This Was Television On September 25
1970: The Partridge Family comes on, gets happy.
America’s favorite brightly-colored-bus-traveling sitcom family/bubblegum pop band, The Partridge Family, begins its tour of the network TV airwaves. Shirley Jones starred as the widowed matriarch of the musical brood, which included teen heartthrobs David Cassidy and Susan Dey, and adolescent mischief-maker Danny Bonaduce. As part of ABC’s family-friendly Friday night line-up, the show ran four seasons and produced one real-life chart-topper in “I Think I Love You,” which hit number one on Billboard‘s top singles chart in December 1970.
As a band, The Partridge Family was part of a wave of fictitious recording artists breaking through to the real world in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That tradition also included The Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” in 1966, The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar” in 1969, and the haunting cover of “I Got You Babe” by Dragnet‘s Joe Friday and Bill Gannon in 1970. -A.D.
Today’s Birthdays: Tate Donovan, damaged (49); Clea DuVall, Carinvàlian (35); Donald Glover, Human Being (29); Mark Hamill, Gotham villain (61); Jamie Hyneman, Mythbuster (56); Heather Locklear, Shatner partner (51); Lee Norris, middle school nerd (31); Phil Rizzuto, Yankee caller (d. 2007); Will Smith, fresh (44); Hal Sparks, folksy (43); Aida Turturro, Soprano sis (50); Robert Walden, L.A. Tribune reporter (69); Barbra Walters, interviewer (83); Anson Williams, sitting on it (60).
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