Bill Daily | Through the Shattered Lens

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!

This week, season three begins with a classic episode!

Episode 3.1 and 3.2 “Roller Disco”

(Dir by Don Weis, originally aired on September 22nd, 1979)

It’s the roller disco episode!

From the moment that I first announced that I would be watching and reviewing CHiPs for this feature, people have been telling me about the legendary roller disco episode. Having finally reached it, I can say that it lived up to the hype. You’re not likely to see anything more 70s than the third season premiere of CHiPs.

Now, this was a two-hour episode so there were actually quite a few subplot going on, all of which were typical CHiPs storylines. In no particular order:

A kid named Mark (Bobby Rolofson) is roller skating around the beach and idolizing three criminals. Can Baker show him that the good guys always win?
The three criminals are Lita (Helena Kallianiotes), Ty (Fred Williamson), and Romo (Jim Brown). Lita sets up the targets. Ty and Romo steal their purses and their wallets and then escape on roller skates. Ty and Romo are tired of breaking the law. Lita demands that they continue to steal. Eventually, it falls to Baker and Ponch to arrest them.
Carlin (Larry Linville) and Franco (Larry Storch) continually cause accidents on the highway.
Rock star Jimmy Tyler (Leif Garrett) is so tired that he sleeps through one of those accidents. Looking to break free from his well-meaning but overbearing manager (Bill Daily), Jimmy decides to manage his own affairs while staying at Jon Baker’s apartment.

There’s a lot going on but the main plotline is Ponch trying to find celebrities to take part in the annual highway patrol fund raiser. Even with his big smile, Ponch struggles to charm the celebs. He pulls over Ed McMahon at one point but fails to recognize him until McMahon drives off. Gatraer tells Ponch that police work comes first but also tells him that he has to find celebrities. Gatraer’s been giving Ponch a hard time ever since the first season. Some things never change.

Fortunately, Jimmy feels guilty for overstaying his welcome at Baker’s apartment and he makes it up to Baker and Ponch by asking his celebrity friends to take part in the fund raiser. It’s time for a roller disco with the stars!

It all leads to this classic scene:

I recognized a few of the stars, though certainly not all of them. I recognized Victor French because I’ve been reviewing Highway to Heaven. I’ve also seen enough old sitcoms that I immediately recognized Robert Mandan, who was apparently the best roller skater in Hollywood. Melissa Sue Anderson, I knew from Happy Birthday To Me. Cindy Williams, who got two shout-outs, I knew from American Graffiti. Is it just me or did Nancy Kulp look kind of lost? Neither Melissa Sue Anderson nor Cindy Williams seemed to want to talk to her.

The roller disco actually goes on for fifteen minutes, which I appreciated. The show promised a roller disco and it delivered. It was like stepping into a time machine and traveling to the 70s. It was a great way to start season three!

Because of the holidays, this is going to be my final CHiPs review of 2024. My reviews of this show will return on January 6th!

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Wednesdays, I will be reviewing the original Love Boat, which aired on ABC from 1977 to 1986! The series can be streamed on Paramount Plus!

This week, it’s a double length episode of The Love Boat as the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders take over the cruise!

Episodes 3.10 and 3.11 “The Love Lamp Is Lit/Critical Success/Rent a Family/Take My Boyfriend, Please/The Man in Her Life”

(Dir by Roger Duchowny, originally aired on November 10th, 1979)

This episode features the first time that Jill Whelan (as Vicki) is included in the opening credits and what an episode to be included in! It’s time for a special charity cruise of the Love Boat! In order to raise money for an orphanage in Mexico, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders will be performing on the boat!

I don’t really follow football but I do know that both the Cowboys and their cheerleaders were really popular back in the 70s and 80s. (Living in Texas, I’ve become very good at sympathetically nodding whenever anyone starts talking about frustrated they are with the Cowboys.) Still, the idea of the cheerleaders performing on a cruise ship for a charity drive seems a little off. I mean, shouldn’t they be cheering at a football game? As I always do when it come to things involving cheerleaders, I asked my sister Erin if any of this made sense to her. Erin suggested that I not worry about it because it’s The Love Boat. And really, she has a point. The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders marching onto the boat in full uniform and practicing their routines by the pool makes about as much sense as 11 year-old Vicki suddenly living on a cruise ship. With The Love Boat, you just have to kind of go with it.

The Cheerleaders play themselves, with three of them getting storylines of their own and I will say that they all came across as being likable and natural in their performances. I always kind of dread any episode that features celebrities playing themselves because just because someone is famous, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be a good actor. (I still remember all of those stiff basketball player cameos on Hang Time.) But the cheerleaders all do a good job, even if none of them are given particularly challenging roles.

Stacy (Tami Barber), for instance, is shocked when Mark Scott (Stephen Shortridge) boards the cruise. Mark was someone who pursued her in Dallas but she wanted nothing to do with him. However, on the boat, Mark shows that he’s a nice guy underneath his smooth exterior. He even choreographs a new routine for the charity performance. Good for him!

Wendy Ames (Gaye Carter) boards the boat with her mother, Helen (Dina Merrill) and Helen’s boyfriend, Bill (William Windom). Helen gets jealous of the amount of time that Wendy and Bill are spending together and, when she sees the two of them looking at wedding rings, she decides that they’re having an affair! No, Helen — Bill wants to marry you! This whole storyline was silly, to be honest. Helen just came across as being unnaturally paranoid.

Lisa (Kim Kilway) meets and falls for Paul (Bill Daily), who is the newest vice president of the greeting card company that is sponsoring the cruise. Paul loves Lisa to but he has a problem. He’s traveling with his fake family! Why does Paul have a fake family? Apparently, Paul’s boss (John Hillerman) only hires family men. (That sounds like a lawsuit in the making.) Paul recruited a fake wife (Roz Kelly), mother (Patsy Kelly), and son (Jackie Earle Haley, who appears to be having a lot of fun playing bratty) to pretend to be his family. The truth comes out, of course. Fortunately, Lisa is remarkably forgiving and Paul avoids getting fired by promising to marry and start a family with Lisa as quickly as possible. Again, this all sounds like the beginning of Supreme Court case.

Among the non-cheerleaders, Lou (Larry Linville) and Nora (Gunilla Hutton) are two jewel thieves who board the boat so that they can find some diamonds they hid the last time they took a cruise. They hid the diamonds in a lamp and it turns out that the lamp is now in the possession of a member of the crew. This leads to Nora flirting with Gopher, Isaac, and Doc and then quickly abandoning them once it becomes clear that they don’t have the lamp. (These scenes were fun, largely because of Gunilla Hutton’s comedic timing.) Finally, Lou and Nora get the diamonds but they have a change of heart and, along with declaring their love for each other, Lou and Nora also donate the $500,000 that they’re going to make from selling the diamonds to the orphanage! Yay! Assuming that Lou and Nora don’t get arrested while trying to fence the stolen merchandise, the orphanage will greatly benefit.

Meanwhile, an acerbic theatrical critic (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) tries to get an actress (Ginger Rogers) to agree to appear in his new play. In the end, they realize they’re in love and Ginger Rogers sings Love Will Keep Us Together.

There was a lot going on in this episode but it was enjoyably silly in the way that the best episodes of The Love Boat usually are. It was excessive and ridiculous, but fun. On The Love Boat could you get Jackie Earle Haley mocking his fake father while Ginger Rogers sang a song. This was an enjoyable episode and it did Dallas proud.