That 70's Show: Hyde's father

The other night I saw an episode of That 70's Show that had Robert Hay's
appearing as Hyde's father, a bartender. But in other episodes the show
has Hyde having a black father (and a black sister).

What's that all about?

Sean Walsh...

Robert Hays was the guy he always thought was his dad (but was never
around). Turns out it was the guy played by Tim Reid.

Captain Infinity...

In the episode I saw (and, as you can tell, I have not seen them all,
hence my question) Hay's character seemed to think he was Hyde's dad,
too. Was this just something the producers later retconned in order to

Sean Walsh...

Exactly.

make Reid his father?

Sean Walsh...

In the latter seasons they were doing different stuff with Hyde - after
he and Jackie were finally put together for good (well, until they got
bored with that at least), they needed something else to shake Hyde up.
So they revealed his dad was actually a black dude. Hilarity ensued....

et472...

But in retrospect, they almost seemed to be setting it up. He dated,
I'm not sure dated is the word, a number of black women (a co-worker of
Donna's from the radio station, and a nurse, at least), and I can't
recall any of the other characters had any involvement with black people.
Now, at the time, it just seemed like he was open for when good looking
women came along, but once the real father was revealed, suddenly that
seemed like more of an explanation. And his father being black did
explain the hair.

Of course, in all the episodes that Tim Reid appeared, I couldn't help
but think of him as Venus Flytrap, having moved from being a DJ to
record store owner (which would have been a logical move).

karl...

Actually, to be chronologically correct, he would have had to move from
record store owner to D.J. with a dark secret in his past. Recall in WKRP it
was revealed he had deserted from the army in Vietnam.

Sooooo:

A young Gordon Simms gets Hyde's mother pregnant. Given the times [early
1960's] he gets out of Point Place just ahead of the lynch mob. In the mid
1960's he is drafted and sent to Vietnam.

After witnessing an atrocity he deserts and makes his way to Canada where
he goes by the name William Barnett. In the mid-1970's he re-enters the US
by way of Wisconsin using that name and becomes a successful record store
owner.

Tony Calguire...

Where is the border crossing in Wisconsin?

suzee...

Uh, the same place where Hyde, Fez, Michael and Leo crossed over to get

karl...

Lake Superior.

beer and got detained by the Mounties coming back...?

However by the late 1970's - after Hyde discovers that Barnett/Simms is his
father and reinforcing Hydes conspiracy theories - the Fed's/Army somehow
find out who he really is so Barnett/Simms flees to Cincinnati where he
becomes a DJ by the name of Venus Flytrap in the early 1980's.

It all makes sense now.

Default User...

When did he teach school?

karl...

When he was in Canada.

We're through the looking glass, people.

Zombie Elvis...

Didn't Andy Travis hire Venus out of New Orleans or was that a story
he told to momma Carlson to cover up that he basically bringing in an
ex-schoolteacher with little or no experience?

**
Captain Infinity

ANIM8Rfsk...

I think basically Hyde's mom was such a slut, anything was possible.

Rob Jensen...

Well, Hyde's mom *was* Peg Bundy, after all. (Okay, they were both
played by Katey Sagal, but still . . . )

As another poster put it, Hays played the guy that Hyde always
*thought* was his father, but at some point, somebody in the real
world noticed a certain resemblance between Masterson and Reid, so on
pretty much a whim, the show retconned Hyde into having Reid as his
biological father. And that's how Hyde became the fairest skinned
half-black/half-Iris/all-Black Irish stoner ever.

karl...

Technically speaking I don't think it is fair to call that a retcon.

-- Rob

**
Captain Infinity