How’s this for a pop-culture artifact?   It was shared recently on Facebook by my friend Conrad.

This is a screenshot from 1977’s “CHiPs,” that weekly, family-friendly, primetime police dramedy in which a pair of affable California Highway Patrolmen would never even draw their sidearms over the course of an hour-long episode.

And, yes, the period marquee in the background is indeed advertising the original “Star Wars.”

Even at the age of five or six, CHiPs was too goofy for me — despite the fact that Shawn Degnan, my best friend next door, frequently recommended it.   Shawn and I did agree on the show’s contemporary, however — “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (1979-1981).