Late Night Retro Television Reviews: CHiPs 1.1 “Pilot”

Posted on November 13, 2023 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!

When I was trying to pick a show to review after finishing up Nightmare Café, Jeff suggested that I go with CHiPs, a very 70s show about the adventures of the California Highway Patrol. I agreed after he showed me two episodes that involved a roller disco. I mean, how could I resist?

Of course, we won’t get to the roller disco for a while. That happened at the start of season 3. Instead, we’re starting at the beginning, with the pilot. The year was 1977. Jimmy Carter was president. Jerry Brown was the governor of California. And two cops on motorcycles were about to roll into history….

Episode 1.1 “Pilot”

(Dir by Paul Krasny, originally aired on September 15th, 1977)

The pilot for CHiPs doesn’t waste any time in introducing us to our two main characters. When we first see officers Jon Baker (Larry Wilcox) and Frank “Ponch” Poncharello (Erik Estrada), they’re on their police motorcycles and chasing after a stolen sportscar. The chase being on the freeway and then eventually leads into Los Angeles. Unlike the live police pursuits that we regularly see on television, this chase is unique in that there aren’t any other police officers involved, other than Baker and Ponch. Maybe that’s the way that cops did things in the 70s but it does seem like Baker and Ponch would have had an easier time of it if they had some backup. As it is, they don’t catch the thief but Ponch does crash his motorcycle.

Sgt. Joseph Getraer (played by Robert “father of Chris” Pine) is not amused to learn that Ponch has damaged another motorcycle. The pilot wastes no time in establishing that Baker is the responsible, good cop while Ponch is the wild cop who takes risks and is always in trouble with the brass. In fact, Ponch is on probation because of all the disciplinary reports that have been written against him. Baker insists that Ponch is a good cop but it does seem like Ponch does manage to frequently crash his motorcycle.

Apparently, Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada did not get long while they were co-starring on CHiPs. That’s not surprising. That tends to happen on a lot shows. What is interesting is that, even in the pilot, neither one of the actors seems to be making much of an effort to even pretend to like the other. Whenever Estrada flashes his big smile or dramatically looks up to the heavens, Wilcox looks like he’s having to use every bit of his willpower not to roll his eyes. I always point out when two performers don’t have any romantic chemistry. CHiPs is an interesting case where there isn’t even any friendship chemistry. At no point, during the pilot, do you get the feeling that either Baker or Ponch would really be that upset if the other was reassigned to some other part of the highway patrol. Even in the scenes where Baker defends Ponch as being a good cop, Larry Wilcox seems to be delivering the lines through gritted teeth.

As for the episode itself, it really is standard 70s cop show stuff. The stolen cars are being smuggled in a moving truck and, eventually, Baker and Ponch spot the bad guys on the highway and, after a chase, they catch them. Of course, before they do that, they deal with two accidents (one involving a glue truck and another featuring a woman trapped in an overturned car and yes, Ponch does get her number) and Baker orders a kid on a bike to pull over so he can give him some advice about riding in traffic.

As I said, it’s all pretty standard. But that doesn’t matter because, from the first minute we see them, the motorcycles are extremely cool and so are the scenes of Ponch and Baker weaving in and out of traffic while pursuing the car thieves. Baker may be dull and Ponch might come across as being more than a little flaky but no one is really watching for them. The pilot is all about celebrating the idea of driving fast on the highway and basically reminding the world that you don’t have to follow the rules, even if you are the one who enforces them! If you don’t want to join a car theft ring, you can always just get a badge and a motorcycle. Either way, it’s ton of fun!

For all of the episode’s obvious flaws, it was still easy for me to understand why this pilot led to a series. Motorcycles are cool! Will they still be a cool after 100+ episodes of CHiPs? That’s what we’re about to find out.

Framed (1975, directed by Phil Karlson)

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Revenge can be brutal, especially when you’ve been framed.

Joe Don Baker plays Ron Lewis, a surly nightclub owner and gambler who wins a small fortune, witnesses a crime, and nearly gets shot all in the same night. When he reaches his house, he’s planning on calling the police but he’s confronted in his own garage by a sheriff’s deputy who tries to kill him! In a lengthy and brutal scene, Ron beats the deputy to death and gouges out his eyes. Even though Ron was only acting in self-defense, he’s charged with murder. Told that there is no way that he’ll be able to win an acquittal, Ron pleads guilty to a lesser charge and is sent to prison for four years.

While he’s in prison, Ron befriends a mob boss (John Marley, who famously woke up with a horse’s head in his bed in The Godfather) and the boss’s number one hitman, Vince (Gabriel Dell). While Ron is in prison, a group of men assault his girlfriend (country singer Conny Van Dyke) and tell her not to ask any questions about the events that led to Ron being framed.

After serving his sentence and getting into numerous fights with the guards, Ron is finally released. When Vince shows up and tells Ron that he’s been hired to kill him, the two of them team up with an honest deputy (Brock Peters) and set out to find out why Ron was set up and to get revenge.

Framed is a brutal movie, Ron and his friends hold nothing back in their quest to get revenge. Whether he’s shooting a man in cold blood or hooking someone up to a car battery in order to get information out of him, there’s little that Ron won’t do and the movie lingers over every act of violence. Several pounds overweight and snarling out of his lines, Joe Don Baker may not be a conventional action hero but he’s believable in his rage. He’s the ultimate country boy who has been pushed too far and now he doesn’t care how much blood he has to get on his hands. However, because Baker does seem more like an ordinary person than a Clint Eastwood or a Charles Bronson-type, he retains the audience’s sympathy even as he splashes blood all over the screen. As violent as his action may be, they always feel justified.

Baker’s performance and the believable violence are the film’s biggest strengths. It’s biggest weakness is a plot that revolves around an elaborate conspiracy that doesn’t always make sense and some notably weak supporting performances. Ron’s revenge may be brutal but it takes a while to get there and the first hour gets bogged down with Ron’s struggle to adjust to life in prison. John Marley does a good job as Ron’s prison mentor but then he abruptly disappears from the movie.

Before making Framed, Baker and director Phil Karlson previously collaborated on Walking Tall. Framed is far more violent than that film was but its plot doesn’t hold together as well. However, if you’re just looking for a violent action film that features Joe Don Baker doing what he does best, Framed delivers.

A Horror Insomnia File #29: Day of the Animals (dir by William Girdler)

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

Last night, if you were having trouble sleeping around 2:30 in the morning, you could have turned on your television, changed the station to Movies TV, and watched the 1977 nature-goes-crazy horror film, Day of the Animals!

Now, I should admit that I was not suffering from insomnia last night. Jeff and I are currently up at beautiful Lake Texoma and we just happened to be up late last night and flipping through the stations. I should also admit that, unlike most of the other movies reviewed for this feature, Day of the Animals was not one of “those insomnia-inspired discoveries.”

No, we had both seen Day of the Animals before. The thing with Day of the Animals is that it’s one of those films that, if you see that it’s on TV, you simply have to stop what you’re doing and watch it. Considering that the man had a long career in the movies and I haven’t seen every film that he made, I could be wrong on this but I am fairly certain that Day of the Animals is your only opportunity to see Leslie Nielsen wrestle a grizzly bear.

Leslie Nielsen plays Paul, a businessman who is part of a group of hikers. Shortly before he wrestles with the bear, Paul stands, bare-chested, in the middle of a rainstorm and attempts to taunt God. “Melville’s God, that’s the God I believe in!” Paul shouts, “You want something!? YOU TAKE IT!” Then he turns to one of the hikers and says, “I know what I want and I’m taking it! I killed a man for you!”

Now, at this point, I should probably make it clear that Day of the Animals is not a comedy, though it’s always inspired a lot of laughter whenever I’ve watched it. Day of the Animals attempts to be a very serious horror movie. It even has an environmental message. Because of the hole in the ozone layer, solar radiation is driving all of the mountain animals crazy. Mountain lions attack campers. A grizzly bear wrestles Leslie Nielsen. A group of rats attempt to kill a policeman. German shepherds tear a man apart. And it’s not just the wild animals that are being affected. Leslie Nielsen goes crazy too.

Of course, Leslie Nielsen isn’t the only hiker. Genre vet Christopher George plays the leader of the tour and Lynda Day George is along for the ride as well. If you’ve seen the movie Pieces, you’ll remember Christopher George as the tough cop and Lynda Day George as the tennis pro who, at one point, dramatically screams “BASTARD!” into the wind. Susan Backlinie, who was the first victim in Jaws, also has a role in this film and that seems appropriate. Director William Girdler found quite a bit of success in ripping off Jaws. Before Day of the Animals, he directed Grizzly.

But good ole Leslie Nielsen is pretty much the entire show here. He tries really, really hard to give an intense and frightening performance. In fact, he tries so hard that you almost feel guilty for laughing at times. But then you see that head of perfect silver hair and you hear that deadpan voice saying, “Come here, you little punk!” and you just can’t help yourself.

Anyway, Day of the Animals may be bad but I defy anyone not to watch it.