Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing CHiPs, which ran on NBC from 1977 to 1983. The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee!
This week, Ponch loses his car and Baker loses his wallet.
Episode 2.13 “Down Time”
(Dir by John Florea, aired on December 16th, 1978)
While chasing two female car thieves, Ponch crashes his motorcycle and sprains his finger. Getraer is overjoyed because he can now require Ponch to take a few days off work. Ponch is happy because he’s just moved into a new apartment and he wants to get to know his neighbor, Kim Balford (Randi Oakes).
Kim says she’s an aspiring actress but actually she’s the head of a ring of car thieves. In fact, by an amazing coincidence, they’re the same car thieves that Ponch was chasing when he injured himself! Kim sees that Ponch has a new car, a brown Firebird. Ponch really loves that car. Well, too bad! Kim and her associates steal his car.
To Getraer’s disappointment, Ponch is soon spending his entire vacation at headquarters, pressuring people like Detective Bill Ross (Burr DeBenning) to find his car. Detective Ross informs Ponch that he’ll probably never see his car again but Ponch is determined to get it back.
Baker, meanwhile, just want to find his wallet. His misplaced it and he has no idea where it is. Ponch is upset that Baker is more upset over losing all of his money and his ID than over Ponch losing his car. Baker, realizing that this is CHiPs and Ponch therefore always comes first, apologizes to Ponch and agrees to set aside his own problems to help Ponch out.
Fortunately, Ponch and Baker do figure out that Kim is the one behind the car thefts. It all leads to a chase through the streets of Los Angeles. Kim and her two partners-in-crime are in one of those big trucks that are used to transports cars from one place to another. (I can’t imagine driving one of those things.) Since they’re off duty, Baker and Ponch have to make due with Baker’s pickup truck. (Fortunately, Grossman shows up on a motorcycle so this episode doesn’t turn out like that weird season one episode where Baker and Ponch spent the entire episode in a patrol car.) Kim is caught but, of course, Ponch’s beloved firebird is destroyed in the chase.
Good news, though! Baker finds his wallet in his jacket. Yay! YOU GO, BAKER!
This episode was actually a lot of fun. Watching it, you could just hear people in 1978 saying, “They steal cars? …. But, they’re women!” Randi Oakes, who would later be a regular on the show as a member of the Highway Patrol, gives a wonderfully over-the-top performance as Kim. As well, anyone watching should be able to relate to Getraer’s annoyance as he discovers that there’s no way get Ponch to stay home. Best of all, with so much of the action taking place in Ponch’s swinging bachelor pad, this episode was pretty much a museum-quality exhibit of the late 70s. Watching this episode was like stepping into a time machine.
It was fun!
Through the Shattered Lens 