Interesting 'That '70s Show' Fan Theories That We Really Want To Believe

From Redditor u/abaker74:

We all know red was in the navy and saw combat, but what he did exactly has been a bit of a mystery.

What we know:

Has been seen in Naval dress blues at various veterans events.

He was on a destroyer for some time but also saw land combat (told Eric the story of the Koreans that charged their line)

Punched out a marine (according to him) when he met Kitty. (Making it unlikely he was a navy corpsman, as he’d probably have referred to himself as a marine as well)

He’s was (or claims to have been) in the South Pacific - specifically Guadalcanal (important) Korea, and even some of Vietnam.

And was even seen wearing a submarine warfare badge.

My Conclusion: he was a Seabee

(naval combat engineer)

He’s talked about being at Guadalcanal, and throughout the pacific. Seabees were present and fighting during that battle, and the duration of the campaign. 1942-1945

Was in Korea; Seabees landed on Inchon with the main body of American reinforcements and where active throughout the war. 1950-1953

In Vietnam he either aided in operation passage to freedom, or did surveying of the country prior to the “actual” war. All done with Seabees. 1954-1955

This satisfies him having seen combat and being in the navy, as well as having been through WW2, Korea, and some of Vietnam as he claims.

With his service wrapping up in mid to late 1950’s that gives him time to move in Wisconsin where he was at his permanent home in the 1960’s (Eric’s flashbacks to his childhood of Donna being mean to him).

So assuming he joined at 18 in 1942 he would be 46 at the start of the show. Which sounds about right. It is off from his official birthday of 1927, but that puts him at 15 when joined and 43 at the start, but I’d say either could work.

As for the submarine badge This is where history gets crazy. The Seabees on Guadalcanal captured a Japanese sub. I don’t know if he’d be actually awarded the badge, but I could absolutely see him making the argument that he earned it.

From Redditor u/greenfingers559:

Throughout the series, often times characters will come out from the garage, as if they were out behind the Forman Garage or something (eg. S1-E23 Grandma's Dead, Kelso walks up from the back of the garage to get a tape). A curious coincidence is that Michael Kelso is always involved, either solo or in a group. Then it hit me, S1-E21 Water Tower, Hyde tells a story about one time he was jumping the fence to get to Kelso's house but he ate it and ended up getting bit by Kelso's dog. So there it is...the Formans and Kelsos share a backyard fence.

From Redditor u/MasterLawlz:

Bob and Midge are meant to represent the stereotypical sitcom mom and dad (dumb and goofy overweight father with an extremely attractive wife) to be juxtaposed with the more realistic parents in the main family (Red and Kitty).

If it were any other sitcom, Bob and Midge would have been the main characters (or at least the main parents) because they fit the cliche sitcom mom and dad perfectly. Bob is overweight, goofy, and funny and somehow managed to get a housewife that looks like a supermodel.

Red and Kitty, however, are both more average looking people that work blue-collar jobs to provide for themselves and their children. Red is not goofy and overweight, he's slim and can be outright mean at times. Kitty can be goofy and fun but also has a drinking problem to cope with life at times. They aren't dumb but they aren't overly intelligent either.

I think this was done intentionally to juxtapose sitcom cliches with reality.

From Redditor u/ShaneOfan:

Fez's catchphrase "I said good day" is because of his love for candy.

His love for candy is brought up in almost every episode. Even his favorite game is Candyland. It would stand to reason his favorite movie would likely by about candy. If you remember the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, After Charlie and Grandpa Joe are the only ones left, Sonja flips out and says among other things "...You lose, GOOD DAY SIR." and Grandpa Joe tries to interject only for Wonka to scream "I SAID GOOD DAY SIR!" I know it isn't huge, but maybe that is why Fez uses that particular phrase.

From Redditor u/jimmy_talent:

I've been rewatching That 70's Show which takes place over 2-3 years despite the fact that there are 8 seasons and most of them have thanksgiving/christmas episodes, I always figured that it was just because the show lasted longer than they thought it would and they wanted to keep it in the 70's for thematic reasons, but then I noticed that the timeline gets weird even in individual episodes.

Then earlier tonight I smoked some weed and ordered some chinese food and after waiting for about an hour I started to get kind of pissed that my food wasn't here yet, but when I looked at my phone I realised it had only been about 5 minutes.

So my theory is that the messed up time line is because of the circle, smoking weed can distort your perception of time and they smoked a lot of weed in forman's basement.

From Redditor u/ThegcGamer:

Ok, so I know this show finished in 2006 but one lingering question has been where is Fez actually from, and it has spawned a great number of theories over the years, however after watching the show for probably the 5th time I still feel like they all miss the mark.

Now I want to start off by saying chances are the writers didn’t secretly lay out hints for us to piece together to figure out where he is from, the fact that you don’t know and can’t figure it out because of contradictory information, is kind of the point its meant to be a joke, and this way they can go about making jokes without offending any group of people or appearing racist.

That having been said there is always the chance that they did actually plan all this out after season 2, when they saw the reaction to people wanting to figure it out, hence why a few notes form the early seasons contradict the later seasons.

Key information from the show...

• He is not of Mayan heritage
• He speaks Dutch
• He is LEARNING English
• Native language is obscure and uncommon
• He is from an Island
• He is NOT from Panama
• The British "hate" them and they won the war against the British (he also says they never fought a war ill come back to that)
• Clearly low education in his country as a high school diploma would make him very smart amongst his people.
• West/East divided between British and his people (Fez is from the East)
• He will travel to Brazil then to his homeland (I feel this can be disregarded I’ll explain why later)

Now for some popular previous theories and why I feel they are off the mark.

Falkland Islands

This is the one that annoys me the most because of the popularity it picked up, when to me it’s so clearly wrong, the Falkland’s war occurred after the time period of the show, the island has the 4th highest GDP per Capita, it is largely populated by scientists, has a mainly white demographic, the British actively recognise it as part of their rule, and there is no reason why Fez would know Dutch and Spanish but be a poor English speaker if he was from the Falkland Islands.

Home Island (Cocos Islands)

A theory based massively around the 10,000 miles from home line, which takes a massive step to assume that’s not just an expression. This is an English speaking area, and is in control of Australia as of the time period of the show, again there is no reason for why Fez would speak Dutch and Spanish and struggle with English.

New Guinea

Much like the above the languages make no sense, add to this the fact he went to brazil before going home why travel to brazil if you are form New Guinea. Whilst it has ties to the Dutch, it is very much covered in jungle, and is in the right poverty span to be his homeland, it makes no sense why he is Latina or South American in his accent. A decent theory but just doesn’t quite match up.

Borneo

This is probably my favourite of all the fan theories vie read through, though I still struggle with the premise that Fez could be from an Asian country, also Spanish is not spoken on this island, and if we are to believe that they have poor education why would they be teaching Spanish or Dutch, and not English? Also, again Brazil to Bueno (though again I feel this isn’t important)? Hmmmm....

Ok so enough about other theories here comes mine. So, from my take away from the show I would assume the following, the country is of Dutch colonisation, as these are the only countries where someone would know Dutch as one of their main languages (again assuming poor education). It has to be within the reach of Spanish colonised areas to explain his Spanish speaking ability, it has to have a strong presence of a native language, and English can’t be a majorly recognised language. It has to be relatively poor, it can’t snow, it has to be an island, it has to be in close proximity to areas where its common to find strongly British people.

This leads me to suggest the Dutch West Indies.

• They were discovered and colonised by the Dutch, however in the Forth Dutch-Anglo wars the British and the Dutch fought over control of some islands, whilst the island itself never fought a war, it would still be expected that they are taught that they won the war against the British as they are form the Dutch perspective. Which would justify saying my island never fought a war, but also saying that they (the Dutch) beat the British.
• The islands lists Dutch as its official language, whilst also largely speaking their native language of Papiamento a language which is a cross between Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch, and in all honesty doesn’t sound hugely different to the native language Fez blurts out in the episode Immigrate song (I’m no linguist though so take that with a bag of salt). This would justify knowing Dutch, Spanish and a native language whilst not having a good knowledge of English.
• The rest of the west indies/Caribbean is largely British or Spanish colonies, and it is not uncommon to find British people in countries like Jamaica, in the 1970s there was some 4% of white Europeans in Jamaica, now when fez says his British friend is form the west side of the island its completely possible it was meant to be west side of the island(s) or it is possible the west indies and Dutch west indies being generalised into a single area (a stretch I know but Fez does drop the 's' on plurals a lot).
• There is a strong percentage of Colombian and Venezuelan peoples living in the Dutch West Indies, this is the heritage of Wilmer Valderrama who plays Fez, so that matches really well.
• Whilst not poor a lot of the Dutch West Indies are below average on GDP per capita, and a number of the islands only have schooling until grade 5/6 as compulsory, and very few institutes are in place to educate past that, particularly in the 70s.

Now the reason I feel we can disregard the Brazil comment is, what’s to say Fez simply wants to go see Brazil? That’s completely possible, it is also possible to go from Brazil to the West Indies, so either way it works.

The issue with my theory is that Fez does say west side of the island, as explained before there is ways around it, but it’s still a stumbling point. But I feel as though that’s the only real hole in my theory, which I can still use cases from the show to argue it’s just a limitation of Fezs English.

Regardless this is just me theory based on a few hours research and rewatching the entire show, I still believe it’s all a simple ploy to avoid concerns with discrimination and racism by having Fez not represent any ethnic groups, and we are all just looking too deeply into it, but hey where’s the fun in all that.