Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing T. and T., a Canadian show which ran in syndication from 1987 to 1990. The show can be found on Tubi!
In this episode, a spoiled little brat discover that …. well, no. I should let Mr. T tell you.
Episode 1.22 “Mickey’s Choice”
(Dir by Donald Shebib, originally aired on June 6th, 1988)
“In this episode,” Mr. T tells us, “a street-smart kid finds out he’s still got a few lessons to learn!”
On the mean and cold streets of Canada, Rubberhead (John Matuszak) sends 13 year-old Mickey (Jamie Shannon) on a mission to pick the pockets of the Canadians who have gathered to watch a street magician. When the police nab Mickey, Rubberheard snarls, “Don’t talk, you little punk!” before walking away.
Because Amy Taler is the only defense attorney in Canada, she gets assigned to Mickey’s case. The prosecution wants to toss Mickey in juvenile hall but Amy argues that Mickey is too young for that. Rubberhead and one of his henchmen walk into the courtroom and are properly thrown out by the judge. Mickey gives them the thumbs up signal as they leave. My question is how has Rubberhead not been arrested as he seems to have absolutely no idea how to subtle about carrying out his criminal activities. Also, why is he called Rubberhed? Is that a nickname he wanted?
Rather then send Mickey into the system, Amy arranges for Mickey to be released into the custody of T.S. Turner. Amy is able to pull this off despite the fact that Turner is an ex-con, her hair is a mess, and Turner is late coming to court. Luckily, the judge is a fan of boxing and he decides that Turner’s former career as a boxer is the perfect justification for giving him custody of a rebellious 13 year-old.
As Turner, Amy, and Mickey leave the courthouse, they are confronted by Rubberhead and his gang. One of them tries to grab Amy.
“Excuse me, brother,” Turner says, “that’s no way to treat a lady.”
Taking advantage of the distraction, Mickey runs for it. After telling Rubberhead, “I’ll deal with you later, punk,” Turner takes off after him.
Fortunately, Turner is able to grab Mickey and drop him off with Aunt Martha (Jackie Richardson) and Renee (Rachael Crawford). Aunt Martha puts Mickey to work peeling potatoes. Turner then heads out to try to track down Rubberhead and his gang.
“When I was younger, I was Mickey,” Turner explains, “I broke my mother’s heart!”
However, despite saying that he’s going to go out and find Rubberhead, the next scene finds Turner having dinner with Mickey, Aunt Martha, and Renee. Turner leads the group in saying grace and even Mickey bows his head.
That night, Rubberhead leaves a bag of burning trash on Aunt Martha’s porch. While Turner is distracted by the fire, Rubberhead breaks into the house and grabs Mickey. Back at Rubberhead’s headquarters, Mickey brags about how tough he is until Rubberhead demands to know what he told the police.
We then cut to Turner asking various Canadians if they’ve seen Mickey. “Look, brother,” Turner says at one point, “I’ve asked politely and I’ve asked nicely. Now, I’m just asking.” Frustrated by one dead end after another, Turner goes to the gym and lifts weights for several minutes.
“That’s how he thinks,” gym owner Decker explains as Turner shouts, “MORE WEIGHT!”
Somehow, all of this weight lifting leads to Turner figuring out where Rubberhead is headquartered. Turner heads down to Rubberhead’s warehouse, where he is promptly captured and tied to a chair by Rubberhead’s gang. Rubberhead announces that both Turner and Mickey will be dropped down an elevator shaft.
“You gotta make a choice, Mickey,” Turner says, “Right or wrong.”
Mickey unties Turner and Turner tosses a motorcycle at Rubberhead, taking out both him and his gang. Turner and Mickey then rush to the courthouse, where Amy has been stalling a court hearing on Mickey’s future. Mickey reveals all that he knows about Rubberhead and his gang. SNITCH!
This is definitely an episode that suffered from trying to tell a 60-minute story in only 30. Seriously, the narrative jumped around so much and was so haphazardly edited that it was a struggle to keep track of what was going on. That said, Canada is a safer place thanks to T.S. Turner and that’s the important thing. That’s why they put their faith in him.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Half Nelson, which ran on NBC from March to May of 1985. Almost all nine of the show’s episodes can be found on YouTube!
The year was 1985 and actor/singer Joe Pesci was at an interesting place in his film career.
In 1980, Joe Pesci was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Robert De Niro’s brother in Raging Bull. Raging Bull was Pesci’s second film and he earned critical acclaim for his performance as the second most angry member of the LaMotta family. In the years immediately following his first Oscar nomination, Pesci went on to play character roles in a handful of other films, including Dear Mr. Wonderful, Easy Money,Once Upon A Time In America, and Eureka. While no one could deny Pesci’s talent or his unique screen presence, it was also obvious that Hollywood wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. While Pesci was apparently high on everyone’s list when it came to playing gangsters with hair-trigger tempers, no one was willing to give Pesci a starring role.
Fortunately, television always has room for an Oscar nominee and, in 1985, Half Nelson came calling. Created by veteran television producers Glen A. Larson and Lou Shaw, Half Nelson was a detective show. Joe Pesci starred as Rocky Nelson, a tough New York cop who relocated to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. While waiting for his big break, Rocky worked for Beverly Hills Security and lived in Dean Martin’s guest room. And when I say that Rocky was living in Dean Martin’s guest house, what I mean is that Dean Martin actually appeared on the show, playing himself.
NBC liked the idea enough to air the pilot film and then schedule the show as a mid-season replacement. Audiences were a bit less interested in the show and Half Nelson was canceled after only 8 weeks. Pesci went on to win an Oscar for Goodfellas and he never starred in another television show. Half Nelson would probably be forgotten if not for the fact that someone recently came across the opening credits on YouTube. When shared on Twitter, this video went viral as “the most 80s thing” ever created.
After I watched that video, I knew I simply had to review Half Nelson as soon as I finished up The Brady Bunch Hour. Fortunately, almost all of the episodes have been uploaded to YouTube so, for the next few weeks, I’ll be taking a look at HalfNelson, starring Joe Pesci!
Episodes 1 & 2 “The Pilot”
(Dir by Bruce Bilson, originally aired on March 24th, 1985)
Half Nelson begins in New York City, with NYPD’s finest, Detective Rocky Nelson (Joe Pesci), disguising himself as a waiter and sneaking into a mafia-owned restaurant. After punching out two guards, Rocky enters a backroom and discovers a group of guys with a lot of heroin. Rocky arrests them and becomes a hero. As Rocky explains in a voice-over, it’s the biggest drug bust in history. When Hollywood asks for the rights to the story, Rocky insists that he be allowed to audition for the lead role. Rocky quits the NYPD and heads out to Los Angeles. Rocky’s going to be a star!
And, at first, it seems like Rocky’s dream might actually come true. The film’s director (played by the veteran TV character actor, George Wyner) watches Rocky’s audition and announces that Rocky has the screen presence and talent of Al Pacino. Unfortunately, Rocky is also only 5’3. “You’re too short to play Rocky Nelson,” the director explains.
“But I am Rocky Nelson!” Rocky exclaims.
Despite the fact that Rocky’s telling the truth, it doesn’t matter. A tall British actor is cast in the film. As a dejected Rocky leaves the audition, he’s approached by a security guard who offers Rocky a job with Beverly Hills Patrol, a private security firm. Rocky’s skeptical until the security guard mentions that Rocky will get to live in Dean Martin’s guest house.
We jump forward six months. Rocky is now a trusted employee of Beverly Hills Patrol. When he’s not working as a bodyguard, he’s auditioning for roles. At the office, his boss is Chester (Fred Williamson) and the office manager is Annie O’Hara (Victoria Jackson). Chester is cool and all-business. Annie is flighty and has an obvious crush on Rocky. She also gives Rocky a pit bull named Hunk. Hunk is very loyal but also very quick to attack anyone who isn’t Rocky. I don’t know if a show could get away with a comic relief pit bull today but whatever. Hunk is a cute dog with a ferocious bark.
In just six months, Rocky has become surprisingly well-known in L.A. Some of that might be because he lives with Dean Martin. Martin appears in three scenes of the pilot and, to be honest, he definitely looks and sounds a bit worse for wear. Half Nelson was Dean’s final acting role. (He died ten years after the show was canceled.) But even though Dean was clearly not in the best shape when he appeared in the pilot, his natural charisma still shines through and there’s a lot of pleasure to be found in his scenes with Joe Pesci. For one thing, Pesci himself seems to be genuinely excited about acting opposite Martin.
Along with becoming friends with Dean Martin, Rocky has also befriended Parsons (George Kennedy), a Los Angeles police chief who is eager for Rocky to quit the Beverly Hills Patrol and to join the LAPD. Rocky turns down the offer, however. Rocky is done with police work. He’s going to be a star!
Of course, he’ll also find time to solve some crimes along the way.
For instance, in the pilot, Rocky investigates the death of his best friend and co-worker, Jerry (Nicholas Surovy). Parsons insists that all the evidence shows that Jerry murdered his girlfriend, Monika (Morgan Brittany), and then shot himself. However, Rocky doesn’t think Jerry would do something like that. When Jerry’s father (veteran screen actor Rory Calhoun) asks Rocky to find the people who killed his son, Rocky doesn’t have to be asked twice.
It turns out that Jerry and Monika were taking money from a tabloid magazine publisher (Terry Kiser). They had a video tape that would have been very embarrassing to some prominent Angelinos, including a businessman (Rod Taylor), a restauranter (Tony Curtis), a general (Mills Watson), an astronaut (Gary Lockwood), and a television executive (Bernie Kopell). Rocky assumes that the people on the tape ordered the murders but then he learns that, while the general did send two government agents to find the tape, he also made clear that no one was supposed to be killed. Instead, someone else who wanted the tapes committed the murders on his own.
Searching for the killer means that Rocky will have to assume many disguises and show off his acting skills. As an actor, he’s able to wander into the local movie studio and not only raid their wardrobe department but also borrow their cars. Over the course of the film, Rocky disguses himself as both a cowboy and a traffic cop. He also drives a Ferrari, a Cadillac, a jeep, a motorcycle, and KITT, the talking car from Knight Rider. (KITT, unfortunately, does not talk in Half Nelson.) On the one hand, the use of disguises is a little bit silly because Joe Pesci is always going to be Joe Pesci regardless of what costume he is wearing. The pilot’s silliest scene involves Rocky dressed up like a cop to confront two men who have been following him. Somehow, they fail to pick up on the fact that the 5’3 cop with the New York accent is the same 5’3 New Yorker who they’ve been tailing for the last few days. And yet, it’s one of those things that’s so ludicrous that you can’t help but think that the show was showing a bit of self-awareness and commenting on just how ludicrous most television shows tend to be.
Eventually, Rocky figures out that the killer is …. SPOILER ALERT …. Parsons! That’s right. The same police chief who kept offering Rocky a job with the LAPD turned out to be the murderer for whom Rocky was looking. What’s interesting is that, after realizing that Parsons is the killers, Rocky doesn’t arrest Parsons or attack him or do any of the other things that a typical TV detective might. And Parsons doesn’t try to flee or fight. Instead, the two men take a leisurely drive and talk about life, morality, and regret. Parsons talks about how he was once an honest cop but Los Angeles corrupted him. Rocky expresses some sympathy and says that he hates that he discovered that Parsons was the murderer. It’s a well-acted and surprisingly well-written scene. When Rocky asks Parsons about the murders, Parsons replies, “I had to empty my gun, just to drown out their screams.” (Yikes!) Parsons lets Rocky out of the car and tells him, “Don’t let them get to you, kid.” Parsons then drives the car over a cliff as Roberta and Chester (who have been tailing Parsons) run up to Rocky.
“Hard to believe that a man like that would kill himself!” Roberta says.
“That’s just the funeral,” Rocky replies as Parsons car explodes, “He died a long time ago.”
Wow, that’s dark! Fortunately, the mood is lightened during the show’s final scene, in which Rocky’s pit bull attacks boxer Larry Holmes.
The pilot for Half Nelson was nicely done. It set up the series and it gave us an introduction to the characters, which is exactly what a pilot is supposed to do. The cast showed off their chemistry and the final scene between Parsons and Rocky indicated that the show had the potential to be something more than just another mid-80s detective show. The pilot’s greatest strength, not surprisingly, was Joe Pesci. Pesci has played so many mobsters and crooked lawyers that it’s easy to forget what a likable actor he can be. The pilot featured Pesci at his most amiable and it also gave him a chance to show off his comedic timing. All-in-all, the pilot was a success and I could understand why NBC would have ordered more episodes after watching it.
But what about the series? Would the series live up to the promise of the pilot or would it just become another generic detective show? We’ll find out over the next 8 weeks!
Pete Gent was a college basketball star at Michigan State University who, in 1964, received a tryout with the Dallas Cowboys. Intrigued by the $500 that the team was offering to any player who attended training camp that summer, Gent accepted. Despite the fact that Gent had never before played football, the Cowboys were impressed with his athleticism and they signed him to the team.
For five seasons, Gent played wide receiver. During that time, he caught a lot of balls, became close friends (or so he claimed) with quarterback Don Meredith, and got under the skin of Coach Tom Landry with his nonconformist attitude. After several injuries kept him off the field during the 1968 season, Gent was traded to the Giants who waived him before the next regular season began.
Out of work and with no other team wanting to sign him, Gent wrote a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about his time with the Cowboys. North Dallas Forty was published in 1973 and it immediately shot up the best seller charts. When the book was published, football players were still regularly portrayed as being wholesome, all-American athletes and the Dallas Cowboys were still known as America’s Team. North Dallas Forty shocked readers with its details about groupies, drugs, racism, and gruesome injuries. The NFL, of course, claimed that Gent was just a disgruntled former player who was looking to get back at the league. When asked about the book (which portrayed him as being a marijuana-loving good old boy), Don Meredith was reported to have said, “If I’d known Gent was as good as he says he was, I would have thrown to him more.”
Meredith had a point, of course. In the book, Pete Gent portrays himself as not only being the smartest man in football but also as having the best hands in the league. Men want to be him. Women want to be with him. And the North Dallas Bulls (which is the book’s version of the Dallas Cowboys) don’t know what they’re losing when they release him for violating the league’s drug policy. Today, when you read it and you’re no longer shocked by all of the drugs and the sex, North Dallas Forty comes across as mostly being a case of very sour grapes.
Luckily, the film version is better.
Nick Notle plays Phil Elliott, a broken-down receiver who wakes up most mornings with a bloody nose and who can barely walk without first popping a hundred pills. Phil is a nonconformist and a rebel. He loves to play the game but he hates how it’s become a business. Mac Davis plays Seth Maxwell, the team’s quarterback and Phil’s best friend. Seth is just as cynical as Phil but he’s better at playing politics. G.D. Spradlin is B.A. Strother, the cold head coach who is a thinly disguised version of the legendary Tom Landry. In the novel, B.A. Strother was portrayed as being a hypocritical dictator. The film’s version is more sympathetic with Strother being portrayed as stern but not cruel. Strother even tells Phil that he “can catch anything.”
Both the film and the book take place over the course of one week leading to a big game against Chicago. In the book, Phil says that he and Seth don’t care about whether or not they win. In the movie, they much do care but, at the same time, they know that they’re being held back by a system that cares more about whether or not they follow the rules than if they win the game. While Phil’s teammates (including Bo Svenson as Joe Bob Priddy and John Mantuszak as O.W. Shaddock) behave like animals, Phil falls in love with Charlotte Caulder (Dayle Haddon), who doesn’t care about football.
Pete Gent was originally hired to write the film’s screenplay but left after several disagreements with producer Frank Yablans. (The screenplay was completed by Yablans, directed Ted Kotcheff, and an uncredited Nancy Dowd.) The movie loosely follows the novel while dropping some of its weaker plot points. As a result, the film version has everything that made the novel memorable but without any of Gent’s lingering bitterness over how his career ended. The novel used football as a metaphor for everything that was going wrong in America in the 60s and 70s but the movie is more of a dark comedy about one man rebelling against the system.
There’s only a few minutes of game footage but North Dallas Forty is still one of the best football movies ever made, mostly because Nick Nolte is absolutely believable as an aging wide receiver. He’s convincing as someone who can still make all the plays even though he’s usually in so much pain that it’s a struggle for him to get out of bed every morning. He’s also convincing as someone who loves the game but who won’t give up his freedom just to play it. This is a definite improvement on the novel, in which Phil seemed to hate football so much that it was hard not to wonder why he was even wasting his time with it. Country-and-western signer Mac Davis is also convincing as Seth Maxwell and fans of great character actors will be happy to see both Charles Durning and Dabney Coleman in small roles.
Whether you’re a football fan or not, North Dallas Forty is a great film. Coming at the tail end of the 70s, it’s a character study as much as its a sports film. It’s also one of the few cinematic adaptations to improve on its source material. As a book, North Dallas Forty may no longer be shocking but the movie will be scoring touchdowns forever.
Through the Shattered Lens 