Since were looking back at the '70s, here's an amended re-post of a prior braces memory.
Here's Annabel Andrews from the 1976 Disney movie "Freaky Friday," about to get her braces off. (She's played by a young Jodie Foster, and the braces were actually just a movie prop... but still.) She hates them and wants them off.
Her braces get quite a bit of attention in the movie. First, some '70s era school dude asks about them.
Then, her little brother thinks she looks beautiful in them. And he wants some braces for himself as well!
Here's are examples of braces appearing on '70s television commercials. This post is put together from content on previous posts on this blog.
When I was young kid, braces were much less common, and being told you needed braces was something that was dreaded by kids and teens who had to undergo orthodontic treatment. This toothpaste commercial from the mid '70s shows the awkwardness of showing up at school for the first time with braces.
Check out this orthodontic Public Service Announcement from the 1970s. In this one, it looks like braces were really catching on with adults. But I remember the '70s, and braces weren't all too "groovy" with teens, much less grown ups.
In the 1990s, football star Brett Favre was also known for having braces, which he put to great effect in this commercial for orthodontia.
When I was a teen in the '80s, braces were still stigmatized. This early '80s cheese commercial shows the tendency to hide newly acquired braces by keeping one's mouth closed and smiling without showing one's teeth.
This 1987 commercial shows the odd combination of fascination and embarrassment with which braces were perceived at that time.
Of course, as shown by this mid '80s commercial, some kids and teens had no problem grinning through their metal mouths. Perhaps it took having a strong sense of individuality to bear one's tin grin without embarrassment.
One of the classic sitcom episodes involving braces is the one where Marcia Brady gets braces, and has a hard time adjusting to them. This 1970 episode of The Brady Bunch shows a time before braces became cool, when kids dreaded getting braces, and were often nervous about being seen wearing them. These was the true "metal mouth" era, when when fewer kids had them, and they were much more conspicuous.
Here is a 1978 clip from the '70s youth oriented show Zoom, where one of the young hosts talks about her braces, and shows a short film of an orthodontic visit. This is a classic braces memory from the 1970s.
