Show:Family Ties Kids: Alex P., Mallory, Jennifer and Andrew Known for: Being a hippie dad raising a Reaganite son in the 1980s; his beard
Looking back, it’s remarkable how quickly the free-lovin’ 1960s gave way to the greed-is-good materialism of the 1980s. Family Ties, which ran until 1989, deftly captured the dissonance between the Woodstock and Reagan generations. Ohio public TV manager Steven Keaton — a proud former hippie — headed a household that included his equally liberal wife (Meredith Baxter) a conservative free marketeer (Michael J. Fox, in a career-making role) and a ditzy mall rat (Justine Bateman, less so) — as well as two less interesting children. For seven years, the soft-spoken, bearded Keaton (played by Michael Gross) showed a young Generation X audience that a family’s love can bridge even the widest cultural divide.
Show:The Brady Bunch Kids: Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan, Cindy Known for: Marrying a lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls (while busy with three boys of his own).
He was TV’s perfect 1950s dad, tweaked for a more modern era. Mike Brady was a natural character for the rising divorce and remarriage rates of the 1960s — as the show’s theme song reminded viewers each week, the Brady Bunch was formed when Mike, the father of three sons, married Carol, the mother of three girls (though Mike was widowed, rather than divorced, and Carol’s past was never fully explained). Hilarious hijinx ensued, from 1969 to 1974. A successful architect, handsome, well-coiffed and handy with a toolkit, Mike Brady was about all a blended family could hope for. He was so perfect, in fact, that a viewer might never guess that classically trained actor Robert Reed resented playing the role and often stormed off the set to sulk in his dressing room when scripts didn’t meet his standards. One reported tempest came when Mike Brady was supposed to walk into the kitchen as Carol was making dessert and remark that it smelled “like strawberry heaven.” An aggrieved Reed demanded that the line be changed, telling the show’s producer: “It just so happens that strawberries, while cooking, have no odor.”
Richard Dawson, the wisecracking British entertainer who was among the schemers in the 1960s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” and a decade later began kissing thousands of female contestants as host of the game show “Family Feud” has died. He was 79.
As we prepare for the Game of Thrones finale, we recognize Joffrey and nine other baddies who showed us that terrible, horrible things can come in small packages
