Denny Dillon | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to 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 Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show can be purchased on Prime!

This week, things get weird in Miami!

Episode 2.22 “Trust Fund Pirates”

(Dir by Jim Johnston, originally aired on May 2ns 1986)

Pirate radio DJ Captain Hook (Richard Belzer) sits on his yacht in international waters and broadcasts music to Miami while, at the same time, brokering drug deals among other yacht owners. His assistant is Noogie (Charlie Barnett), the informant who was all over the place during Miami Vice’s first season but who, up until this episode, was absent from the second season.

On another yacht, a group of Bolivians are gunned down by preppy young men who are led by Ivy League dropout Skip Mueller (Perry Lang). Skip and his buddies brag about being pirates and cheerfully make jokes while standing over the bodies of the men and the women that they killed.

A seaplane pilot named Jackson Crane (a young Gary Cole) raids the Bolivian yacht and takes some of the boat’s equipment home with him. Jackson is a longtime drug smuggler who claims that he’s on the verge of retirement. He’s dating a woman named Lani (Nicole Fosse), who happens to be Skip’s sister.

In a trailer park, Jumbo (Tommy Chong) and his wife Fluffy (Denny Dillon) keep a running tally of how many rats they’ve killed while trying to buy drugs and fence stolen goods. Jumbo calls everyone “man.” Fluffy is good with a shotgun.

And, in the middle of all this, we’ve got two aspiring drug dealers named Burnett and Cooper. Burnett and Cooper, of course, are actually Crockett and Tubbs. Just two episodes ago, one of Miami’s fiercest drug lords figured out that Burnett and Cooper are actually cops but I guess he decided not to tell anyone, despite the fact that he still thinks Crockett owes him money.

It’s a bizarre episode, full of strange characters and a plot that has so many double-crosses that it’s hard to keep track of who is betraying who. The episode was originally intended to be a sequel to Smuggler’s Blues, with Glenn Frey once again playing Jimmy the Pilot. When Frey couldn’t fit a return appearance into his schedule, the script was rewritten to feature Gary Cole as a friend of Jimmy’s. That said, it’s still obvious that the script was originally written more to highlight a popular guest star than to tell a totally coherent story.

Fortunately, Miami Vice works best when its a bit incoherent. One the major themes of the show is that no one can be trusted and that everyone is willing to betray everyone else. The world of Miami Vice is often illogical because it’s a world full of illogical people who tend to do whatever pops into their head at any given moment. Another major theme is that everyone either wants to get rich from selling drugs or they’re just adrenaline junkies who get a high from being involved in the underground. Skip and his friends are rich. They just enjoy killing people and pretending to be gangsters. This is one of the more violent and bloody episodes of Miami Vice. Skip and his friends enjoy their work a little too much.

It’s a good episode and well-acted. Gary Cole was considered for the role of Crockett before Don Johnson got the part and, in this episode, it’s easy to see why. Even as a young actor, Cole has a rugged cynicism to him that’s both dangerous and compelling. Perry Lang appeared in a lot of dumb teen comedies in the 80s, usually playing dorky nice guys. He’s absolutely chilling as the sociopathic Skip Mueller. And finally, there’s Richard Belzer, wearing an eyepatch, opening the episode by rapping with Noogie, and encouraging the criminals of Miami to enjoy some good music while breaking the law. Full of strange characters and shocking violence, this episode captures the idea of Miami being a surreal playground for the rich, ruthless, and crazy.

Next week, season 2 comes to an end!

Here’s a little bit of trivia about the iconic 1977 film Saturday Night Fever.

First off, according to the imdb, Saturday Night Fever was the first mainstream Hollywood film to ever use the term “blow job.” That actually took me by surprise. I mean, with all of the risks that the major studios took in the 70s, it still took them until 1977 to have someone say “blow job” in a movie? But somehow, it seems appropriate that it would turn up in Saturday Night Fever. We tend to think of Saturday Night Fever as being a movie where the soundtrack is nonstop disco and John Travolta dances in that iconic white suit. But actually, Saturday Night Fever is a film about four guys who neither understand nor respect women.

When Tony (John Travolta), Joey (Joseph Cali), Double J (Paul Pape), and Bobby (Barry Miller) go down to that disco, it’s because they want to get laid. Joey and Double J take turns having sex with insecure Annette (Donna Pescow) and, afterwards, Tony scornfully ask her if she‘s proud of herself. When Bobby discovers that his girlfriend is pregnant, he is so terrified of having to be a father that he becomes suicidal. As for Tony, he looks down on the women who are so eager to dance with him. When he enters a dance contest with Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney), he can’t handle the fact that she wants more out of her life than just being his latest partner.

So, it makes sense that this would be the first mainstream movie to feature someone talking about a blow job because that’s what these boys are obsessed with. Sexually primitive, hypocritically puritanical, and emotionally repressed, a blow job is all the intimacy that these boys can handle.

Another piece of trivia: while John Travolta was always the first choice for Tony Manero, several actors were seen for the roles of Joey and Double J. At one point, both Ray Liotta and David Caruso were nearly cast in the role of Tony’s friends. Imagine this: in some alternative universe, while white-suited John Travolta rules over the dance floor, Ray Liotta and David Caruso are standing in the background and cheering him on.

Of course, if Liotta and Caruso had been cast, it would be a totally different movie. Whenever you watch Saturday Night Fever, you’re surprised by how much John Travolta totally dominates the film. Even though the film devotes a good deal of time to Annette, Stephanie, Bobby and to Tony’s brother who has recently left the priesthood, Tony Manero is the only character that you remember. That’s largely because Travolta is the only one of them who gives a truly memorable performance.

In theory, it’s easy to laugh at the thought of Travolta in that white suit, striking a dramatic pose on that cheap-looking dance floor. But then you watch the film and you realize that Travolta truly did give a great performance. And, to your surprise, you don’t laugh at Tony with his white suit because you know that the only time Tony has any control over his life is when he’s dancing. He may work in a paint store. He may regularly get slapped around by his family. He may not be very smart or sensitive. But when Tony’s dancing, he’s a king and you’re happy that he at least has one thing in his life that he can feel good about.

Even if he is kind of a jerk.

Of course, it helps that Tony is a really good dancer. There’s actually a lot more going on in Saturday Night Fever than you might think but ultimately, it’s a dance movie and it’s one of the best.