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That Seventies Show Episode from 2000 Spoofs Five Hitchcock Greats

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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Looking around at streaming programming, in addition to movies, there are TV series. In my boredom, I took a quick visit to the "That Seventies Show" episode list, because I vaguely recalled a "Hitchcock salute episode" that I had watched first run.

I found it. Turns out the episode aired in 2000...almost 20 years ago now. And it was an episode from a show about 25 years before THEN. The mind reels. The carousel goes round and round...you can't go back...

I confess to watching sitcoms and TV dramas sometimes, not a lot, usually to keep the household peace. "That Seventies Show" wasn't close to the gold standard of "Seinfeld," but it had its moments. I was the target audience (teen/college in the 70's, "now grown up"), the clothes and hair and other references worked. I particularly like the casting of the psychotic gang leader from "Robocop" as a truly scary father in the family, the macho man out to terrorize his more impish, deadpan son.

That son was played by Topher Grace, one of three mini-stars generated by the series. Ashton Kutcher was the other, and Mila Kunis was the third(Kutcher and Kunis are now married, after Kutcher's detour to Demi Moore.) We will see how they hang on.

Anyway, the Hitchcock episode was interesting because they chose to spoof five specific Hitchcock movies in one 30-minute(with commercials) episode: Rear Window, Vertigo, NXNW, Psycho, and The Birds. When you get right down to it, those ARE the five famous Hitchcock movies now, aren't they? The British films and Rebecca and Notorious and Strangers on a Train are known to critics, but those Big Five are really "it" in Hitchcock. And in 2000, That Seventies Show knew that.

This was their Halloween episode. The show opened with Topher Grace chasing his friend "Fez" on the family house rooftop. Topher stumbles and hangs from the rain gutter(only about a 15 foot drop.) Cue Vertigo "swirling dizzyiness music." Topher keeps hanging --but Fez falls from the roof, injures his leg -- and needs a wheelchair. As the episode continues, Fez, from that wheelchair, spies on the next door neighbor(a big guy) and determines he may have killed his wife. Meanwhile, Topher can't handle climbing ladders and such -- he has vertigo.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Topher's mom visits a new neighbor who keeps caged birds all over her living room, they bit her and she runs. Asthon Kutcher gets an NXNW spoof(a neighbor brat uses a radio-controlled crop duster to chase Kutcher around the lawn.) And "saving the best for almost last" then Kutcher -- a teenage heartthrob at the time -- does Janet Leigh's nude but not nude bit in a "usual" shower scene spoof(an angry teen girl hits at him with a shower brush, he spills red shampoo which goes down the drain.)

A nice "re-do" of Raymond Burr entering the dark room to confront James Stewart in his wheelchair is re-staged to nice comic effect(they darken the room and the memories are surprisingly acute with the big man in the lit doorway and Fez in the wheelchair.)

They wrap up the episode with a credit sequence in which each main cast member gets to lie on their backs on a spinning surface to get a "Vertigo" effect. Its fun.

On balance, this sitcom episode from 2000 is nothing much, silly -- but can be added to the "Psycho spoof" list.

I think what I may have liked better is that -- for once -- the shower scene isn't ALL that is spoofed. The hanging from the house rain gutter Vertigo spoof and the Rear Window climax spoof aren't something you see a lot. And they had Ashton Kutcher wear a nice suit to be chased by the plane(with no explanation.)

But this: in 2000, those five Hitchcock films likely WERE famous..but as posters have pointed out around here, most of them aren't famous anymore. And this: a show about teenagers in the 70's WOULD be relevant to include Hitchcock movies, because a lot of 60's/70s kids were Hitchcock fans..because his movies were all over TV(though The Lost Films went away til the 80's..Vertigo, Rear Window. Harry, Man 2, Rope. )

[–] tph890 (484) 4 years ago

I love this episode, and also the Rocky Horror episode.