This sounds like an awesome Age of Aquarius antique, but the emphasis on the kind of dumb (and laugh track-accompanied) comedy you'd later find on weak 70s variety shows like Donny & Marie, Tony Orlando & Dawn, etc. Proves the dominating element, alas. As opposed to the hour being dominated by Peter Max--who is a handsome onscreen presence (in apparently his only screen "acting" gig), but whose psychedelic designs just make the show seem more like "The Electric Company" or a Sid & Marty Krofft program in this context of broad comedy.
Flip Wilson and Arne Johnson carry the brunt of that humor, but the material fails them, as it does other performers who are game but have no real comedic chops. That includes the Fifth Dimension, Joey Heatherton (who does a dance rather reminiscent of Susan Clark's LSD "Alice in Wonderland" one in "The Love-Ins"), and Glen Campbell, who as usual sings well. Also as usual, the Dimension's choice of pop songs is on the bland side, as are their arrangements; an exception is the great "Wedding Bell Blues." Tiny Tim, Ed Sullivan and Liberace make cameo appearances. But there's nothing subversive to their appearances, unlike the celebrity bits in say "Head;" here, people appearing to wink at themselves is the entire, lame "joke."
All this is supposed to be "way out," I suppose. But the problem with making Peter Max's designs three-dimensional and having actual performers move among them is that something which was trippy as wall art (or as animation in the Max-imitative "Yellow Submarine") just becomes cluttered, loudly colored whimsy fit for children's programming. Even the "Hair" medley has no counterculture vibe to it.
No one can have been particularly happy with how this show turned out--it has superficially "now" elements but manages to seem very square, and conceptually half-formed. (The later, notorious "Mary's Incredible Dream" is much more fully realized as a fantasy variety special.) It's a pretty sure bet nobody was in a hurry to further the 5th Dimension's TV career, either--like most of their music, they are pleasant enough but lack much in the way of personality.
In some ways the best thing here are the vintage broadcast commercials that were preserved in the videotape I saw--this show was, oddly, sponsored by the U. S. glass industry, and their variously straining-to-be-hip ads (including a discotheque performance by fictional rock group The Glass Bottle) seem to be aimed mostly at frantically denying glass waste is a major contribution to litter and pollution.
