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, there’s an interesting crime spree but nothing is more important than Ponch’s feelings.

Episode 5.23 “Trained For Trouble”

(Dir by Barry Crane, originally aired on April 4th, 1982)

Animals have been trained to steal money!  A hawk swoops down and steals a bag of cash from an armored car.  Chimpanzees rob a bank!  It’s madness and the Highway Patrol has its work cut out for them as they attempt to catch whoever has trained these criminal animals.  (The minute that one sees Don Stroud’s name in the guest star list, it’s pretty easy to guess who is responsible.)

That may sound like a cute idea for a show and, to be honest, it is.  However, this episode is somehow less concerned with the animals robbing banks than it is with every woman in Los Angeles mistaking Ponch for a Chippendale’s dancer.  It turns out that one of the male strippers — “Officer Richard” — looks like just like Ponch.  Richard is credited as being played by “Angelo Bernardi.”  Seeing as how Bernardi has no other credits on the imdb other than this episode, I’m not convinced that wasn’t Erik Estrada stripping off his uniform.

Consider this to be your weekly reminder that, during the fifth seasos, CHiPs was….

From what I’ve read, Larry Wilcox left this show after the fifth season specifically because he felt Erik Estrada was getting all of the good storylines and had basically become the producer’s pet.  Watching this episode, you can see why he would be upset.  While Estrada spends the episode being chased by every woman in Los Angeles, Wilcox gets a handful of forgettable lines.

On a positive note, this episode did feature the character actor Dan Hedaya, playing someone who chronically confesses to unsolved crimes.  His character was, at least, a little interesting.  He also got more lines than Larry Wilcox in this episode which, again, perhaps explains why Jon Baker returned to Wyoming after the fifth season.