"We walked in and there was shag carpeting, flower wallpaper, (and a) black-and-white TV," says Joey Mendicino, 26, one of the dozen young people who lived in the house for as long as six weeks.

They had entered an alternate world. It was one where music emerged from vinyl and a telephone uses some sort of rotary device.

"They were totally shocked," says Jessica Samet, MTV's vice president of series development. "They thought they were going to be in something like 'The Real World.' "

Not even close. They had reached the missing link in TV's reality-past shows.

The British started this with "1900 House," in which a modern family lived in the style of a century ago. Laundry was an all-day ordeal; bathing was a rare luxury.

Then PBS went further, with people living in frontier homes and in a pilgrim community. Life was brutal.

Well, semi-brutal, anyway. The pilgrims never had to watch "CHiPs" reruns or wear stripes or dance the hustle. "The '70s House" people did all of that.

"They had to get rid of all their makeup, all their hair-care products, anything that wasn't around in the '70s," Samet says. "We told them, 'You can't say, 'Yo, dude.' "

The deprivation continued. "We had to play goofy games — things like Twister," Mendicino says.

They also had to go out in public wearing '70s clothes and attitudes.

At this point some people might suggest that some 1970s clothes look retro-cool. "We purposely picked the ones that were not cool," Samet says.

In that un-cool state, the young people interacted with the public.

"A lot of the older people kind of liked it," Mendicino says. "It brought back a lot of memories. Kids our age would just stare."

By logic, he should have been well suited for the past. "My parents were hippies back in the day," he says. "They played a lot of old-school music."

In the 1970s house, Mendicino realized that he liked some of the music (Simon and Garfunkel, for instance) and a few of the TV shows. "I liked 'Laverne & Shirley,' just because of Lenny and Squiggy."

Mostly, though, he suffered. That was the idea behind it.

The show was hosted by two actor-comedians (Bil Dwyer and Natasha Leggero) who pretended to be schmoozy, 1970s hosts.

It also had one rule. "Whenever a buzzer went off they had to get up and (dance) the hustle," Samet says. "Even if they were sleeping, in the shower, anything."

Samet, 36, figures this is a show that will cross generations.

It has Mendicino's generation, for starters. "I grew up watching MTV," he says.

But it also may tickle his elders who will enjoy watching people flail with the past. Samet enjoyed some of the answers to a quiz.

"The Bicentennial was in 1972," she says. "And Eisenhower was president throughout the 1970s."