Linda Hoy | Through the Shattered Lens

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 Hunter, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1991. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, it’s another violent couple of days in Los Angeles.

Episode 1.16 “Guilty”

(Dir by Michael Lange, originally aired on April 13th, 1985)

In 1979, Louis McMahon (Ken Foree) was convicted of murder and given a life sentence. Six years later, he’s been paroled and …. wait, really? He served six years for murder? What the Hell, California!?

Louis is free and working as a cook. When someone starts stalking and killing the jurors at his trial, Louis is the number one suspect. However, before the killer strikes, he always calls his victims and rasps, “Guilty.” Louis’s throat was slashed in prison and he’s now mute! Or is he? McCall suggests that Louis is faking being mute and …. well, yeah. That’s what he was doing alright.

This is the most simplistic episode of Hunter yet. McCall and Hunter figure out quickly that Louis is the murderer. All the other cops refuse to take Hunter and McCall seriously because of …. reasons, I guess? I mean, there really is no other suspect. Louis is the one person who has a reason to what to commit the murders. The only thing linking the victims is that they all voted to convict Louis. And yet, once again, Hunter and McCall find themselves being told not to bother the obvious murderer.

Of course, Hunter ends up shooting Louis. We haven’t finished the first season and I’ve already lost track of the amount of people that Hunter has shot. While I am as concerned as anyone is about trigger-happy cops, I do have to say that everyone that Hunter has shot had it coming. That’s especially true of Louis, who was an absolute monster. Ken Foree did a really good job playing him. Foree was so scary so that it kind of made up for the fact that this was one of the most predictable hours of television that I’ve ever watched.

Once again, Hunter and McCall save countless lives and they get no credit for it. Instead, they get sent to park to arrest muggers. As the episode ends, they actually catch one. I was surprised Hunter didn’t just shoot him.

Welcome to 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 Puppetman, which aired on CBS in 1987. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

This week, we have the pilot for Puppetman, a sitcom that was created by the people behind the Muppets.

Episode 1.1 “Puppetman”

(Dir by Alan Rafkin, originally aired on July 3rd, 1987)

Gary (Fred Newman) is a puppeteer who spends most of his day hiding beneath a cardboard wall while speaking in the voice of a naive dragon. Much like the guy from the Police Academy films, Gary does a lot of other sound effects as well. Who needs to pay for an SFX department when Gary can perfectly duplicate any sound that’s needed? Gary works on a PBS puppet show that is hosted by the mercurial Rita (Julie Payne). His co-puppeteers are Del (Richard Hunt) and Holly (Lisa Waltz). It would seem that he has the perfect life, though it’s hard not to notice that Gary seems to be a lot more comfortable expressing his emotions through his puppets than through face-to-face conversation.

Gary’s ex-wife calls and explains that she has an audition for a play. She asks if Gary can look after their six year-old son, Zack (Michael Patrick Carter). Gary agrees, though he worries about whether or not he’ll be as good a full-time father as he was a part-time father. At first, Zack is excited to spend time with his father but then he’s bitterly disappointed when Gary has to keep abandoning him because of the demands of his job. Gary is good at holding the show together but he’s less skilled at meeting the emotional needs of a six year-old.

Gary’s going to have to get better at it, though. When his wife calls and says that she got the part and she’s going to be on the road for the next six months, she asks Gary to take Zack. Gary agrees but first, he has to ask Zack. And what better way to ask Zack than to have a puppet do it for him?

The Puppetman pilot was co-written by Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets. Perhaps not surprisingly, the pilot is at its best when it deals with what goes on behind-the-scenes of a PBS children’s show. The stuff with Zack is rather rudimentary but the pilot actually comes to life when it deals with temperamental grown-ups and idealized puppets. When Rita decides to sing a song without giving anyone any advance warning and the puppeteers decide to upstage Rita by having one of the dragon puppets sneeze on her, it’s obvious that Henson was writing from his own personal experiences.

To be honest, this was kind of a depressing pilot. Gary is a nice guy and he’s likable and he wants to be a good father but it’s obvious that he can only express his emotions through his puppets. As a result, Zack is far more comfortable talking to the puppets than talking to his own father. Throughout the whole pilot, one gets the feeling that Gary has been so deeply wounded in the past that he’s scared to open up. Even the show’s laugh track sounds kind of sad.

Perhaps that explains why only one episode of Puppetman aired. Gary agreed to watch Zack for six months but America would not be watching either one of them.