This week in TV Guide: December 28, 1974

I've talked at length about the awful year 1968, and I suppose that in my lifetime, it ranks with 1963 and 2001 in terms of sheer awfulness, although one could argue that 1968 has the added agony of having been horrible for pretty much the whole year, instead of just a few months.

But 1974 was a pretty bad year too, and we're reminded of that this week, as various news sources take stock of the year in review. It was a year in which impeachment was in the air, when the relationship between president and press was at its most adversarial, there was war in the Middle East, and the inflation rate was more than 11%. By the time it was all over, President Nixon had resigned, President Ford had pardoned him, the Republicans were trounced in the midterm elections, and few were in the mood for the yearlong buildup to 1976's Bicentennial celebration. Oh, and fashions were terrible. As Judith Crist says of a certain movie, "Maybe we do need a Frankenstein to help us see the old year out."

This is no way to start an article, though—I might as well feed everyone Prozac. And that's not even considering how much 1974 resembles 2018. We'll come back to all this shortly; let's celebrate the new year first.