Real People

What I remember most about the show, Real People (1979-1983), was when they were doing interviews of people affected by the 3-Mile Island nuclear accident. They showed people being evacuated, snarled roads, and attempted to talk to whomever they could. Most pointedly, there was an interview of a local farmer. The line that has stuck in my mind is this. They were on the farm, on the porch, and the wife said something like: "What I've noticed is that there are no flies. All the officials are saying that we are far enough away not to be affected by the radiation. But usually there are a good many flies this time of year, from the cattle. But right now, there are no flies."

What may not have been apparent was that they did not produce all their own film. My 15 minutes of fame was on real people. There was a river race each year called the Beaver River Rat Race. Actually it wasn't really a race you did well if you made it to the end. About 500 boats(using the term loosely) would go down the river in April water temperature 34 degrees F. The big problem was going over the dams the easy one was about 4-6 ft and the big one 10-15 feet. The boats were built around themes like a beer can, a living room sofa and all, or a jeep(that was so well built if it were parked on the street you would not realize it wasn't real, unfortunately it came apart going over the low dam). Our boat a pirate boat with firing cannons was featured because we rolled end for end going over the high dam. The footage was actually taken for a CBC program. The event was fairly large with 30,000 people coming to watch. Regards

Back in 1979, When I watched Real People. It was a classic and funny lines and funny stories about funny people in their lives. And they do funny things on the road, Story like, Where people wear no clothes in the restaurant. Ladies live in the Indian totem pole in Traverse City, Michigan. There are many, many stories to choose from. and many other stories about the Real People. They been on for 50 times and 50 shows. 10 per season. They always go on the road to Philadelphia, Detroit, Los Angeles. It's like a real good stories about people all the time. I always like Sarah Purcell a lot. Thanks for all the good memories about Real People.

The main thing I remember of this show was the funny photos segment they did each week. I thought sure some of the pix they showed would be on the 'net but I haven't found any. The two I remember in particular was a picture of a one-way sign pointing into a graveyard, and a photo of a man standing in front of a geyser (might have been a fire hydrant) in a way that made it look like he was relieving himself. If anybody knows where I could find some of those photos, please let me know!

Even as a 10-year-old I thought the show was a bit corny.. It'd never make it today. I remember one episode where they sent Skip Stevenson to a chili cook-off. For the rest of the show they were setting off explosions behind him, which I thought was just mean and not at all funny.

As soon as I found this on Amazon Prime I knew I had to binge this. I was just a kid in the 80s but this was one of those shows that I enjoyed watching. Never mind the fact that it was a lot of adult humor that I was too young to understand, but it was shows like this that had that fun and innocent comedy that even appealed to kids like me. I remember watching this nightly when it went into syndication with its companion show, "That's Incredible" (another lost gem I would like to rediscover).

Prior to reliving my being an audience member the show, the only personalities I remembered were Sarah Purcell, Byron Allen, and Peter Billingsley. As soon as I started watching, I remembered the rest of the cast such as Skip Stephenson, John Barbour, and Fred Willard whom I completely forgot was on the show. I was like, "Oh yeaaaaah. So-and-so was on this show, too!" It felt as if I have seen these actors (among some of the others not mentioned) in a bunch of other things over the years since, but I was surprised to find that (with the exception of Fred Willard), they didn't do a lot gigs since the show. But I tell you. It all seemed like just yesterday that I was watching these people on TV.

Nowadays, audiences would yawn at the material but for me, it was a wonderful trip down memory lane. The nostalgic value alone was enough to keep me smiling throughout my binge.

Thank you to the cast (and production and crew), both living and departed, for holding a place in my memory and my heart and for being a part of this aging guy's life.