The Spirit of '76

Starring:Ann Block, Bob Casale, Gerald V. Casale, David Cassidy, Charles Dean, Nancye Ferguson, Leif Garrett, Geoff Hoyle, David Kendrick, Jeffrey McDonald, Steve McDonald, Mark Mothersbaugh, Liam O'Brien (II), Carl Reiner, Brian Routh, Maud Winchester, Moon Unit Zappa, Olivia d'Abo, Martin von Haselberg
Studio: Turner Home Ent
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

A virtual pantheon of icons from the 1970s populate Spirit of '76, a 1991 homage of sorts to the decade of excessive, tacky design. David Cassidy plays an inventor from a drab, lifeless future that wants to send a team back to 1776 to retrieve the Constitution; a technical foul-up lands them in 1976 instead. You can imagine what follows: Crazy, funky get-ups and limp jokes about Watergate, self-actualization seminars, GM Pacers, streakers, and disco. Leif Garrett, Moon Zappa, Devo, Tommy Chong, Rob Reiner, and others make cameo appearances, as well as more contemporary personalities like Julie Brown. It would be charitable to assume that the filmmakers put all this together lovingly and didn't want to distract from the warm glow of nostalgia by making anything actually funny. Also featuring Olivia D'Abo, Geoff Hoyle, and members of the band Redd Kross. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

DON'T BOGART THAT (VERY) "GUILTY PLEASURE", DUDE (*A Haiku Review).......2007-05-08

Loud clothes! Fords explode!
Seventies: silly, zitful.
STILL want Susan Dey!

~ Stephen T. McCarthy
<"As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly."
~ Proverbs 26:11>

The Sprit of Fun.......2007-03-26

Great movie. C'mon all the teeny bop idols of the 70's..
great music...and just a fun movie all around..probably already a cult classic.

The "critics" don't get it........2006-04-15

On the surface this may seem to be just a silly comedy, but I've seen a lot of silly comedies, and I rarely want to watch one more than once. I've seen this movie probably 15 times, and there are very few movies I've seen even more than twice. The story is great, there are many brilliantly zany moments. The soundtrack songs are great but the crazy filler music is genius. Some of the gags are a little juvenile ("toadblock!") but several scenes rank as some of the funniest I've ever seen in any movie (like Rob Reiner leading one of those 70's type forced group therapy things and his interactions with one of the "future people" who stumbles in). There's also a lot of subtle humor that slips by a lot of people I think. I've raved about this to friends and gotten them to watch it with me. They found it entertaining but didn't see why I thought it's such a great movie, and they grew up in the 70's as I did. It was directed by Rob Reiner's son Lucas (who has a very brief cameo in front of a fireworks stand, you have to play in slow motion to really see him).

Bret Fetzer must have been born a little late.......2005-09-27

Pacers were not made by GM. They were among the garbage cars like Gremlins and Hornets made by AMC who used to make the Jeep until they went out of business and sold the Jeep franchise to Chrysler.

This Nostalgia Hurts.......2005-04-15

I like campy thing. I like old things. I like silly things. I like nostalgic things. This movies qualifies as all four but I didn't like it.

The plot is silly; many plots are silly but yet enjoyable; this one was not. It revolves around time travlers going back to get a copy of the Constitution to try and turn around a failing society. The society needs to be put out of its misery.

Lost in Space was a campy, silly and thoroughly enjoyable romp. It brought back fond memories of its era. This one merely makes me shudder and glad that my memories of the era are a bit...hazy.

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