I still cannot believe that I actually stopped what I was doing and watched 20 minutes of Romancing the 70s, an honest-to-god Time/Life set they’re hawking on infomercials someone actually paid money to put together.

My first thought was that Time Life doesn’t think much of their audience- and I’m not even talking about their taste in music. The infomercial actually said things like “It would take you years and thousands of dollars to collect all of your old favorites!” and “Take 60 days to preview the collection, and if you’re not completely satisfied, return it to us, no questions asked, for a full refund!” Wow. Way to assume your audience has zero understanding of basic commerce (or downloading, ripping, etc).

I wanted to post a portion of the damned thing to share Tony Orlando’s excitement with you, but it’s just not out there. When I googled the title, I did, however find this description from The Prettiest Denny’s Waitress:

The other one that nearly diverted my attention from the football game entirely last night is called “Romancing the ’70s”, pitched by an aged, bewigged Tony Orlando. The effect of this one is sort of like eating those snot- and puke-flavored jelly beans, where your curiosity about how much worse it can get keeps you involved beyond all reason. I used to be regularly enraptured by the commercial for the soft rock compilation featuring those two guys from Air Supply, but “Romancing” collects the music that is even softer, slower and more gonad-shriveling. Truly, despite the title, I doubt anyone ever got laid while listening to Anne Murray or Neil Sedaka.

I think that pretty much covers it. Also, his post is from January, so obviously I’ve managed to dodge this dreck for awhile, for which I’m grateful. Now that it knows I’m out here, it’ll stalk me and I’ll have weenie pop stuck in my head for days. It’ll be like it was growing up. So I’m watching Tony spitting out one flaccid song after another, and I’m horrified at how many I know from growing up in an AM-centric household. And yes, of course Mom’s chestnuts are well represented in the mix.

But then, as Tony Orlando’s blithering about all the unmatched “soul and romance” of the era, up pops a song from my youth I thought I’d cauterized out of my brain. Naturally it was instantly welcomed back into the cranial folds, which made me want to share the love so I figured I’d find a youtube of it as a fitting stand-in for the lack of actual footage.

Growing up, Helen Reddy’s “Angie Baby” was always a mystery to me. A totally lite, airy song about…uh… an autistic girl who kills/abducts and/or had her radio eat a perv who came to rape her? Wow. I’m not sure whose idea of “romance” that fits, but sure, whatever.

So I was acquainted with Angie, that special child. What I wasn’t used to were people out in tubeland with lots and lots of time on their hands to create little animated videos to go along with songs. Who are these people?

I was torn between* two videos, so I’ll link both of them, both horrifying in their way:

• This is fully animated, and I just can’t imagine how long this took to do (Link):
  
• 
  This one’s much more basic, but creepier. What’s with the suddenly appearing axe? And that black smile? Wow. (Link)

• There’s one more, but apparently it was professionally done, and though the lyrics are the same, the singer’s different. Also…well, there’s a whole lot of phallic imagery in it. It does for sure meet the creeped-out criteria. So I won’t post it, but if you’re a real glutton for punishment, it’s here.

*Aargh! I’ve been contaminated by the infomercial! I typed “torn between” and my brain finished the phrase with “between two lovers.” Boy, I’m in trouble.