Jerry Brown Time Machine: Then and Now

When Jerry Brown was elected governor this week, he set a record for the longest period of time between terms of office.

To get a sense for how long it's been since his last go-round, consider what the world was like when Jerry Brown first took office in January 1975.

Riding Muni cost 25 cents.

Forty-one percent of televisions sold that year were black-and-white. Remote controls were extremely rare and relied on ultrasonic frequencies, rather than infrared.

Apple and Microsoft didn't exist.

The 49ers had never won a Super Bowl, or even a conference championship.

Muhammad Ali was heavyweight champion of the world.

The No. 1 song was Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." (It got bumped the following week by Barry Manilow's "Mandy.")

"Jaws" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" were released later in the year, becoming two of the highest-grossing pictures.

The highest-rated TV show was "All in the Family."

California had about 22 million residents, compared with roughly 38 million today. About 215 million people lived in the United States (now it's almost 311 million).

Dmitri Shostakovich, Thornton Wilder, Howlin' Wolf, Agatha Christie, Vladimir Nabokov, Groucho Marx, Maria Callas, Charlie Chaplin and Elvis Presley were still living.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was preparing to compete in the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding championship. He went on to win a sixth consecutive title that year (Lou Ferrigno was a finalist).

Barack Obama (then known as Barry) was attending middle school in Hawaii.

Jerry Brown was 36.

I had barely started walking; my wife wasn't born.

UPDATE: I thought of a couple more good ones.

In 1975, the California budget was $10.3 billion. The latest state budget, which passed last month, was $86.6 billion.

Though touch-tone phones debuted in the 1960s, rotary dials were still far more common in 1975.