THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES (Series)

Produced by Philip S. Hobel
Narrated by Harvey Kirck
1993, 48 minutes each

The major political, cultural and social issues of each year in the decade are brought vividly to life in this ten-part series. The decade began with the bloody anti-war demonstrations at Kent State and ended with the near-meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor. In between we saw the end of the Vietnam War and the return home of U.S. troops, the Watergate break-in and the eventual resignation of President Nixon, scandals surrounding Howard Hughes and Ted Kennedy, the growth of Women's Lib and Gay Rights, the emergence of new movie stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Richard Dreyfuss, and seemingly endless cultural fads such as disco, hot tubs, streaking, mud wrestling, water beds and break dancing. Each cassette is time-coded for easy access to any one of dozens of specific topics, of which the following is only a partial listing.

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THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1972 The topics include: Nixon wins in landslide; Olympics terror; SALT talks; George Wallace shot; skyjackings; Betty Friedan; Howard Hughes biography hoax; Bobby Fischer and chess as spectator sport; Angela Davis; J. Edgar Hoover dies.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1970 The topics include: Kent State killings; Chicago 7 Trial; ERA; Cambodian invasion; mercury pollution; Muhammad Ali; water beds and hot pants; Solzhenitzyn; Bernadette Devlin; tragedy at Chappaquiddick; Sesame Street; civil war in Biafra.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1971 The topics include: Pentagon Papers; Attica prison revolt; Lt. Calley and the My Lai massacre; Bangladesh; unisex hair and clothes; deaths of Khrushchev and Louis Armstrong; DNA; Apollo missions; D.B. Cooper.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1973 The topics include: Watergate grand jury proceedings; Agnew resigns; Wounded Knee; military coup in Chile; U.S. out of Vietnam; Yom Kippur War; gas crisis; the Partridge Family; hang gliding; mass murders; LBJ dies.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1974 The topics include: Nixon resigns; gay rights demonstration in NYC; Boston anti-busing demonstrations; sex discrimination; Arctic pipeline; truckers’ strike; streaking; Ford pardons Nixon; Fanne Fox scandal.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1975 The topics include: Saigon falls; Margaret Thatcher elected; Ford assassination attempts; Saturday Night Live; Patty Hearst arrested; UN equates Zionism with racism; Jimmy Hoffa disappears; primal scream therapy; Franco dies.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1976 The topics include: American Bicentennial; Jimmy Carter elected; Viking spacecraft lands on Mars; mud wrestling; Israeli raid on Entebbe; post-Mao party purge in China; Idi Amin; Legionnaire’s disease; Howard Hughes dies.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1977 The topics include: Sadat and Begin peace talks; Carter inauguration; solar energy; Gary Gilmore execution; punk rock; Son of Sam murders; Elvis dies; NYC blackout; Sylvester Stallone in Rocky; Bert Lance resigns.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1978 The topics include: Proposition 13; Nazis march in Skokie; Aldo Moro kidnapping; Vietnamese boat people; Jonestown suicides; Rev. Sun Myung Moon; hot tubs; Panama Canal; Bakke case; disco music; Camp David.

THE SENSATIONAL SEVENTIES: 1979 The topics include: Sandinistas oust Somoza in Nicaragua; Thatcher elected Prime Minister; Three Mile Island; the Shah flees and Khomeini returns to Iran; palimony; Idi Amin overthrown; Skylab falls; Chinese invasion of Vietnam.

REVIEW OF THE SEVENTIES A fast-paced overview of the events, issues and personalities of the decade, including student killings at Kent State; the growing economic power of oil-rich Middle Eastern nations; the Watergate scandal; and a President and Vice President forced to resign.