Down to Earth

I am another person who remembers and watched this show on TBS. Along with Rocky Road and Safe at Home. They were great shows to watch after I got home from junior high and high school. I wish you could find them somehow on video. I'm glad the other person that wrote their comment reminded us of the theme song. I'm 32 now and would never be able to remember it on my own. I couldnt remember the name of the show "Rocky Road", until I checked "Safe at Home" and it was listed in her comments. Thanks

The line containing the family's name that Traci B forgot:

"Back down to earth to teach the Prestons lessons, Richard Lizzie Dwayne and J.J. too! Now she must be a nineteen eighties' lady..." etc.

Just had to share, because I've had that damn theme song stuck in my head off and on for like, twenty years now :) I used to watch this show on the TBS Superstation (it was on right after the Monkees reruns). Those were long, boring summer vacations, with so little for me to do.

I also fondly remember watching this show as a child. I used to watch it every day at 4:30 on TBS after school while everyone else was watching ABC afterschool specials. I remember the opening sequence was in the style of an old 1920's newsreel with the theme song being a little like a swing song and saying something about Valentino. It's horrible that this show is not too familiar, because with Hollywood remaking the Dukes of Hazzard, The Addams Family and other old TV shows, this would seem like the perfect premise for a Hollywood remake. There was another show that used to show after it that I can only remember had Louis Arquette as a dirty old man. Maybe someday, TV will come back to what it used to be, instead of reality shows.

I reminisce about "Down to Earth" because I see "Ethel" frequently in TV commercials. I also was about 7 or 8 when the show aired. In response to the other comments, I don't remember "Rocky Road", but I do remember "Small Wonder" and another sitcom called "Check It Out!" starring Don Adams in which all the story lines took place in a supermarket (I think Don Adams was the manager of the supermarket). Does anyone else remember that show? I loved "Down to Earth" and I never missed it. I have a memory of going out to eat with my parents to a barbecue joint that had small televisions on each table, and for a quarter or two you could watch TV while you ate. We happened to be there at the time "Down to Earth" was coming on, and I begged and pleaded and threw a fit because I wanted to watch "Down to Earth" and of course my mom and dad said "I don't think so, you can live without TV for 30 minutes" and that was just one more strike against my dad because I wanted to be just like Lissy Preston--her clothes, her hair, her rebel attitude--and my dad said that she looked like Boy George. I will never forget that.

I have fond memories of "Down to Earth" possibly because I have never met a single living soul who remembers this show. I can still recite most of the theme song! It is amazing what you absorb at age seven. Anyway, Ethel was a flapper who was killed by a trolley (this was hilariously illustrated in the opening credits with old-style photographs) and had to wait 60 years to be set up with a family so that she could earn her wings and become an angel. Of course, she was a wild woman so the dad (2nd Darrin from Bewitched) was frazzled and the 3 kids loved her (can you say surrogate Mom?) There wasn't much to the show as far as I can remember, but i do recall Rip Taylor as her mentor angel throwing a lot of confetti about. Weird premise, cute show; it pretty much hinged on Ethel becoming acquainted with modern technology and mores. As promised, here are (most of) the words to the theme song:

Back in the days of Valentino, we know A maid named Ethel was so bright and alive (wacky doo,wacky doo) But she was struck down by a trolley, golly Said good-bye in nineteen twenty and five (toodleloo,toodleloo)

Ethel in heaven waited patiently To earn her wings and be An angel fancy-free Sixty years later the opportunity To help a family came through (Boo boo be doo, twenty-three skiddoo)

[something about "Richard, Lizzie, Duane, and JJ, too] Now she must be a nineteen eighties, lady [blah, blah, blah] She's Down to Earth, Down to Earth

I know, I have no life.

Love, Traci B.