This We Dug: Laurie Partridge

(Editor’s note: When asked whether guest columnist Patrick Works could add this submission to the “This We Dug” franchise, series founder Dave Rinck wrote, “Of course! Anything Pat says is automatically cool.” And so it is.)

Or were you secretly in love with Keith? Or perhaps you were a wannabe Reuben Kincaid just like me?

For some strange reason amidst the caca-phone of 60s/70s TV the Monkees begat all kinds of media attempts at duplicating pop super-stardom, and the rest is of course TV history.

From Mike Stax’s favorite appearance of the Standells on “The Munsters” to perhaps the low point of maudlin TV madness — the battle of the bands between “The Mosquitos” and “The Honeybees” on Gilligan’s Island — the spectrum of TV pop madness was as broad as it was deep.

Who needs their MTV when as kids we all had Lancelot Link (Secret Chimp) and his band “The Evolution Revolution” and the Groovy Ghoulies!

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— Patrick Works

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85 thoughts on “This We Dug: Laurie Partridge”

  5. You know your getting old when Mrs, Howell starts looking good. Where is the clip of the girls singing you need me?

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  8. That sure sounds like James Burton on the second “Mosquitos” song. I wonder if it is… very cool guitar playing in any case.

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  10. that means I love you…

    Ah…Judy Jetson. My personal favorite Hannah Barbarian…

    Speaking of which…how come no punk drummer was ever called Bam Bam

    Ah mean really…the oversight.

    Patrick Works
    Owns no television

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  14. “Chaka friends with Wiwa (Will) and Awry (Holly).”

    We could do a whole this we dug on Sid and Marty Kroft. Remember the Bugaloos? They had a music thing too, dig? So did Charles Nelson Reilly with his “hat band”.

    Speaking of Hanna Barbera, have we mentioned the Banana Splits Show? I’ve got a rockin version of the Tra la la song performed by The Dickies.

    I digress from Miss Partridge to cartoons. Cie la vie.

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  15. It could have likely been both “fish” and “fire”,but I definitely remember that “Chaka no like fire”.Meanwhile,I’ve already moved on to “Sigmund and the sea monsters”,who also reminded me of the Morlocks and the rest of their ilk,or as Thaddeus Lucken,one of my roomates at the Park and Monroe pad referred to them,”the Monkee Mods”.There you go,we’re full circle now,back in Davey Jones’ locker.
    Anybody remember the Beatles cartoon that used to be on in the actual 60’s?I used to watch that one every day before pre-school at happy times day care.

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  19. word… check out the ninjayoutubemaster matthew.

    chaka was a great quote generator… if you spoke his language.

    i never got into the brady bunch but man, try to keep me from watching the partridge family and i’d throw my slinky at you. i loved, loved, loved david cassidy. shaun was “meh” but david??? o… man alive. his hair alone was a character in my world. i bet he used “gee, your hair smells terrific”.

    and if any of you can remember “shadow dancing” and the hot aussie who rocked that i will only love you more.

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  21. Here’s to you, Ms Livingston….

    I always had a thing for ms Livingston, and never could figure out why Eddie’s father didn’t pursue that. I’ve mentioned that to Brandon a couple times, joking- I’m sure he’s heard every variation of it a million times.

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  22. That hot od’d-on-cocaine aussie was none other than Andy Gibb m’lady.

    The Cassidy brothers never did it for me. I don’t remember having a crush until Han Solo came along. Always loved the dirty scoundrel.

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  23. yes, but han had INTEGRITY… mama. so yeah, scoundrel, but at least he had that.

    i saw andy gibb in la once. when my dad took me to see pirates of penzance. he was dating the lead. he was nice enough. soft spoken. made little eye contact. and brother was he short. srsly short. like no taller than i am now.

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  24. Andy Gibb was the younger brother of the Bee Gees, who wrote his songs and helped him get started in the business, landing him a role as Chaka on “Land of the Lost.” The actress he was dating was Victoria Principal. Before OD’ing on cocaine, he married the actress who played Mrs. Livingston on ‘The Courtsip of Eddie’s Father.” Or something like that.

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  26. “he’s my best friend….la da da dee da…ah whoops”
    Mrs. Livingston died in Licking, Missouri.
    Eddie started singing for Dr. Know.
    Victoria Principal is young forever thanks to modern medicine.
    And Andy….well….did you know he died the same day as Divine? We had a vigil at the Mission House in SF.

    Ava: You don’t get much hotter than pre-Tom Clancy Harrison Ford as Cpt. Decker, Han Solo and Indianna Jones. Yes please. I’ll take a side of Gary Oldman with that too.

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  32. LOU….HR Puffnstuff had their own pop band…actually a battle of the bands. Witchie-Poo did a bit called “oranges poranges” fronting for Orson and Seymour (her wierd sidekicks). Fab.

    —there ain’t no rhyme for oranges—

    Patrick Works
    owner of many buttons

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  37. what? man, that sounds like something you need a brain wipe for. ugh… even the thought of it… ::shudder::

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  39. now that is just mean, matthew… cousin oliver and alice are at it in my head. now i really need a brain wipe down. ugh!

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  40. Well, you could ask him (cousin Oliver, that is). He’s in the power pop music scene in LA, and Bart and I both have him as friends on Facebook.

    As to the thread, I sure as hell wanted to be Keith Partridge back then. In fact, David Cassidy was the first concert I ever went to. (Golden Hall, accompanied by my parents. FWIW, first concert without parents was Queen with Thin Lizzy opening.)

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  43. Television personalities aside- at the height of my adolescence I was always conflicted in the choice between Ms Huxtable (Beetle Baily), Mrs Mitchell (Dennis the Menace), Blondie Bumstead, and Betty Rubble.

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  44. I am not ashamed to admit that I was *hopelessly, pitifully* in love with David Cassidy as Keith. I remember vividly there being a storm which knocked out our antenna. That meant NO Partridge Family! I was beside myself — running to my (shared) room seeking solace, only to be teased by my younger sister who had not yet hit puberty and could totally not relate. But wait, I was only 10 or 11, neither had I. I guess it happened early for me? Ah, the good ol’ “tween” years.

    As for first concerts, mine was in ’78 @ the Sports Arena. I was 15. It was none other than Black Sabbath (with Ozzy) and Blue Oyster Cult! It’s funny, I wasn’t even that into them and had no idea at the time what an honor it was to go to that show. It all happened because this dude who was in love with my best friend asked her to go. She totally wasn’t interested and didn’t want to give him the wrong impression. No sweat for me. I said I’d go! 😉

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  45. lori! we are david dorks together… i no longer feel so alone.

    and my first show was at the stadium… the who! srsly. i was honored, too. although this was the first in their series of comeback/final tours… lol

    did you see almost famous and wonder if that was the same show?

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  46. Lori, your first show was Black Sabbath…with Ozzy? Can I kiss your toes? BOC rocked pretty hard too, yeah? And I too was at that Who show, Who in ’82 at the Jack Murphy Stadium, with noneotherthan Loverboy opening! For the Who I was down by the stage -- it was scary! -- the crowd had a force of it’s own and threatened to flatten us, plus as a young girl of 14, men took advantage of the anonymity of those close quarters, if you know what I mean. Eye opening.

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  48. NOTHING rhymes with “oranges”. It’s a known musical fact. Prokofiev will back me up on that. He was going to do a vocal thing but couldn’t.

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  49. yeah yeah. I know. but this is fun.
    some lyrics for those vocals:
    The four eng-
    ineers
    Wore orange
    brassieres.

    or my personal favorite:

    Eating an orange
    While making love
    Makes for bizarre enj-
    oyment thereof.

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  52. toby… that prokofiev comment made me choke on my coffee!

    my kid would tell you that while nothing rhymes with orange, per se, the phrase “door hinge” will stand in a pinch.

    and yeah, k, my best girl renee went with me to that show and when all was said and done she had the best stories to tell. she was in the front, too. lost a shoe, her jacket got snagged, and she was shoved up into the air… crowd surfing against her 14 year old will.

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  53. who added video???? omg. the johnny cash as emcee for the partridge family kills me!

    ok, off to watch all those posted gems.

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  54. Speaking of Who concerts, who saw The Who in June, 1980, at the Sports Arena? That was the first show in SD with Kenny Jones on drums and they did a lot of songs from Quadrophenia. I met Larry Nadler for the first time at that show.

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  59. The Who might hold the record for the most farewell concerts and tours: ’82, ’85, ’88, ’89, ’96, ’97, ’99 . . .

    I’m glad they kept it up a few more years, though. I didn’t see them until 2000, when I took Raquel to see them in Irvine, and then again in San Diego (where I ran into both Kevin and Bart). This was a very moving experience for Raquel, because she has loved the Who since she was a little girl, and up until a few years ago they had never toured Spain.

    I did get to see the Kinks in ’83 or so with Mike Stax, Eric Bacher, Bill Calhoun and Andy Manzi. On that tour, Ray Davies stopped in the hotel gift shop where Eric was working and Eric had him sign a paper bag for me: “To Ray. Ray Davies.”

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  60. I always felt a little sad for the casts of the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family. They were, after all, just kids whose parents had pimped them out in order to make a little cash. Almost all of them have spent the past forty years or so either trying to exploit or deny those childhood roles. David Cassidy went years refusing to speak about the Partridges, and Danny Bonaduce (or as I like to call him, “Bonnie Danaduce” is still an angry mess.

    One more thing: is it my imagination or did the P-Family change little brothers after the first couple of years? That’s like changing Darrens on Bewitched (the second Darren being vastly inferior to the first, in my humble opinion). Anyway, both of them were a little creepy,as was the little sister. They didn’t really seem to have much of a personality, like the Village of the Damned kids.

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  62. Speaking of Who concerts, who saw The Who in June, 1980, at the Sports Arena? That was the first show in SD with Kenny Jones on drums and they did a lot of songs from Quadrophenia.

    Fleminger and I went to the show together, his mom drove us (the bus didn’t stop close enough…lol).

    I believe The Only Ones opened the show. Man it’s tough being the opener, you get so screwed over by the sound guys. They sounded weak and pathetic, they had lots of Marshall amps though…

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  63. Thanks for the ride, mom!

    We spent the first part of the show trying to get onto the floor and the bouncers would push you back up onto the upper steps. Each of the middle-eight chords in ‘Can’t Explain’ were played twice as long…can’t explain…dah de dah…I think it’s love….dah de dah…etc

    And we saw Dean there! In a Union Jack suit with a parka, yes? Standing near the stage before the show started.
    Hope I’m not making this up..
    First time I ever saw a real mod in real life, looking totally stylin’, at the ‘Oo show. The movie Quadrophenia must have been out that year, because I remember being pretty excited about the prospect of seeing ‘Jimmy’ fronting the Only Ones.

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  64. I was at that concert. I sent away for tickets and got second row!! I remember that I went out and got a little white painter’s jumpsuit like the one Pete wore at Woodstock and wore it to the show. This was shortly after the concert where all those people got trampled so the security was really tight. We had to stay in our seats and were told to sit down if we stood up. I was really disappointed by that.

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  65. Hey Ray, I got to see the Kinks at San Diego State at the little outdoor theater in 1978 (??) The opening act was Blondie. I always loved the Kinks and wanted to see them so badly, but I have to say that Blondie stands out in my mind to this day. I was a little surfer chick who liked “oldies” rock and roll and had no idea that anything like Blondie was going on. I remember thinking, “WOW!”

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  66. Flem (a nickname used only with great affection): I didn’t have a Union Jack suit at the Who show. Larry had one made later in the 80s, perhaps you saw Larry at a later show wearing that. He even had it autographed by The Who at a Bay Area show when he was up at Stanford. I can’t remember what I wore, but I only remember that I got dressed up. I probably looked like a complete poser, haha!

    And I also don’t remember seeing The Only Ones! I wasn’t aware of that great band at the time, only later.

    Shari: You were such a cool kid to wear that white jumpsuit! My sister was a couple years older than me and she influenced my taste in music. She bought Tommy when it came out and I played the hell out of it as a kid (with headphones of course). She also was really into Bowie, Alice Cooper, and Grand Funk Railroad, so I played all those groups’ albums all the time too.

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  67. You’re right Dean, I am mixing up details amongst my brain-soup…but I distinctly remember you cutting a dashing figure amongst a sea of O.P. and Hang 10 denizens.

    I remember in the very early 70’s being pretty jealous of the Partridge family (particularly Danny, whose hairstyle I still strive to emulate) because I thought they were a real band that actually performed ‘n such..

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  68. >>I remember in the very early 70’s being pretty jealous of the Partridge family (particularly Danny, whose hairstyle I still strive to emulate) because I thought they were a real band that actually performed ‘n such..

    Wait! “Thought”?? What are you saying??? Oh, nooooooooooooooooo …

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  69. Pete’s white jumpsuit was SO COOL, particularly in contrast to Roger Daltry’s shirtless fringed leather vest look.

    Please don’t tell me that wasn’t really Chris playing the tambourine.

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  71. I never got to see the Who perform “Tommy,” but I did get to see Carnivorous Lunar Activity (Dennis Borlek, Steve Foth and Sam Chammus) perform the album in its entirety at the Casbah in the mid-nineties. It was a long, sweaty, glorious mess. When Dennis took off his shirt, I remember Rick Wilkins said, “They’re playing songs from the musical “Tummy.”

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  72. I went to Jr. High School w/Sam Chammas. I went to that ’82 Who concert as well. I was thinking Loverboy opened also, but thought that must have been for the Stones. For the Stones it was John Mellencamp. I just picked up a copy of a new version of Live at Leeds that has the whole concert. On the first disc they turn My Generation into a short version of Tommy. On Magic Bus they reference Journey to the Center of the Mind. On the second disc they play Tommy in its entirety. I just saw ran across some early Who footage that reminded me of, let’s say, a Tell-Tale Hearts show where the band is only slightly older than the crowd:

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  76. no, it was john mellencamp… at the stadium show. i was thinking about it yesterday, how it seemed so incongruous to have him play next to the who. seemed almost sacrilegious. ugh.

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  77. Ok, so it was George Thorogood, Loverboy and the Stones. I remember reading that Mick Jagger once said he wouldn’t play with the Seeds because he never played with anyone “gooder” than himself.

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  78. Paul, I’ve go that Who clip--it’s really an amazing little piece of history, and appears to have been shot and recorded with excellent equipment. Imagine how great it would be to have some well-recorded 35mm film of, say, Studio 517 during a show. Toby’s posted some incredible 517 films that frustratingly lack sound, and I’ve got a few concerts on tape that Jimmy Jazz filmed, but there’s not much else out there.

    Speaking of the white jumpsuit, this and Sha Na Na alone would have been worth rolling around in a septic tank with tripping hippies for three days listening to Richie Havens:

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  79. Apropos of nothing, someone mentioned the Creation on the blog. I had never heard of them, but this song is awesome.

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  81. The Creation were one of a small group of brutal mod bands who shared the Who’s pop art vision, including the Attack, John’s Children, the Eyes, the Birds, and others. Guitarist Eddie Phillips, who described their music as “red with purple flashes,” was the first to play the guitar with a violin bow and was later copied by Jimmy Page.

    You might also enjoy Ron Wood’s band the Birds, who appeared in a bad sixties movie called “The Deadly Bees:

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  82. That song is pretty intense. I’m just learning about the Pop Art connection with the mod bands. Was part of it an idea about a people’s music and sensibility as opposed to high-brow culture?

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  84. Ava(Mara) hello

    Yes, I remember that night well. Very strange synchronicity around that, I was in a cab recently and the radio was playing a Police/Sting song which I swore had a line about James Brown on the T.A.M.I. show. I have never been a Police fan really so I looked it up online. Sure enough the line was “James Brown on the T.A.M.I. Show, Same Tape I’ve Had for Years”. Who knew.

    Ed, by the way, was an early adopter of advanced VHS technology and taped the show off of late night TV. The tape was so valuable he had a special hiding place for it. He showed me where the tape was hidden in the event of his early demise.

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