What Really Happened to the Class of '65?

This was one of those "drop what you're doing and watch" kind of shows. Each week the viewer could get involved with the life of one of the '65 grads. The stores were sometimes funny, serious, heart-warming, and never boring. In the one season it was on, it made quite an impression on me. Probably because I was a '65 graduate, myself. It kind of hit home. It's too bad TV isn't like this anymore. Rather than quality shows, we're hammered with just another reality offering. If you like celebrity trout fishing, well power to you, but it's too bad people these days can't be treated to something like "What Really Happened To The Class of '65." It was great TV, and I think would hold up in re-runs. I miss this show a lot.

This was a wonderful show that only lasted a season but it is still in my memory. It was an anthology drama with a different story every week. Some of the stories were a little more sad than others but all in all, this was a great show. I can't believe that out of all of the garbage in reruns out there, this show seems to have just vanished. I wish it would show up somewhere...cable or video or something. It was just too good to not be seen again.

What Really Happened To The Class Of '65 was broadcast here in Holland in the summer of 1978 I believe. Such a shame there was never a re-run, I still remember the episodes fondly. I vividly remember the episode about the Vietnam veteran who went on a swimming challenge, was that character played by a young Don Johnson? Is there anyone who has this stuff on videotapes? If so, please upload them somewhere so we can see them again! About the theme song: there is a download to be found on venicecentral.com where the band Venice sings this song, but I'm not sure if it's the original recording from the series. But hearing this song sure brought back memories.

I also recall this as being a summer series, although IMDb lists the it as being 'released" in December. As a high school kid, I loved the concept, and remember being quite moved by one particular episode. A girl who was part of a popular clique in high school, ends up in some kind of job assisting the poor. When she runs into these same friends again years later, she can no longer relate to them, due to their cruelty toward somebody she had brought (to a reunion?). I, too, would love to see this again. Perhaps it was a mid-season replacement starting in Dec. 77, and then was repeated in the summer of 78? Our family owned a cabin in the mountains, and we would spend a month there each summer. I remember that, during the summer this was broadcast, our TV died and I had to find a neighboring cabin with a TV, to make sure I didn't miss an episode.

Update 2010: My 30th reunion this year - would love to see this series.

My favorite episode was when Don Johnson played a backwoods boy who had been to war, and one of the classmates was a do-gooder Peace Corps type rich girl who had to look inside herself due to the encounters with Don Johnson's character. She is in the Appalchia area, apparently, doing service work. I don't know the name of the episode, though. Can anyone fill in missing info?

This was a great show to me because the class was a little older than I, and I found it very interesting examining these lives ten or so years later. I didn't remember some of your information, so I am going back to check it out again. Dana Plato and Tony Bill? Wow!

Cosie3 mwerner@wcnet.org