My favorite show from the 1970s was The Rockford Files. I think it captures some of the essence of the decade.
I was alive during the 70s, started the decade off in kindergarten and ended it in 10th grade in high school. It wasn't an easy time for me personally. Broken home, dysfunctional family, abusive, alcoholic parents. Very chaotic and unstable home life. Though some of the road and airplane trips were kind of fun.
I watched a lot of TV, including a great many shows from the 50s and 60s in syndication. I listened to the radio quite a bit, too.
I recall the energy crisis of 1973-74, when there was rationing and long lines at the gas pumps. Nixon resigned, Ford pardoned him, then stumbled and fell. Ford seemed a somewhat weak President. He couldn't do anything to stop the fall of South Vietnam, nor could he do much about runaway inflation and the economic doldrums the US was falling into. Worse still, disco became a thing.
(I think Nixon invented disco as a parting shot to the hippies as he left office. "Take that you long-haired pinkos!" And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the aftermath.)
I think at some point after Nixon, Watergate, and Vietnam, America turned more towards escapism - both the positive and the negative kinds. The decade started with songs like John Lennon's "Imagine," and ended with The Eagles' "Life in the Fast Lane," indicative of the cultural and moral degradation which took place during that decade.
Shows like Happy Days and American Graffiti were part of a 50s mini-nostalgia period where people seemed to want to reminisce about what things were like before all the political turmoil which characterized much of the 60s. And then there was the popularity of Star Wars, another escapist fantasy which came at just the right time for audiences to eat that stuff up. When I saw it for the first time in 1977, it was a rather rowdy audience, loudly booing Darth Vader on the screen like it was some 1920s silent movie villain.
Cocaine use also increased, which would contribute to even more smuggling and increases in crime which would go into the 1990s. Increased drug use and alcoholism were other forms of escapism which weren't quite so entertaining.
There may have been more of an openness during the 70s, both in the positive and the negative - at least when compared to what has been deemed unacceptable in later decades. There was nothing of what we would call "political correctness" in the 1970s.
Smoking in public places was also far more common. They had only recently set aside separate sections for non-smoking on airplanes, and a few restaurants had started setting aside non-smoking sections as well. But for the most part, people could smoke anywhere, but it's not like that today at all.
Music was pretty much all over the map. As I mentioned, disco was a thing, but so was heavy metal, acid rock, pop, soul, country and western and many other styles. The number of radio stations was increasing, although most radios still only had AM frequencies, while FM was less commonly seen.
