten sitcom,'THE WACKERS' that is,featuring a young Alison Steadman and crumple-faced Joe Gladwin),and the performers of today that made such critical comments from shows and attitudes of the past should look at themselves once in a while to see if they are any superior (which in most cases,they certainly ain't).

RATING:3 and a half out of 10.

A Ludricrous Hate-Fest

[Yonilikka-22 · 1/10 · 26 September 2016]

One type of programme we did not have in the 70's was the sneering, right-on retro-documentary. Adrianapolis, Prismark 10, and BJManchester's comments are spot on. So British television was different forty years ago. So what? The commentators did not know what they were talking about, and many excerpts were shown out of context. For instance, 'Butterflies' with Wendy Craig. When she said she wanted to be raped, she did not mean it literally. The show was about a woman trapped in a boring marriage. When she said it, she was only articulating her frustration. Anyone who has seen the entire programme will tell you that she instantly regretted saying the words the moment they left her mouth. The 'Doctor At Large' clip was equally misrepresented. 'Dr.Upton' did not lust after schoolgirls. He regarded them as nuisances. 'Dr.Collier' did though, but he was in his early twenties, not much older than the girls were.

Beauty contests were considered naff viewing back in the day. Holding them up as an example of 'bad 70's T.V.' really does not wash.

In an ideal world, casual racism, sexism and homophobia would not exist. They do, alas. These days, you're more likely to find them on the internet than television. How many people have committed suicide as a result of cyber bullying? Yet social networking sites continue to thrive. Television has a duty to report what happens in the real world, no many matter how unpleasant it may be. Bravo to 70's T.V. for doing just that. If television companies are 'putting more thought' into their programmes, why the hell are many of them so bad? The 'f' word was never used on 70's T.V. When the late Jade Goody insulted Shilpa Shetty on 'Celebrity Big Brother', it was more offensive than anything screened in the 70's, so no sanctimony please, Channel 4.

Recently, the B.B.C. have screened one-off remakes of some of its best-loved comedy shows, and these were generally welcomed. It seems odd to condemn 70's audiences for laughing at mention of Mrs.Slocombe's pussy when 2016 audiences have been doing exactly the same thing.

There is a great deal of snobbery about the 70's in general, and in my view it is just plain wrong. Instead of making programmes like this, it might be a good idea to work out just what went wrong with British television back in the 90's, and try to put it right.

My response to 'It Was Alright In The 70's? To quote the much-missed Sid James: "Knickers!".

An unneeded exercise in political correctness

[sesarp101 · 1/10 · 21 September 2016]

A programme looking back at bizarre, embarrassing, shocking and, to some, offensive clips from the 70s could have been a hoot, if tackled the right way. Yes, the pc brigade will watch these clips and act offended (their main occupation in life), but this should have been about laughing at how different programmes were, how backward they were in some cases, without having a bunch of ultra-pc unfunny comedians making comments after every clip.

How ironic that Matt Lucas, who made his name out of a show that was ultra non-pc for its time (ultra camp gays everywhere, old women peeing randomly, or being sick when tasting food handed to them by a black guy) is the narrator. Shame on you Matt, Little Britain was great, but now you have just spoiled the memory by going all pc and pointing the finger at other people.

The most annoying thing about the show, other than the school teacher like, arrogant comments from some of the people looking back, is the fact that many of the clips are shown out of context. Indeed, you could take plenty of shows now, cut them up and make them look even worse. Is living in a stiflingly pc world a better world now? In some ways, yes, if it means people are treated better by others. But this show's main aim seems to be to point fingers squarely at white people, mainly men,(because of course, nobody else is ever sex, racist or homophobic, are they?) and blame them for stuff they didn't do, never mind all the good thing's they have been responsible for over the years.