"What did you order?" Ashton Kutcher asks his dining companions.
"I ordered the venison," says Mila Kunis. Then Ashton gives her the bad news.
"What?!" she shudders. "I ordered deer?! I don't WANT to eat deer!"
"Why not?" asks Ashton.
"I don't eat DUCK," Mila tries to explain. "Why would I eat deer?"
So goes lunch with the young stars of Fox's Me-Decade sitcom, "That '70s Show" (airing Sunday at 8:30 p.m. EST). A reporter is chowing down with Ashton (who plays the handsome but dizzy Kelso) and Mila (Kelso's irksome girlfriend Jackie), as well as Topher Grace, Wilmer Valderrama and Laura Prepon.
"What is hanger steak?" Mila wants to know as she combs the menu for a substitute entree.
They, along with Danny Masterson, portray suburban Milwaukee teens "hanging out, down the street; the same old thing we did last week" (per the theme song) during that era of smiley faces, leisure suits and President Ford.
"Nixon had just resigned and 8-tracks were changing over to cassettes," says Ashton, setting the scene. "It was a period of insecurity but optimism."
"The show deals with the same issues teenagers deal with today," says Laura, who plays Donna, a towering goddess who's still one of the boys.
"But even though the things we're dealing with are timeless," Ashton continues, "I think there were also a lot of things different about the '70s." For instance: "Kids got a lot more flak from their parents. Parents could beat them an not, like, go to jail for it.
"Kids in the '70s didn't have computers and CD players," he adds. "They had to come up with different ways to have fun. That's what the show is about: finding different ways to have fun. And then our parents can beat us if we have TOO much fun."
Actually, no beatings are expected. For one thing, the parents are too busy shopping for lava lamps and learning disco steps.
But ever since "That '70s Show" premiered last August, the kids have indeed been finding ways to amuse themselves: sneaking out of town to a Todd Rundgren concert; throwing an illicit keg party in an empty swimming pool; watching TV in the basement, where the swelling smoke and loopy talk are telltale signs they are stoned.
In the meantime, the "'70s" cast members have fused into a finely tuned ensemble.
"I remember my first audition," says Topher Grace, who plays Eric, the show's spindly Everylad. "All the kids, I knew. And all of them knew each other. Because they were all famous. Except for me. There was the guy from 'Blank' and the girl from 'Blank,' and they were talking to each other, having a great time. And I was the total loser."
"At my audition there was me, and this other girl who looked like a total cheerleader-teeny-bopper-Hanson-lover," Laura sniffs. "I was like, 'They must not know what they want!"'
Wilmer, who plays the foreign-exchange student Fez, says he met Laura at their audition for Fox execs. "She was sitting there, very cute. She was just so nice."
"When I punch you," says Laura, "do you still think I'm nice?"
"I was a little nervous," the Venezuelan-born Wilmer presses on. "I was the only Hispanic walking into the audition."
"Wilmer speaks English so well, even though he came to our country just five years ago," Topher observes. "But then he goes into character, and you can't understand anything he's saying and he acts clueless. But we're all a lot like our characters."
"Fez takes most things literally and I used to do that, too," Wilmer concedes, "because I didn't know about sarcasm in English."
"I'm a lot like Donna," says Laura. "I'm friends with a lot of guys. Would you call me a tomboy?"
"You're pretty butch!" Ashton cracks.
As if anyone would fault Eric for the boy-girl urges that sometimes override his chummy feelings for Donna. When these next-door neighbors talk in the driveway after dark, they don't just talk anymore.
Laura seems at a loss to explain the puppy-love chemistry she and Topher generate. "We've kissed so many times now," she says, "it's not a big deal."
"Doing the pilot," argues Topher, thinking back a few months, "it was, like, a big deal."
"We just did our first big tongue kiss," Laura volunteers, then begins folding her napkin into animal shapes.