Wisconsin Flag - Nostaglia & Middle of America: Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, That 70s Show, and RedLetterMedia

There is something magically nostalgic about Wisconsin...
Maybe there is something strange in the cheese or maybe...it's the beer? 

Wisconsin has featured three hit shows that replayed that feels of a generation earlier.  First, there was Happy Days, which was filmed in front of a live audience, that aired in the 1970s.  The plots focused on everyday life in suburbia.  It was so popular that it had several spin offs.  The most popular being the Laverne and Shirley Show which also took place in the late 1950s-early 1960s.  The lead flag here featured has of the lead characters from Happy Days, the Fonz as the sailor and Ritchie Cunningham as the miner.


The Wisconsin 1958 flag has the two goofballs from The Laverne and Shirley Show—Lenny and Squiggy.  Notice that the coat of arms has been modified.  In the first quarter is the abc logo, in the second quarter is the Shotz brewery. In the third quarter is the signature glove on beer, and in the fourth quarter is the cursive L for Laverne.


Most recently there was That 70s Show which aired in the late 1990s, making That 70s Show in true life That 90s Show, and looking back from 2018 makes That 70s Show perfectly in sync form the 90s to the 20-tweens. (You might have to read that sentence, real slowly for that temporal fact to sink in)

Again, simple life stories where the mainstream plot showcasing what middle of the road American life was like, but a bit more edgy, even by today's hyper-sensitive times.  They even had the Happy Days's Good & Bad Boy duo of the clean cut kid hanging around a bad boy nonconformist.  For Happy Days the clean cut square was Ritchie Cunningham—who was the ginger, sweet, fellow that tried to do the right thing.  His opposite was the bad boy greaser—the Fonz, who told his opponents to "SIT ON IT!"  

Upon the 1978 Wisconsin flag, the sailor is Eric Foreman, the middle of the road kid, with a nuclear family and dad who served in the Korean War.  The square Star Wars Nerd was played by Topher Grace, the clean cut kid.  On the right side with the shades is Steven Hyde—played by Danny Masterson, and Hyde had the extreme issues of a dysfunctional-family.  Steven grew up with a single mom, who abandoned him while he was still in high school.  The one weakness of the show is that it should have started in 1971, instead of 1977.  Ironically Happy Days was created in the 1970s, making it the real, authentic "That 70s Show" or rather That 50's Show.


So what about today in 2018, right now?  Oddly there is no popular nostalgic TV show that is centered on Wisconsin. However, there is an Internet show that is really filmed in Wisconsin and features a fictional retro TV VCR repair shop—Lighting Fast VCR Repair— retro to the 1990s?  The shows are created by RedLetterMedia. 

Nonetheless, the popular Internet shows of RedLetterMedia are independent and epic of the 80s and 90s generations.  Additionally, this is a true blue, born and bread Wisconsin show!  The cast and most of the crew are, indeed, really from Wisconsin.  In a way their production could be titled That Movie Review Show of the 90s & 80s of Happier Days Gone By.

For the 2018 Wisconsin flag the sailor is Mike Stoklasa whose dead pan humor can give Bill Murray a run for his money.  On the right is Rich Evans who is in a similar vein to Dan Aykroyd, that makes Jay Bauman the Egon of the group.

No matter what—WE LOVE YOU WISCONSIN!!