Late Night Retro Television Review: CHiPs 1.15 “Surf’s Up”

Posted on February 19, 2024 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!

This week, Ponch and Baker hit the beach!

Episode 1.15 “Surf’s Up”

(Dir by Georg Fenady, originally aired on January 19th, 1978)

At the beginning of this week’s episode, Ponch and Baker are miserable.

Los Angeles, the city that they’ve taken an oath to protect, is no longer as friendly as it once was. The highways are congested. The chases are long and tedious. The citizens don’t seem to appreciate the highway patrol’s hard work. When Baker is forced to throw a reckless driver on someone else’s hood in order to arrest him, the owner of the car (Fran Ryan) yells at him for scratching her car and threatens to sue the department.

Ponch and Baker need a break!

At first, Getraer is dismissive of their concerns. He points out, quite sensibly, that he can’t approve their request for a temporary transfer just because they’re having a bad day. They work in Los Angeles and not every day is going to be a perfect day.

“Thanks a lot, pal,” Ponch snaps.

“I’m your sergeant,” Getraer starts, “if you want a pal….”

“Join the Police Athletic League, we know,” Baker says.

Fortunately, for Ponch and John, the Malibu division has a few men who have gotten the flu so Getraer, realizing that he doesn’t want to have to listen to Ponch and Jon whine for a whole week, finally agrees to giving them a temporary transfer.

The rest of the episode follows Ponch and John as they patrol Malibu. It turns out that Malibu has the same problems as Los Angeles but it’s also closer to the beach. (“You can hear the ocean from headquarters!” an excited Ponch says.) Not only do Ponch and Baker stop a car theft (and save the baby who was trapped in the back seat) but they also catch a gang of van thieves. Ponch also takes a few kids from the neighborhood to Disneyland, in order to make up for having incorrectly accused one of them of having stolen a radio and bunch of sunflowers.

Of course, we don’t actually see Ponch at Disneyland. We just hear about afterwards. What we do see is Ponch and Baker hanging out on the beach and trying out a jet ski. As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that CHiPs really wasn’t a police show as much as it was an hour long commercial for California. The theme of this episode appeared to be, “Even if Los Angeles is too crowded and smoggy for you, you can still go to Malibu, meet and date two flight attendants, and conquer the ocean on a jet ski!” And really, this show is at its most effective when it focuses on being a travelogue. I imagine quite a few people watched this episode in 1978 and thought to themselves, “I have to get to Malibu!”

Scenery aside, this is a bit of a dull episode. The van thieves were not particularly impressive villains and even the show’s famous chase scenes felt a bit perfunctory. As a drama, this episode fell flat but it worked wonderfully as a commercial.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 1.14 “Rustling”

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, CHiPs makes me cry!

Episode 1.14 “Rustling”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on January 12th, 1978)

This week’s episode of CHiPs featured a scene that brought tears to my mismatched eyes.

A drunk driver (played by G.W. Bailey) swerves across the highway and causes another car to flip over. While Ponch chases after the driver, Baker goes to investigate the crash. He discovers that the car’s driver is a 17 year-old girl named Susie (Pamelyn Ferdin) and she has been pinned under the wreckage. He manages to free her and carry her away from the car before it explodes. YAY! Another life saved by Jon Baker, right?

That’s when Susie says that she can’t feel her legs.

That scene got to me. It was far more well-acted than anything that I think one would normally expect to find on a episode of CHiPs, with both Ferdin and Larry Wilcox bringing a lot of emotional sincerity to their roles. Susie realizes that she may never walk again. Baker realizes that, just because he saved her from the car, he can’t save Susie from the other consequences of the accident. I wanted to cry. Actually, I did cry.

Now, I should admit that I’m recovering from a sprained ankle and I was doing my ankle exercises while watching this scene. So, not only did I already have tears in my eyes (seriously, some of those exercises hurt!) but I was also feeling pretty emotional. But still, even if I was just watching this scene while sitting on a couch, I think it would have had the same effect on me.

Of course, for the record, Ponch does capture the drunk driver (and the driver starts to sob when he realizes what he has done). And, by the end of the episode, Baker is informed that Susie is going to be okay. I was happy about that.

Excuse me, I’m starting to cry again….

Okay, believe it or not, that was only a small part of the episode. The main storyline featured the great L.Q. Jones as a cattle rustler who, when he’s not driving his truck full of stolen cattle, rides a motorcycle. Fortunately, after a lengthy chase, Baker and Ponch are able to capture him and his accomplice (Paul Tuerpe). It was a pretty simple story but, at the same time, L.Q. Jones was one of those brilliant character actors who make even the most mundane of characters interesting.

Also, over the course of the episode, Ponch and Baker deal with an irate driver (Mill Watson) who claims that he was only speeding because his gear shift failed. In court, Ponch is able to prove that the gear shift didn’t break by pointing out that the brake lights would have come on in that case. (“Your honor,” the defense attorney says, “my client would like to change his plea to guilty.”) Ponch and Baker also stop a magician and his assistant and are so fascinated by the magician’s tricks that they nearly forget to write his assistant a ticket.

Finally, Ponch arranges for everyone to meet at Baker’s apartment to throw him a surprise birthday party. Whoops! Baker’s birthday isn’t for another three months. Ponch looked at Baker’s personnel file and misread his employment number as being his birthdate. Oh, Ponch! Still, the party is a success. Getraer shows up with zucchini. The magician shows up and performs a trick that involves tossing milk on Ponch and Baker. What? Well, whatever.

What’s important is that one scene that brought tears my eyes. The rest of the episode may have been generic but that one scene was beautifully done and I’ll never forget it.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 1.11 “Name Your Price”

Posted on January 22, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Ponch again fails to get rich.

Episode 1.11 “Name Your Price”

(Dir by Ric Rondell, originally aired on December 8th, 1977)

This week’s episode opens on an unusually somber note for CHiPs. It begins in a cemetery. A woman (Jaime Lynn Bauer) is dressed in chic funeral black and appears to be attending a service. But it soon turns out that she’s actually just making sure that everyone is so distracted by mourning that they won’t notice her stealing a Rolls Royce!

It turns out that a Rolls is not quite as easy to steal as she thought and soon, she finds herself being pursued by Ponch and Baker. It’s a chase that leads from the highway and into the city and, to Ponch and Baker’s shock, they lose sight of the stolen car.

“How does a Rolls Royce vanish!?” Ponch asks, in shock.

Ponch is a bit distracted himself this episode. He has been accepted as a contestant on a game show called Name Your Price! Name Your Price is obviously meant to be The Price Is Right and Ponch spends the majority of the episode memorizing the price tags on appliances. Unfortunately, Ponch does not memorize the price tag of a motorcycle and therefore, he turns out to be a bit of a bust when he appears on the show. As Baker and his date sneak out of the studio, Ponch is humiliated as the show’s host wonders how a motorcycle cop could not know how much a motorcycle costs.

Oh, Ponch — will you ever win!?

It’s not all bad for Ponch. He and Baker pull over a car and Ponch is excited to discover that it’s occupied by the two stars of his favorite soap opera. (Does Ponch do anything other than watch television?) And Ponch also gets to help out when a chicken truck is involved in a minor accident and dozens of chickens end up running around the highway. As usual, the main emphasis of this episode is on the idea of the members of the highway patrol working together and keeping the streets safe for chickens and humans. Yes, this episode says, the CHiPs do chase car thieves and arrest criminals. But usually, they’re just taking care of mundane tasks and getting little thanks and little pay.

This episode was entertaining. I enjoyed looking at the cars that were stolen. If you’re going to commit a crime, you might as well commit it for a Rolls Royce. And the ending with the game show was a lot more effective than the typical CHiPs ending. Ponch has spent the first 11 episodes of this show destroying motorcycles so it’s a nice bit of humor that a motorcycle would destroy his chance to get rich. That’s karma!

Next week, Baker and Ponch continue to keep L.A. safe!

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 1.10 “Highway Robbery”

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Baker meets an old friend and Ponch is nearly commits a crime.

Episode 1.10 “Highway Robbery”

(Dir by Nicholas Colasanto, originally aired on December 1st, 1977)

There’s a man on a motorcycle who is driving up and down the highways of California. Whenever he comes across a traffic jam, he pulls up to people’s car and snatches whatever he can. One man loses his wallet and his watch. A woman has her purse taken. When Ponch and Baker arrest him, the thief is revealed to be Leo Norrison (David Wilson), an old high school classmate of Baker’s.

Baker and Leo used to play on the school’s football team. As Baker explains it, Leo was the student that everyone looked up to. He was “Mr. Most Likely To Succeed.” However, Leo fell on hard times after high school. He won a scholarship to play football in college but then he flunked the entrance exam. He joined the army but ended up losing his temper and striking his captain. Now, with a dishonorable discharge on his record, Leo is unemployable and bitter.

Baker offers to help Leo out and Leo seems to appreciate the offer. But, soon enough, Leo is back to stealing purses. When Baker and Ponch arrest him for a second time, it’s clear that Leo will not be getting any more chances at redemption.

Wow, what a sad story for an episode of CHiPs! Larry Wilcox can be a bit of a stiff actor but he actually did a really good job in this episode. Baker couldn’t believe that his high school hero was now a petty criminal and Leo couldn’t believe that Baker had ever looked up to him. As I watched this episode, I found myself wondering how many of my old high school classmates were now in jail.

Of course, this episode wasn’t all sad. For instance, there was a rather lengthy scene that centered around a minor accident involving a traveling circus. One of the circus’s elephants helped to pull a truck over to the side of the road. Good elephant!

And then there was Ponch’s storyline. In this episode, Ponch is even more cringey than usual. He has grown obsessed with a model in an ad for suntan lotion, to the extent that he’s constantly putting on suntan lotion and he has a cut-out of the ad hanging in his locker. When Ponch learn that the model is a friend of Getraer’s family, Ponch begs Getraer to set him up on a blind date. Getraer says it’s not a good idea but Ponch insists. Finally, Getraer relents.

Ponch shows up at the model’s house and discovers that Getraer is already there, having a glass of brandy with the model’s father (James Beach). They tell Ponch that “Janey” will be right down. When Janey (Wendy Fredericks) finally does come down to meet her date, Ponch is shocked to discover that …. SHE’S 15!

Getraer mention that Janey looks older in photographs. Baker and two other officers — Fitz (Lew Saunders) and Grossman (Paul Linke, a future series regular) — step into the living room and start laughing. Getraer laughs. Janey’s father laughs. Janey accepts Ponch’s flowers and then rests her head on his shoulder as the credits role….

So, just to repeat — SHE’S FIFTEEN!

Obviously, Ponch didn’t know that but still, it’s bizarre to see Janey’s father laughing about a 30 year-old showing up at the house to go on a date with his fifteen year-old daughter. Getraer essentially set Ponch up to potentially commit a felony and everyone thinks its hilarious. As the end credits rolled, I kept expecting Chris Hansen to step in the room and demand that everyone have a seat and explain what exactly it is they though they were doing.

Weird episode. The stuff involving Leo was surprisingly well-done for this show. The stuff with Ponch was truly cringe-inducing. I mean, even if Janey had been an adult, Ponch’s obsession with her would have been creepy. In the end, Baker’s friend went to jail and Ponch was thoroughly humiliated. I guess it all balances out.

Horror Film Review: Motel Hell (1980, dir. Kevin Connor)

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You read the title of this post correctly. This is directed by Kevin Connor who has made numerous Hallmark films I’ve reviewed on this site. In addition, Bradford May was the camera operator on this film who also went on to direct numerous Hallmark movies I’ve reviewed. And it has one more connection to Hallmark because it has John Ratzenberger in it who went on to be in a few Hallmark movies.

So with all those connections to Hallmark in this 80s horror film, does it have any similarities to those films? Actually, it does in a way. In the case of Kevin Connor, it makes sense to hire a director who has proven themselves to be able to make a memorable movie with a small budget to make your small TV Movies.

Let’s talk about the movie now.

The film opens with Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) sitting on the porch of his Motel Hello. The ‘O’ being in need of replacing as it keeps going out. Thus changing the name of the place to Motel Hell. Smith drives out to the road and we see a motorcycle carrying a guy and a girl go past a sign.

Smith sells smoked meat out of his motel. He sees the motorcycle hit something then go down. The guy is dead, but the girl is still alive. He loads them up and brings them back home.

Smith doesn’t live alone. He lives with his sister Ida (Nancy Parsons). Look familiar?

If a painful game of tug of war came to mind, then you do recognize her, because that’s Balbricker from Porky’s (1981). She grabs no dicks in this movie. This is Rory Calhoun’s film. And he makes it known with his time tested and approved way of calming kids down who just ran scared after wandering through a slaughterhouse.

We are now introduced to the three other characters who matter in this movie.

First, the girl who survived the crash. Her name is Terry (Nina Axelrod). She wakes up to find out that her boyfriend is long gone. Smith has already buried him.

Second, the 80s sheriff Bruce Smith (Paul Linke). He’s Vincent Smith’s kid brother.

And inspector Bob Anderson (E. Hampton Beagle). Oh, poor poor Bob. Because after he gets this goodbye from Vincent.

Bob makes an unfortunate discovery about Vincent’s secret garden.

Yep, Vincent’s meat comes from people. Let me try and explain it the best I can. He sets traps on the nearby road so that people crash. He goes in and gasses them. He then takes them back to his secret garden and slits their vocal cords. He then plants them in the ground leaving just their head poking out. That’s why when the bag covering their heads are pulled off they just making groaning almost zombie like noises. Then he appears to hypnotize them using colorful pinwheels and hypnotic noise before he snaps their necks with a noose attached to a tractor trailer. They are then turned into the meat that he sells. Rather gruesome, but there honestly isn’t a whole lot to it. Here’s the scene that basically sums it all up.

Luckily, one of those heads is attached to John Ratzenberger. I say luckily because it means we finally all got our wish. Cliff Clavin has no way to tell his annoying stories anymore.

Oh, and Ratzenberger is captured after a van carrying himself and several bandmates hits a trap laid by Vincent. And you know what? More bands need to be named after Sergei Eisenstein movies.

That’s basically the film right there. Vincent and Ida collecting bodies, feeding the heads, and justifying it all to themselves with crazy talk. Then Bruce and Terry eventually figure things out and the net closes in on them.

There is one particular capturing scene that is worth watching. Here’s the capture of the kinky couple.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is that Wolfman Jack is in this. He plays a reverend.

According to Motel Hell, the lord works in mysterious ways. Sometimes the lord provides you with an excuse to confiscate a copy of Hustler for your own personal collection.

Horror really isn’t my thing and this film does begin to wear out it’s welcome at a certain point, but it’s Calhoun’s performance and the creepy atmosphere that makes it work. There are more clips up on YouTube if you want to see more in order to make your decision about watching this or not. I guess you have my recommendation.