Fifty years ago this month, The Mod Squad wrapped up its first season on ABC television. For a 12-year-old boy like me who loved all things that were labeled "Mod" and who wished he could have been a hippie living in Haight-Ashbury, this show was catnip. I remember being a little disappointed that all the episodes had rather downbeat endings, but I kept watching it through its first two seasons at least (it ran for 5 seasons, into 1973). The show's first season also coincided with the onset of my adolescence, and, mirroring my own sexual confusion, I had a big crush on both Michael Cole (Pete) and Peggy Lipton (Julie). Below is a newspaper ad for the show's premiere in September 1968.
Next an ad from an Arizona paper, advertising both the Mod Squad (running at Mountain Time) and another show I watched occasionally, That's Life, a musical sit-com with Robert Morse who I had liked so much in the movie How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
I bought a couple of issues of the Mod Squad comic book (below) and at least one of the Mod Squad novelizations (further below). I remember thinking Pete was even sexier in the book that he was on TV, but how can that be?
As I got more and more into rock music and science-fiction, I watched less
TV, and I lost my interest in Mod Squad--and transferred my pop culture
crush from Michael Cole to Jan-Michael Vincent (below) after seeing him shirtless in a teen magazine photo spread. But I will always have fond memories of the tortured young cops Pete, Julie and Lincoln.
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