Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 3.18 “Kidnap”

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, two dumbs kids case a lot of trouble.

Episode 3.18 “Kidnap”

(Dir by Gordon Hessler, originally aired on January 26th, 1980)

Ponch and Baker have been assigned to escort to stupid kids — Pete (Brad Savage) and his weirdo friend Ray (Christopher Holloway) — to the country courthouse so that they can receive some sort of an award for an essay that they wrote about traffic safety. I don’t know, it sound pretty dumb. For some reason, local news reporter Pat Blake (Jayne Kennedy) is there to cover the story. Ponch gets busy flirting with Pat and Baker’s busy hitting on Pete’s older sister (Judy Strangis) and nobody notices Pete and Ray getting into an unlocked limo and starting the engine.

Meanwhile, two crooks named Solkin (played by legendary character actor Timothy Carey) and Bickel (Warren Berlinger) escape from custody, run down to the parking garage, and hop in the limo. Because those dumb kids turned on the engine, Solkin and Bickel steal the car with the two stupid kids in the backseat!

Even though this is entirely the fault of Pete and Ray, the entire Highway Patrol mobilizes to rescue them. This episode is one long chase scene. Solkin and Bickel want to drive up to Canada. (Draft dodgers!) Pete and Ray are trying to figure out a way to escape. Ponch and Baker are trying to discreetly follow without letting the crooks know that they’ve been spotted. Unfortunately, two stoners in a van try to help and almost give away the entire operation.

Of course, the kids are rescued and, of course, it’s all because of Ponch. Ponch dresses like an auto mechanic and then borrows a banged-up Cadillac that has fuzzy pink seat covers. Ponch follows the men and continually plays La Cucaracha by honking the car’s horn. While Baker and the other members of the Highway Patrol struggle to keep track of the kidnappers and continually screw up, Ponch solves this case almost single-handedly!

Okay, that’s a little unfair on my part. This is one of those episodes where the emphasis really is on team work. Everyone — from Grossie to Getraer to Bear to Ponch and Jon — does their part to follow the limo and to come up with a plan to save the kids. Still, it’s hard not to notice that, when it comes time to save the kids, it’s pretty much Ponch doing it on his own. We’re closing in on the end of the third season and it’s pretty much undeniable that CHiPs has become The Ponch Show.

This episode was kind of annoying, despite the presence of the always entertaining Timothy Carey. The main problem was that the two kids were jerks who had no one to blame but themselves for getting into that bad situation. I hope they were grounded for the rest of their lives!

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.6 “Trick or Treat”

Posted on June 17, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s a Halloween episode!

Episode 2.6 “Trick or Treat”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on October 21st, 1978)

It’s Halloween in Los Angeles! That means that people will be asking for treats and playing tricks and getting into all sorts of trouble. But, for the California Highway Patrol, it’s just another day and night of trying to keep everyone safe.

Ponch’s day gets off to a bad start when he and Baker chase a van onto a movie lot. The van’s driver, it turns out, was speeding because he was transporting thirteen black cats to a film set. When Ponch and Baker finally pull over the van, the cats get loose and all 13 of them march past Ponch. Later, at headquarters, Ponch is forced by a narrow hallway to walk under a ladder. *GASP* Ponch insists that he’s not superstitious but he also won’t stop talking about his encounter with the black cats.

Ponch is in for some bad luck and it shows up in the form of an 8 year-old named Tommy who squirts Ponch with perfume while Ponch is patrolling the neighborhood. Ponch tells Tommy that playing tricks like that could lead to him getting arrested and hauled off to jail. Tommy panics and runs away from home. Guess who gets the blame for that?

That’s not all that’s going on this Halloween night. (Since this episode aired in 1978, it’s also the night that He came home.) Eddie (Bobby Van) and his girlfriend, Susan (Elaine Joyce), are holding up convenience stores. (Susan distracts the cashiers by wearing a translucent ghost costume.) An older woman (Fran Ryan) is stealing bags of candy from young trick-or-treaters. Paula (Barbara Leigh) and Karen (Jenny Sherman) are stealing speed limit signs as part of a superfun scavenger hunt. And Sgt. Getraer is determined to figure out the identity of the Hobgoblin, a member of the highway patrol who reads macabre poetry over the police radio throughout the night.

Fear not, though …. everything works out in the end. Tommy is not only found hiding out in an abandoned house but Ponch is the one who finds and rescues him. Eddie and Susan get chased and arrested after trying to pull one robbery too many. (Their van crashes as a result of two teenagers throwing eggs on the windshield. Some tricks are good, apparently.) The old woman turns out to be a distraught suburbanite who lost her engagement ring and who thinks that she may have tossed it in some kid’s trick-or-treat bag. (Fortunately, the ring is found in her candy bowl and no one presses charges.) Paula and Karen lose the scavenger hunt but they win future dates with Ponch and Baker. And Getraer figures out that Artie Grossman is the Hobgoblin. In the end, everyone smiles and laugh and that’s the important thing.

For a Halloween episode, Trick or Treat was rather low-key but that’s okay. I liked the day-in-the-life approach that the episode took and it was fun to see that even the members of the fearsome highway patrol were capable of enjoying the holiday. We should have as good a Halloween as Ponch and Baker.

An Olympic Horror Film Review: Fatal Games (dir by Michael Elliot)

Posted on February 21, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Like all good people, I am currently obsessed with the Winter Olympics! As a result, over the past two weeks, I’ve been watching and reviewing a lot of Olympic-themed films. Today, I watched the 1984 slasher film, Fatal Games!

If you look at the poster above, you’ll see that Fatal Games was advertised as being a film about “America’s Olympic hopefuls … competing in the Fatal Games!” That’s kind of true. The Olympics are frequently mentioned throughout Fatal Games but technically, no one in the movie is actually a member of the Olympic team. At least not yet. Instead, they’re all students at a special athletic academy. Apparently, it’s supposed to be a high school, though we don’t ever see anyone taking a math test or attending English class or anything like that. Instead, it appears that everyone at the school spends all day practicing gymnastics, swimming, or running. In fact, it appears that there’s only 20 students at the school and, at most, 5 members of the faculty. Maybe it’s meant to be like that school that all of the clones attended in Never Let Me Go. Either that or it’s just an indication that Fatal Games was an extremely low-budget film.

Anyway, seven of the students have just won some sort of regional competition and now they’re getting ready for nationals! And, if they win at nationals, they’ll get to go to the Olympics. However, they might not even make it to nationals. Someone is stalking the blandly likable athletes and using a javelin to pick them off, one-by-one.

Interestingly, it takes people a while to notice that the number of potential Olympians is steadily dwindling. Instead, people say stuff like, “Hey, have you seen Nancy?” “Not for a few days.” “Hey, have you seen Sue Ellen?” “Didn’t she got to San Francisco to see her boyfriend?”

Well, I guess it’s understandable. It’s not like anyone in the film is going to school to develop their critical thinking skills. They’re athletes. Who cares about all of the people mysteriously disappearing? They have athletic stuff to worry about!

Fatal Games is pretty much a typical mid-80s slasher. Interestingly enough, it’s structured like a giallo. The murderer dresses in black and we get all of the required close-ups of the killer’s gloved hands. The film introduces several potential suspects but doesn’t reveal the killer’s identity until the final ten minutes.

Is it the overly critical track coach?

Is it the creepy doctor?

Is it the nurse who is worried that the athletes are being injected with too many hormones? (Obviously, she’s seen Goldengirl.)

Is it the swim coach?

Or is it her girlfriend, the swimmer who didn’t qualify for nationals?

Is it the gymnast whose grades are slipping?

Could it be the other gymnast who is always telling jokes?

Or the runner who has father issues?

Or is it Joe, the token weird guy?

They’re all given a scene or two to establish that they have a potential motive for wanting the seven aspiring Olympians dead. When the killer and the killer’s motive is finally revealed, it’s so over-the-top and stupid that you can’t help but admire the film for actually going there. The filmmakers obviously said, “Forget trying to make sense. WE’RE GOING FOR IT!”

Anyway, the main problem with Fatal Games is that the murderer uses a javelin and, as a result, there’s a lot of scenes of the killer running through narrow school hallways, carrying this goofy-looking javelin. Don’t get me wrong. Javelins are sharp and scary and I wouldn’t want one thrown at me. But still, when someone spends more than five minutes running down a narrow hallway while carrying a javelin, it just looks silly. Let’s not even think about the logistics of using a javelin to kill someone in broad daylight without anyone else noticing.

That said, as silly and predictable as Fatal Games may have been, there were a few moments of inspired lunacy. I already mentioned the ending, which is so over-the-top and silly that you can’t help but admire it. But there’s also a few shots that are genuinely effective. A scene where the killer suddenly appears in a doorway was handled well. There’s also an oddly dream-like sequence in which a swimmer practices in the pool, little realizing that the killer is floating underneath her. How did the killer get in the pool, with the javelin, without anyone noticing? Who knows? It’s still an effective scene.

Finally, I have to mention that Fatal Games opens with a song called “Take It All The Way,” which is so generically 80s that it’s oddly brilliant. It’s almost as good as Graduation Day‘s “The Winner.”

Fatal Games is currently available for viewing on YouTube.