The Spirit of 76… Movie

This movie is a B movie all of the way…and it plays up that fact… It was released in 1990 and if you are wanting to watch something that spoofs the 1970s… This movie is for you. You will also learn the word tetrahydrozoline.

This movie stars David Cassidy, Lief Garrett, Carl and Rob Reiner, and Olivia d’Abo… Citizen Kane, it is NOT. It’s a fun film about the future where all is gray and they lost every record because of a magnetic storm including the US Constitution.

Adam-11 (David Cassidy) has built a time machine because he wants to go to a beach…beaches don’t exist anymore in the future. The government wants him to use the time machine to go into the past to 1776 and get a copy of the US Constitution so they can rebuild their society with it. To make it work he needs a chemical that’s rare in the future… tetrahydrozoline (the main ingredient to a very popular item in the ’70s… Visine).

The government agrees to give him some tetrahydrozoline but sends two more travelers Chanel-6 (d’Abo ),  Heinz 57 (Geoff Hoyle) with Adam-11 to retrieve the document…but instead of going back to 1776 the time machine malfunctions and goes to 1976.

Devo makes an appearance as the “Ministry of Knowledge”…

It’s a corny movie but they have the 70s down in many parts of the movie. After meeting up with two teenage stoners (The group Redd Kross) they look for the constitution but lose the tetrahydrozoline. If you are looking for a second Gone with the Wind…don’t watch this but it’s funny and silly enough to entertain you.

You have to know a little about the 70s to get some of the jokes…Like David Cassidy’s character looking around a garage in 1976 asking “am I going to be stuck here forever?” while looking at a Partridge Family lunch box.

If you are bored, try this one. The trailer is below the complete movie is below that.

The complete movie

The trailer

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

23 thoughts on “The Spirit of 76… Movie”

  2. that looks fun…I’ll add it to the (long) to watch list! Didn’t know Devo were in a movie … this seems like a perfect one for that. Reminds me, I still never have seen the movie ‘Sgt. Pepper’ but I watched a tv show on the bee Gees last night (not the recent doc that Deke raves about – still want to catch that one)… they showed clips of it and the brothers themselves said they knew it was “a bad movie” and they wanted out when it was 20% done but I guess were contractually obliged to stay. If you’re gonna make a bad movie, make it wilfully bad!

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    1. What makes it so funny…Sgt Pepper… is that maybe Robin said it would make people forget about The Beatles album LOL… that might have been they were full in production.
      This movie is dumb and funny.

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      1. yeah, I guess I forgot to say that while they were making Sgt Pepper, Robert Stigwood/RSO who was producing it or bankrolling it or something thought it was a masterpiece… that’s what I mean, if you’re gonna make a stinker, make it clearly, laughably bad!

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  3. ‘Sgt Pepper’ in Inglorious Stigwoodsian Stink-O-Rama! I cringe whenever I hear mention of this Jumbo Turkey.
    Cassidy, Garrett d’Abo?- yep, less likely to be cause for the Baftas than a barf up. Did this flick get any Razzies at the time? Gotta love and laugh at some of this knowingly B-minus pap though!

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    1. Oh, yea…this one was meant to be dumb…unlike Sgt Pepper that actually took itself seriously! That one is just torture man…torture.

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  6. This looks right up my street, on so many fronts! With DEVO an added bonus! (I notice even in he short clip there is a flash of the Devo Corporation style at about 12 seconds in.
    I’d love t watch this, but can’t recall last time I sat down for over an hour to watch TV – other than a football or baseball game.
    But I’l defo add it my watchlist on YT.
    Thanks Max.:)

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    1. Yes…both of our streets! They don’t take themselves seriously…and that is what works. A lot of the things they had took me back to it.

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  8. I’ve heard of this but, I’ve never seen it. I always liked the d’Abo cousins…in just about anything.

    Leif Garrett showed up in David Spade’s “Dickie Roberts” movie, as well as Emmanuel Lewis, Barry Williams, Danny Bonaduce, Willie Aames, Jeff Conaway, Tony Dow, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland, Maureen McCormick, Eddie Mekka, Erin Moran, Rodney Allen Rippy…a veritable who’s who of 70s and 80s TV.

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    1. d’Abo…is crazy hot in this one…when I speak up and say that…you can take my word for it.
      I think you would like this one

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