Tag Archives: Jason Evers

Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 2.11 “Supercycle”

Posted on 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 Freevee!

A daredevil motorcyclist known as the Phantom is making the street dangerous in Los Angeles!  Can Ponch and Baker catch him before it’s too late?

Episode 2.11 “Supercycle”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on December 2nd, 1978)

From what I’ve read, Larry Wilcox was apparently often unhappy on the set of CHiPs and, watching this week’s episode, I can see why.

This week’s episode follows only one storyline.  A motorcycle-riding daredevil known as the Phantom (George O’Hanlon, Jr.) is driving around Los Angeles and doing stunts.  It’s all a part of a promotion that’s being run by the unscrupulous Fred Gesslin (Jason Evers).  When Ponch and Baker chase the Phantom and end up losing him, footage ends up on the news and totally humiliates the Highway Patrol.  Getraer is even less amused than usual.

Luckily, Harlan has a supercycle in the garage.  Ponch and Baker decide to take the Supercycle out so that they can use it to capture the Phantom.  Ponch and Baker both get a chance to test the Supercycle on the test track.  Ponch is a natural.  Baker crashes.  So, of course, Ponch is the one who gets to ride the Supercycle….

AND THAT’S THE WAY IT ALWAYS IS ON THIS SHOW!

Seriously, if there’s anything cool to do, Ponch is going to be the one to do it.  If there’s an exciting story, it’s going to center around Ponch.  Despite the fact that Larry Wilcox looks a hundred times more comfortable on a motorcycle than Erik Estrada, Baker is always going to take a back seat to Ponch.  Seriously, that would bother anyone!  In this case, it means that Ponch is the one who gets to use the Supercycle.  Baker can just stand in the background and force himself to smile.  Poor Baker!

Now, Baker does get a small measure of revenge.  He’s the one who gets a date with Sheila Martin (Karen Carlson).  Sheila owns the advertising company that Fred is working with to promote the Phantom.  Since Sheila knew about the Phantom and didn’t immediately share that information with Ponch and Baker, it really seems like she should have gotten in as much trouble as Fred.  But Baker needs a date so Sheila’s off the hook.  Oddly enough, the Phantom is let off the hook too.  It turns out that he’s just an innocent guy from the country who was led astray by Fred.  Never mind the Phantom could have killed multiple people with his reckless driving.

No matter, though!  The stunts are spectacular in this episode and who doesn’t like the idea of owning a supercycle?  That’s really the only thing that matters as far as this episode is concerned.  Ponch may have gotten to ride it but, ultimately, the Supercycle has a place in everyone’s heart.

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 4.16 “Chorus Girl/Surrogate Father”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on Daily Motion.

This week, Mr. Roarke is almost too clever for his own good.

Episode 4.16 “Chorus Girl/Surrogate Father”

(Dir by Richard Benedict, originally aired on February 21st, 1981)

Weird episode, this week.

Our first story features John Saxon, playing the role of Evan Watkins.  Evan is a compulsive gambler and his fantasy is to make one huge score.  Accompanying Evan is his young daughter, Amy (Nicole Eggert).  Her fantasy is for Evan to give up gambling and start acting like a real father.  On the Island, Evan and Amy meet Margo (Rosemary Forsyth), a social worker whose fantasy is to really make a difference in the life of someone who is in trouble.  Basically, Mr. Roarke takes all three fantasies and just crams them together.

So, Evan does win big but then some gangsters show up, searching for him.  And Amy does get her wish but not before Evan nearly abandons his family.  And Margo, after some initial hesitation, falls in love with Evan and leaves the Island with him and Amy.  It all works out but it still seems dangerous to mix together a bunch of fantasies like that.  If one thing had gone wrong, Roarke would have been left with three unhappy customers instead of just one.

This fantasy was pretty predictable but it did give Herve Villechaize a chance to actually do something more than just stand around and ask Mr. Roarke questions.  The scene where Tattoo comforts Amy by explaining that her father may be a man on the outside but is still just a scared child on the inside was wonderfully acted by Villechaize and rather sweet.  Villechaize was notoriously difficult on the set of Fantasy Island and was reportedly always on the verge of being fired for his behavior but, in this scene, he demonstrates why he was so important to the show.  Mr. Roarke may be the owner of Fantasy Island but Tattoo is the heart.

The second fantasy is kind of creepy.  Sheila Richards (Lisa Hartman) has been deaf since birth.  She was raised by Franklin Adams (Stuart Whitman), who taught her how to dance.  Unfortunately, Sheila can only dance by watching Franklin’s hand signals.  Franklin’s fantasy is for Sheila to be able to hear for a weekend so she can audition for a world-famous choreographer.  Franklin also wants to tell Sheila that he’s in love with her.

There’s a few problems here.  Franklin is in his 50s while Sheila is in her 20s and has basically been dependent on him for her entire life.  Franklin wants Sheila to hear him when he says, “I love you!” but he also goes to the Island with the knowledge that, at the end of the weekend, Sheila will again lose her hearing.  It seems a bit cruel on Franklin’s part to put Sheila through all that when 1) he knows sign language and 2) Sheila can read lips.  There’s nothing stopping Franklin from telling her how he feels.

The other problem is that the episode doesn’t seem to understand that there are many dancers who are hearing-impaired.  Because they learn the choreography and can feel the vibrations of the music, they are fully capable of dancing without being dependent on someone signing to the them from the audience.  One does not need to hear the music to be able to dance to it.  Instead, one just has to be able to keep time and remember the choreography.

Anyway, as you can probably guess, Sheila falls in love with the world-famous choreographer, leaving Franklin heart-broken.  However, at the end of the episode, Mr. Roarke introduces Franklin to a teenage girl who lives on the Island.  Roarke explains that she’s deaf and asks Franklin to look after her while she goes to school in New York.  Franklin agrees with a quickness that is a bit …. icky.

This whole fantasy felt like a mess, from Franklin’s oddly-conceived fantasy to the fact that Lisa Hartman was in no way convincing as someone who can’t hear.  Whether Sheila can hear or not, the one thing that remains consistent is Hartman’s overacting.  Even the usually reliable Ricardo Montalban seems to be annoyed by the whole fantasy.

This was a weird trip to the Island.  What will next week’s journey reveal?

Claws (1977, directed by Richard Bansbach and Robert E. Pearson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

After a group of hunters wound a grizzly bear in Alaska, the bear mauls a logger named Jason Monroe (Jason Evers).  Both the bear and Jason survive their initial meeting.  For the next six years, the bear attacks people in the woods and Jason tries to move on from his experience.  The indigenous people call the grizzly, “Satan Bear” and it seems like no one can stop it.  But when Satan Bear dares to attack a group of boy scouts (including Jason’s son), Jason decides that it’s time to enter the woods and track down the bear.

Claws is like Jaws except the monster has claws.  Actually, despite the similarity of their names, Claws isn’t really a rip-off of Jaws as much as it’s a rip-off of Grizzly, which was a rip-off of Jaws.  Claws is a rip-off of a rip-off, complete with the all the usual characters who appear in revenge of nature films.  Jason is the grizzled hunter.  There’s an idealistic college student who knows all about bears.  There’s a wise old native man who talks about spirit animals.  What sets Claws apart from both Jaws and Grizzly is its heavy use of badly tinted stock footage and all of the flashbacks.  The movie starts with a group of hunters shooting at two bears but it’s obvious that the actors playing the hunters were nowhere near the two bears that are featured in the stock footage.  The flashbacks are used to fill in everyone’s backstory but none of them have anything to do with the bear so I’m not sure what the point of them was supposed to be.  The movie would not be exciting even if it only focused on the bear attacks but adding all those dull flashbacks transforms Claws from being merely mediocre to a real challenge to sit through.

Claws was a flop when it was first released but, a year later, it found success when it was rereleased and retitled Grizzly 2.  I guess the film’s distributor figured that they should just go ahead and admit it.