Quote of the Day (James Poniewozik, on How ‘American Nostalgia Developed Layers’)

“Supercharged by TV, American nostalgia developed layers, like a living room wallpapered once a decade. The 2020s look back to the 1990s which looked back to the 1970s which looked back to the 1950s. Of the many reasons that nostalgia never ends, the biggest may be that it is chasing a fantasy, which is always at least one generation out of grasp.” — TV critic James Poniewozik, “How to Set Off a Nostalgic Time Loop,” The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2024

The image accompanying this post comes from the 1970s sitcom Happy Days, a key moment in the nostalgia movement that looked back to the late Fifties and early Sixties.

(This picture, from Season 5, shows Ron Howard as Richie Cunningham, and, in a successful effort to launch a spinoff, Robin Williams as the alien Mork. UFOs, like nostalgia, never go out of fashion!)