The Osmonds

I am having a hard time believing that I who love everything from the 70s found something I don’t like.

I went to look for the song Utah by The Osmonds, and saw it on You Tube, but the volume came out blasting. I hated the drums, so I went to look for the cartoon version thinking maybe that was the version I liked, but the volume on the cartoon was so low and I could not find the song, right away. I was not willing to watch anymore of the cartoon to try to find the song. Someone needed to cut the Utah song to a short video on You Tube.

I am not sure if the video on You Tube was a live version or a studio version. I wanted the studio version. The Osmonds Cartoon was much worse the Jackson Five Cartoon. The Osmond cartoon is poorly drawn/animated. Jimmy or Donny is a characture with chipmunk teeth and a swayed body.  Not everything was better in the 70s. I am not willing to rewatch The Osmonds Cartoon, but at the time I may have enjoyed it. I have vague memories of liking the Utah Song. My mind told me that Utah was one of the songs from the Jackson Five. I don’t know if they may have covered as it, as both the Osmonds and the Jackson Five did One Bad Apple.

The Osmonds  tremendous success for the rest of the ’70s and reinvented themselves as Country artists in the ’80s. Donny hosted a variety show from 1976-1979 with his sister called Donny & Marie.

I don’t have much memory of The Osmonds, but I remember the Donny and Marie Show and it did not like, but I watched it anyway as there was nothing else to watch. I hated the opening theme “I’m a Little Bit Country, I’m a Little Bit Rock and Roll”,” I sort of died a little bit each time they did the opening.

Maybe the mistake was going country? How can a family of Morons be country?
But, the “rock n roll” part of the show was just as bad as the country part. The show was similar to the much better Tony Orlando and Dawn and The Sonny and Cher Show.

Since then I avoided all things Osmond, and my only knowledge was the Marie had a line of dolls which I thought was ugly.

This shows that in a cultural desert (due to the 70s existing in primitive technological time when the TV set was all there was,) anyone can become famous with the right amount of marketing hype. But, if there are choices given what we can watch and listen to people naturally  gravitate to groups who have produced quality work such as The Beatles and away from groups that only existed based on the marketing. If you wanted to watch TV in the 70s, you watched Donny and Marie. You may have turned to other channels looking for something else, but if there was nothing else you forced yourself to watch. There are surely some people who like the Osmonds Music. Leave me a comment.

The show was created by Sid & Marty Krofft and videotaped in Los Angeles.

I love all things Sid & Marty Krofft, so this is even more surprising to me.

Creative control of the show was given to the Osmonds after a long battle, and Donny & Marie was moved to the Osmond Studios (known as the Osmond Entertainment Center) in Orem, Utah in November 1977.

Sid and Marty Krofft had a Theme Park (The World of Sid and Marty Krofft) had at the Omni Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia in 1976 which is now the CNN Center. This is a sad story, because they took out loans to make the park the very best cutting edge technologically, but then could not repay the loans, so the park was closed. The projected earnings did not equal what they needed to make the loan payments. No photos or videos were allowed to be taken by the guests, and almost no record of how the park looked can be found.

What a waste to build something so elaborate as the Pin Mall Machine Ride, but then have it all destroyed without even a record of it. If they have saved it (even in ruins) it could have become an environmental art space. I have seen just one photo of the Pin Ball Ride, but it looked like an environment, not just a ride like the Mad Tea Cups at Disneyland. The entire park was build indoors, which would be great for hot summers, but less good for children who like to scream and like to be outdoors. I can see the parents telling them to use their inside voices. I can’t understand why no publicity photos were taken. Maybe they wanted the guests to be surprised?

I like Ice Skating, but having turned to the first episode, I saw Donny with a girl who falls down and he does not help her up. She is just lying there. Its not funny.  There is some canned laughter on the laugh track. I hate all shows with laugh tracks. I can’t even watch the new Rosanne Show without Rosanne.  Comedy that is not funny, that is forced upon the viewer with a laugh track to make the view believe its funny, falls into the category or Unfunny Comedy. I see it often in stand up comedy specials. The stand up comic has good delivery and the jokes may be well-timed, but the jokes themselves are not funny.

One of the strangest things is listening in comedy to Woody Allen reading his book material on Audible.  Woody Allen is a brilliant writer, but he does not pause in his delivery. His comedy is badly timed in the reading. I have seen him do Stand Up and he knows how to pace himself when he is live. He answered this criticism by saying he wanted a dead pan delivery. It’s not the delivery, but the pacing that he need to adjust. All things thing need to be correct timing, delivery and material for comedy to work.2

Updated: 2019 Donny and Marie were playing at in Vegas, when I happened to stop by and I noticed there is an art display of costumes and a doll that Marie made inside some plastic boxes in the Lobby of the Flamingo. It looks like an airport art exhibit