Freaks and Geeks is one of my favorite shows. That is why I am on this board. Freaks and Geeks takes place in the Midwest. I grew up on the East Coast. I am trying to think of differences between the Midwest and the East Coast on the show. When I was growing up in New Jersey the kids who were freaks would have been called burnouts. We also call it soda, not pop. Are there any other Midwesternisms in the show?
shareI live in Michigan now but I used to live in Pennsylvania, about hour or so from Philadelphia. Anyway, some of our family friends were from this town in Ohio and the mom would always say "wash" as "worsh". I've never heard anyone say it like that in Michigan but I thought that may be a Midwest thing.
share"Worsh" is a midwestern, usually small town, and less educated pronunciation of "wash." I grew up in a town where a great number of people pronounced the word as "worsh." Next most popular pronunciation was "wush." Then the proper "wahsh."
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I'm a West-Coaster. "Freaks" would be called losers, stoners, burnouts, etc. We refer to soda as either pop or coke.
These are nowhere near the best years of your life.
Not the whole West Coast. Californians usually call it "soda", the same as Northeasterners. You must be from the Pacific Northwest, where it is often "pop". Calling non-Coke "coke" is mostly a Southern thing. See the following map:
http://www.popvssoda.com/
I went to Jr High in the suburbs of Detroit in the late seventies, and high school in Ohio in the late 70's to early 80's. (Grade school was in Illinois). In Michigan, it was definitely "pop" and I still call it that to this day. We called freaks "burnouts" and/or "grits". I love this show and it's authenticity. I wish they would have had more references to Bob Seger. He was HUGE in the burbs of Detroit, being from there. We were always playing Live Bullet and Stranger in Town. Granted, the show takes place a few years after I left Detroit, but I'm surprised they don't play him more. I remember the Halloween episode when they played Cheap Trick's Gonna Raise Hell, and it immediately took me back to my high school days and the Dream Police album. Love the music in this show and it really reflects what so many of us kids were listening to back in the day!
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What about Grand Funk Railroad? They split up in '76, reunited in '81 then broke up again in '83. They were from Flint Michigan and still should have been popular with Michigan kids in the early '80s.
What about REO Speedwagon? They were all over the radio and MTV in 1982 and 1983. Were they ever played or mentioned on "Freaks And Geeks".
I grew up in the New York area in the '70s and '80s. KISS were the HUGE all over especially in New York. Then a few years later everyone in New York liked The Ramones. Even though major artists are popular nationally there are sometimes regional differences. Henry Lee Summer was popular in the Midwest and much less known on the East Coast. Squeeze was very popular in the New York area and they weren't from the area. Tommy Conwell was a big deal in Philly, but hardly anyone knew him 70 miles away in New York. Sammy Hagar is from California. But I heard he is very popular in St. Louis because a radio station discovered his music back in the '70s. Sometimes a radio station would help launch an act in that area.
It depends on if the producers could get permission to play songs and/or afford the fees asked by bands/publishers. In the commentary, one of the producers said they would have liked to used Led Zeppelin music, but it was too expensive.
Redhooks
"You don't get something for nothing, you don't get freedom for free." Neil Peart
The fees to use music for TV shows and movies can be very expensive. It definitely has an effect on soundtracks.
I assume that huge groups like Led Zeppelin charge a fortune to use their music. I can't blame them. They wrote and recorded it so they are not going to just give it away. But sometimes exposing the music to a new audience can help keep it alive.
I'm from the West Coast. "Freaks", at least today, is more of a word used to describe the goth/emo/"out there" kids. The "freaks" on this show would be called the burnouts or stoners.
These are nowhere near the best years of your life.
Back in the '80s in New Jersey we referred to goth/emos as "alternatives". Most of them were total posers. They always cried how alienated they were and how much they loathed their parents. Then they took daddy's credit card to an expensive department store and bought a lot of black clothes. They thought they were nonconformists, but never had the guts to do anything their friends did not approve of.
shareTwo (count'em 2) Styx songs in the 1st episode. Total Midwestern. And I'm from Kansas... Class of '81. But really they wouldn't have played 'Come Sail Away' at a dance past 1978 (or if at all). I would always request REO and Ted Nugent (Cat Scratch Fever had just come out) but the DJ's (this was in Topeka mind you) would say you can't dance to it.....
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I attended high school in New Jersey in the '80s. I was trying to think what was played at our high school dances. Then it occurred to me that we did not have dances. We had one dance a year and that was the prom. We didn't have homecoming or class trips either. I think a lot of those traditions fell out of favor during the '70s after Vietnam and Watergate.
If there were dances my crew would have requested rock and metal songs. It wouldn't matter if they weren't danceable because none of us could dance.
I think the perception when I went to school was that things like dances were for the popular kids, not for everyone.
Midwesterners say bathroom. East Coasters say restroom.
Are you sure? I am very East Coast and usually say "bat'room", not restroom. I do hear both terms used. I think restroom sounds a little more polite. I think it sounds a little silly. Do you really rest there? I take care of business then leave promptly. Who would want to loiter around a room with toilets? When I was a kid the teachers called it the lavatory. I have heard that term very rarely since then.
shareI moved from the Midwest to NYC, and used the word bathroom when I got here. Most people here used the word restroom, so I adjusted.
I worked with a guy who called it the latrine, but he was a former Army guy.
I like the British word, the loo.
It really isn't a "rest" room anyway. It's more like "do your business and get the hell out" room.
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Anyone loitering around a bathroom makes me suspicious.
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