Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, the highway leads to college and R-rated movies!

Episode 3.9 “Code Name: FREAK”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on November 19th, 1986)

Jonathan and Mark have been assigned to work on a college campus.  While Jonathan gets to teach a computer class, Mark is assigned to be the resident assistant of a rowdy bunch of jocks who all live in the same dorm.  This episode continues the Highway to Heaven tradition of Mark always being humiliated by the assignment.  If I was Mark, I would be wondering why “the boss” always gives me the worst possible jobs.

Chris Gunn (Jeff Bryan Davis) is starting his first semester at the college.  He’s smart, he’s well-read, and he’s desperate to make friends with everyone.  Unfortunately, Chris is also only 13 years old and, even if he did graduate from high school, there’s no way he should be away from home at the college.  He has no friends.  No one invites him to any parties.  Chris is refused entry to an R-rated movie because he is not accompanied by an adult.

Chris’s roommate is Danny (Gary Hershberger), a football player who  is not quite as shallow as his fellow jocks.  When it looks like Danny might flunk his computer class, Danny’s frat brothers offer to accept Chris into the frat if Chris agrees to hack into Jonathan’s commercial and get the answers for the next big test. Chris does so but then double-crosses Danny by giving him all the wrong answers.  Chris’s not as naive as everyone thought!

Danny flunks the test and loses his spot on the football team.  When its learned that he cheated, Danny loses his scholarship and is expelled for refusing to reveal how he got the answers for the test.  Danny, knowing what happens to narcs, refuses to sell out and lit appears that he’s going to lose his scholarship as a result.  Stunned that Danny didn’t want to get him in trouble, Chris tells the truth to the school’s dean.  Danny is allowed to stay and after some prodding from Jonathan, the dean decides to allow Chris to stay as well.

Chris and Danny are both super-excited and have a new found respect for each other.  They celebrate by….

GOING TO AN R-RATED MOVIE!  Danny accompanies Chris so Chris gets to see a movie that’s he’s probably too young for!  Yay!

This is a prototypical episode of Highway to Heaven.  It’s unapologetically sentimental and rather predictable but it’s also so incredibly earnest and sincere that it doesn’t really matter.  We want to see everything work out for everyone and fortunately, it does.

Myself, it will never not amuse me that, after learning that he won’t be expelled and neither will Danny, Chris’s firth thought is that they should go catch an R-rated picture while they still have time.  And Danny agrees!  I always want to know what type of film are they watching.  Is it a slasher film or a mindless high school comedy or maybe something featuring a bunch of fast cars and occasionally juvenile behavior?

This was a classic episode.  I assume Danny and Chris are still best friends.