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 Prime!

It’s a holiday week so tonight’s review is going to be a mini-review.  Let’s quickly talk about the time two highway patrolmen ended up in jail!

But first….

Episode 3.16 “Jailbirds”

(Dir by Bruce Kessler, originally aired on January 12th, 1980)

Ponch and Baker go to jail!

Actually, Baker goes to jail twice.  Ponch is only sent to jail once.  It’s all because they refuse to reveal the name of the confidential informant that allowed them get the drop on and arrest a smuggler named Nick Ferris (Ray Duke).  Getraer calls the Attorney General’s office.  Officer Turner drops by to check on Baker.  The Judge (Allan Rich) says that he sympathizes with the cops but unless they’re willing to name their informant, he’ll have to dismiss the charges and let Ferris go free due to insufficient evidence.

The idea of Ponch and Baker in jail has a lot of possibilities.  Ponch is always going on and on about how he used to be a juvenile delinquent so I was half-expecting him to run into an old friend in the holding tank.  That didn’t happen, though.  Instead, CHiPs gave us a jail that was remarkably clean, well-run, and full of friendly prisoners and nice cops.  I’ve often felt that CHiPs was essentially a commercial for Los Angeles tourism and the theme of this episode appeared to be, “L.A. …. even our jails are wonderful!”

Anyway. Getrear and the guys not in jail work to get more evidence so that they can put Ferris behind bars without revealing the name of Baker’s informant.  Good for them!  Teamwork, it’s what CHiPs is all about!