Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing SLEDGE HAMMER!, a cop comedy which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The entire series can be found on Prime!

Trust him.  He knows what he’s doing.

Episode 1.7 “All Shook Up”

(Dir by Jackie Cooper, originally aired on November 7th, 1986)

15 Elvis impersonators have been murdered in the city.  Doreau wonders how anyone can be so evil.  Sledge Hammer wonders about the person who draws the chalk outlines at crime scenes.  “What type of life is that?”

Captain Trunk, who spends this episode dealing with a migraine, is upset that there aren’t more clues as to the identity of the murderer.  Hammer suggests that it will be easier to solve the case once more Elvises have been murdered.  To Trunk’s disappointment, Hammer turns out to be right.  A woman witnesses the 16th murder and reports that the killer was not only dressed like Elvis but he was also carrying a golden microphone!

It’s time for Sledge Hammer to go undercover!  Doreau enrolls him in a school for Elvis impersonators and then accompanies him to the National Elvis Impersonator Semi-Finals.  The highlight of the episode is Sledge Hammer imitating Elvis.  He can’t do the voice and he can’t do the dance moves but he’s totally convincing when he draws a gun and shoots it.  Later, he shows off his karate moves and wins a trophy.

As for the murderer, he turns out to be the janitor (Raymond Ma) at the Elvis school.  He feels that he’s the best Elvis in the world.  Unfortunately, for him, he’s electrocuted when he accidentally holds his golden microphone too close to a live wire.  With the city safe for Elvis impersonators, Sledge announces that he’s going to Graceland.

This week’s episode was just ludicrous enough to work.  Between the Elvis puns and all of the bad singing and dancing, it kept me laughing (or, at the very least, smiling).  As usual, David Rasche’s enthusiastic performance more than made up for any jokes that didn’t quite land.  This was also a good episode for Anne-Marie Martin, who played Doreau’s relationship with Hammer with just the right combination of frustration and affection.

Sledge Hammer has left the building but he’ll be back next week.