Welcome to 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 Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
The season has finally begun. Julie won one game. Michael lost one game. Danny and Sam are now a couple. Will Deering High continue its winning/losing ways? Let’s find out!
Hang Time!
Episode 1.5 “Oh Captain, My Captain”
(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on September 30th, 1995)
In order to shake up the team and hopefully have a winning season, Coach Fuller decides to switch around everyone’s positions. I have to admit that, while watching this episode, I was forced to reflect on how little I actually know about basketball. For instance, I was stunned to discover that the players have specific positions. I honestly thought that everyone just ran around the court and tried to steal the ball.
Chris isn’t happy about having to switch positions because he thinks that it might make it more difficult for him to get a college scholarship. (Chris is like 5’7 so maybe it would be a good idea for him to at least consider other options.) Chris resigns as team captain. Coach Fuller appoints Danny as the new team captain. Teams have captains? I’m learning a lot from this show. Eventually, Chris learns to put the team first and Danny hands the captainship (or whatever it’s called) back over to him.
In the B-plot, Michael gets a job working at Earl’s farm. Chaos ensues but Michael learns an important lesson about how difficult farm work is.
This episode had one good joke, in which Mary Beth sent Coach Fuller a legal summons because her father gave her an attorney for her birthday and she figured she should make use of her presents.
Otherwise, this episode had a bit too much basketball for me, which is obviously kind of a silly complaint to make about a show that’s about basketball. I have to admit that this show doesn’t do much for my rebellious spirit. The main lesson was always to listen to the coach and put the team first. Bleh. BE A REBEL!
Episode 1.6 “Earl Makes The Grade”
(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on October 14th, 1995)
Deering High has a game coming up against their hated rivals, Valley High …. oh wait a minute. Sorry, Valley High was Bayside’s rival. Deering High is going up against Dover High. Earl, however, is flunking history. He has to pass his big midterm if he’s going to play. Unfortunately, a new girl is distracting Earl from studying. She’s making him stay up late and kissing him whenever he tries to study. It turns out that it’s all a plot to keep Earl from playing in the game, like that time Valley stole Screech’s lucky beret right before the big chess match. After Earl’s new girlfriend framed him for cheating on the test, Coach Fuller declared, “You let your team down, Earl.”
Good Lord, is it a team or is it a cult?
Anyway, everything works out due to the TNBC law of people always doing obviously stupid stuff. Immediately after Earl gets kicked off the team, Earl’s fake girlfriend started making out with a player on the other team in Deering High’s gym, right in the middle of the Deering/Dover game. Anyway, once it becomes clear that Earl was framed, he’s allowed to rejoin the team and Dover gets destroyed. Yay!
The B-plot dealt with a prank war between Julie and Danny. Remember the Bayside/Valley prank war?
My point is that this was pretty much a Saved By The Bell episode that got reused on Hang Time. That said, Robert Michael Ryan gave a pretty good performance as Earl and you actually did feel sorry for him when he discovered how cruelly he had been treated. Earl was just too innocent for this world.
Will Deering continue to win their games? Check back next week to find out!
Welcome to 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 Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Finally! It’s time for the Deering Tornadoes to actually play a game! Will Julie and the rest of the team live up to the hype? And when will the show realize that they need a better theme song?
I’ll always remember me and my friends at Hang Time!
Episode 1.3 “Full Court Press”
(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on September 23rd, 1995)
The season is about to begin and the press are invading Deering High, all so they can report on Julie Connor, the first girl to ever play basketball in high school. (At least, that’s the way the story is reported.) The press is only interested in talking about Julie. All of the fans are only interested in getting Julie’s autograph. Julie has strangers walking up to her and telling her that she’s going to be a huge star. The rest of the team starts to get jealous. Coach Fuller is forced to close the practices to the public. “Connor, get the stars out of your eyes!” he says. He also reminds her to always mention her teammates while being interviewed.
Unfortunately, the fame starts to go to Julie’s head. “Big decision,” she says, “do I go on Leno or Letterman?” On the day of the first game, she’s late because she has to go to a photoshoot. Coach Fuller punishes her by putting her on the bench. “Ohhhhh!” the audience says.
Julie is forced to sit on the bench until the third quarter or half or whatever it is that they play in basketball. However, when the Tornadoes start to lose, Fuller puts Julie in the game. At first, the team still snubs her but then Julie calls a timeout and apologizes. Then the boys call another timeout to apologize to Julie. Then Danny calls a third timeout to apologize personally. Despite all of the timeouts, the team goes on to win by one point. That point was scored by Julie. So, apparently, Julie was totally correct about thinking that she was the most important player on the team.
Meanwhile, Mary Beth saved Earl from choking to death so Earl gives her a pig.
Episode 1.4 “Will The Real Michael Maxwell Please Stand Up”
(Directed by Howard Murray, originally aired on October 7th, 1995)
Deering High won their first game, by one point, thanks to Julie. However, they lose their second game, again by one point, thanks to Michael Maxwell. Michael misses not one but two free throws! He then makes the mistake of saying, “I choked” while in the presence of reporters. The next day, guess what the headline on the front page of the newspaper is!
Anyway, Michael loses his confidence but then he’s given a pep talk by his idol, Grant Hill, who I guess was a real basketball player at the time.
Meanwhile, Danny is still trying to work up the courage to ask out Julie. Samantha tries to help him out, mostly because Samantha likes him. At first, Danny is too stupid to understand this but, by the end of the episode, he and Samantha are a seriously cute couple.
My thoughts on these two episodes is that I don’t know a thing about basketball and the first season was all about basketball. As a result, the first season was uneven (for me, at least) but the show would eventually develop its own weird charm. At this point, I’m just waiting for the theme song to change and for the Tornadoes to actually win or lose a game by more than one point.
Welcome to 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 Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
Hang Time! I’ll always remember my friends at Hang Time!
Imagine California Dreams if it took place in Indiana and if, instead of music, everyone was obsessed with basketball. That’s Hang Time!
Produced by Peter Engel, Hang Time followed the adventures of the Deering High School basketball team. Somewhat notoriously, the cast regularly changed from season to season, with only two members of the cast sticking with the show for every season. The first season featured:
David Hanson as Chris Atwater, the star of Deering High’s basketball team,
Daniella Deutscher as Julie Connor, the newest member of the team,
Chad Gabriel as Danny Mellon, the quirky member of the team who had a crush on Julie,
Megan Parlen as Mary Beth Pepperton, the materialistic head cheerleader who was dating Chris,
Robert Michael Ryan as Earl Hatfield, the dumb country boy who loved basketball and worked as a mall security guard,
Christian Belanvis as Michael Maxwell, who had a lot of talent and an ego to match,
Hillary Tuck as Samantha Morton, the hyper organized team manager,
and
Reggie Theus as Bill Fuller, a former pro player who returned to his old high school to coach the team.
Season one of Hang Time also had an absolutely horrid theme song, one that was luckily abandoned after the season ended.
Episode 1.1 “The Pilot”
(Directed by Howard Murray, Originally aired on September 9th, 1995)
Oh my God, this was bad….
I mean, pilots are usually bad because the characters aren’t as nuanced as they will later be and the initial storyline usually tries to hard to establish everyone’s role in the show’s hierarchy. Veteran retro television viewers know better than to expect anything good from an episode with the dreaded title of “The Pilot.”
That said, the pilot of Hang Time was really, really bad. The show itself was never exactly good but it did eventually develop an oft-kilter charm. But none of that charm is present in the first episode of the show.
Julie Connor (Daniella Deutscher) transfers to Deering High and tries out for the school’s basketball team. A girl playing basketball!? GASP! Anyway, Julie turns out to be a slightly above average basketball player and wins a place on the team and …. well, that’s about it. It would probably seem like more of an accomplishment if it appeared that there was any real competition when it came to getting on the team. Instead, only a handful of people seem to be interested in playing basketball and at least a few of them seem to be …. well, kind of short.
I understand that Reggie Theus was a former basketball player-turned-actor. Judging from this pilot, as an actor, he was a very good athlete.
Episode 1.2 “Trouble in Paradise”
(Directed by Howard Murray, Originally aired on September 16th, 1995)
“You should be home, baking a Cake!” a drunk basketball fan yells at Julie when she and Chris attend a pro basketball game. Julie challenges the jerk to a game. Chris tries to maintain calm. Unfortunately, it gets both Julie and Chris on TV, which leads to Mary Beth and Danny getting jealous.
Bleh. This was a dumb episode. Mary Beth, who doesn’t care about basketball, was the only character to whom I could relate.
The first two episodes of Hang Time felt like California Dreams, without the music. Hang Time would eventually develop a style of its own, with Megan Parlen especially proving herself to be a capable comedic actress. But that style really isn’t present in much of the first season.
Next week: The Deering Tornadoes finally play a game!
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 One World, which ran on NBC from 1998 to 2001. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
The Cast of One World
City Guys wasn’t the only “edgy” show that Peter Engel produced for TNBC. There was also …. ONE WORLD!
One World told the story of a Miami-based multicultural foster family. Dave Blake (Michael Toland) was former baseball player turned high school coach. His wife, Karen (Elizabeth Morehead), was an art teacher. They owned a nice big house and they adopted troubled teens as a hobby.
Among the members of their family:
Ben Blake (Bryan Kirkwood) was a recovering alcoholic who played in a band and dated a lot of girls.
Jane (Arroyn Lloyd) was the latest addition to the family. She wore a leather jacket, liked zombie movies, and had an extensive criminal record.
Neal Smith (Harvey Silver) was the former gang member turned honors student.
Marci Blake (Alicia Reyes) was obsessed with making money.
Sui Blake (Michelle Krusiec) was obsessed with boys and fashion.
Cray Blake (Brandon Baker) was the youngest of the family.
Together, they were living in One World!
Episode 1.1 “Hurricane Jane”
(Directed by Chuck Vinson, originally aired on September 12th, 1998)
The very first episode of One World opens with Sui bragging to her stepparents that she set a new record while running. “Were the cops chasing you again?” Stepdad asks, while the audience laughs. Hence, from the very first joke, it’s established that the Blakes aren’t very good foster parents. Indeed, it’s interesting how many future episodes will revolve around the Blake children getting arrested for doing something and then freaking out about the inevitable visit from a social worker. As Mrs. Blake puts it in this episode, “We didn’t want normal kids. We wanted the worst kids we could find!”
(That said, none of the kids really seem to be that bad, despite all of their talk about how they were once homeless criminals. This is a Peter Engel production, after all.)
New arrival Jane joins the household and immediately pegs them as being “The Brady Bunch. Jane announces that she’s not staying and tells her stepsiblings to drop dead. “Once you get to know me, you won’t want me around!” Jane declares, “No one ever has and no one ever will!” Jane is even more upset to learn that The Warehouse (“the most happening under-21 club in Miami,” as her stepbrother, Ben, puts it) doesn’t serve alcohol. Fortunately, a hurricane blows into town and Jane is forced to stick around and bond with her new family. In other words, the hurricane was God’s way of forcing Jane to stay with her new family and pursue her obvious crush on Ben.
The hurricane also allows Marci a chance to make some money off of other people’s suffering. She hoards supplies so that she can sell them after the disaster. That’s actually not a bad business plan but you really do have to wonder if the Blakes realize that they’re raising a family of sociopaths. That said, Marci does have a sudden change of hearts and ends up giving away everything that she’s hoarded.
As far as first episodes are concerned, this one wasn’t so bad. I liked Jane’s bad attitude and her anger, which brought a different energy to this episode from what you would typically expect from a Peter Engel production. And I related to Sui and her appreciation of the better things in life. That said, I don’t know if I would have willingly gone out in a hurricane to look for anyone who wasn’t a cat.
Episode 1.2 “What’s In A Name?”
(Directed by Chuck Vinson, originally aired on September 19th, 1998)
“The next kid we get is going to be kosher!” Dave Blake announces when he discovers that all of the bacon has been eaten before he gets a chance to have anyone.
Wow, Dave, way to only think about yourself!
In the second episode of One World, the Blakes formally adopt Neal but Neal has to decide whether to to change his last name from Smith to Blake. Neal decides that he’s happy to be a part of the Blake family but he still wants to hold onto his past by retaining his “Smith” name. This episode would have perhaps been more effective if Neal didn’t have the most common last name in the world.
In the show’s B-plot, Sui was dating a player on Dave’s baseball team. At first, Dave didn’t want Sui dating one of his players but then the player had a good game. “Now, I’m trying to figure out how you can date all of my players!” Dave says. Uhmm, okay, Dave. That’s not a creepy thing for a foster parent to say at all.
Will the Blakes be able to create he perfect family? Will Jane ever feel at home with the Brady Bunch? We shall find out next week …. maybe.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!
The Cast of City Guys
The year was 1997 and everyone loved TNBC. Well, not everyone. Actually, I imagine that most people over the age of 30 had no idea what TNBC was. But, if you were a kid in the 90s and the early aughts, you knew that Sunday morning was when NBC aired shows like Saved By The Bell,California Dreams, and Hang Time. Produced by Peter S. Engel, these shows all took place in an idealized teen world where everyone was pretty, the schools were always clean, and every problem could be resolved in 30 minutes.
But, in the early 90s, TNBC was struggling a bit. Saved By The Bell: The New Class was not as popular as the original Saved By The Bell and California Dreams had just ended. For his next show, Peter Engel decided to do something a bit edgier than the sitcoms for which he was best known. He came up with City Guys, a show set not in California or Hang Time‘s Indiana. Instead, City Guys would be set in New York and it would feature a multi-racial cast. It would feature two best friends, one black and one white. It would be relevant and edgy while still recycling the same plots that had already been done to death on Saved By The Bell and California Dreams!
It would be City Guys, a celebration of city people!
So, how edgy was City Guys?
Just check out the theme song!
They’re smart and streetwise! They’re the neat guys! They’re the City Guys! Roll with them!
Neat guys?
I can only imagine what that nickname did for their street cred.
Anyway, I admit that I coming across City Guys on Tubi made me feel just a little nostalgic for the days when I would randomly come across episodes of City Guys and Saved By The Bell playing in syndication so I decided to rewatch the show, which was perhaps a mistake because, so far, City Guys has not been as good as I remembered. In fact, it’s been pretty bad.
Just consider the first two episodes:
1.1 “New Kids”
(Directed by Frank Bonner, aired on September 6th, 1997)
It’s the first day of school at Bayside …. oh, sorry. My mistake. We’re not at Bayside and we’re not in Los Angeles. Instead, we are at Manhattan High and we are totally in New York. Don’t let the fact that the show was obviously filmed on the same sound stage as Saved By The Bell and California Dreams fool you. We are totally in the city!
The first episode of City Guys does what a typical first episode does. It introduces our main characters and portrays them as stereotypically as possible. Alberto (Dion Basco) is quickly established as being this show’s annoying sidekick when he rides up to the school on his bicycle and announces that his name is now “Al Rocket!” Dawn Tartikoff (Caitlin Mowery) is established as being the show’s annoying overachiever when she shows up in her first scene carrying a sign about saving the environment. Tina (Gina McClain) is the pretty model who looks down on everyone else and whose character is destined to be dropped from the show after this episode.
And then there’s Jamal (Wesley Jonathan) and Chris (Scott Whyte). Jamal is black and lower middle-class. Chris is white and rich. That’s pretty much all the characterization that the first episode bothers to give them. They’re both transfer students at Manny High. Jamal was kicked out of his last school for fighting but he explains that he was more of a “punching bag” than a fighter. Chris was kicked out of several schools and apparently “flooded the soccer field.” How exactly did he do that? That’s never explained but everyone still seems to be really impressed when they hear about it.
At first, Chris and Jamal don’t get along. Jamal thinks that Chris is a spoiled rich kid. Chris calls Jamal “homey the clown.” The studio audiences loves it, even while future viewers cringe. Jamal bets Chris $20 that he can’t get a date with Tina. The wise and no-nonsense principal, Ms. Noble (Marcella Lowery), decides that the best way to get these two to shape up is to force them to paint the new school mural.
Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a graffiti already on the wall. El-Train (Steven Daniel) has tagged the wall and he threatens to kill anyone who paints over it. In future episodes, El-Train would become a kind-hearted sidekick to the main characters and would serve largely as comic relief. In this episode, he’s the school bully who everyone fears. Jamal tries to avoid angering El-Train by painting around the tag. But then Jamal sabotages Chris’s attempt to date Tina so Chris paints over El-Train’s name because …. I guess Chris is trying to get Jamal killed? That seems like an overreaction.
Fortunately, Chris learns the errors of his ways and, when Jamal and El-Train have their inevitable fight on the roof of the school, Chris confesses that he was the one who did painted over El-Train’s name. Then Ms. Noble shows up and sends everyone back to class, except for El-Train who gets suspended and whose name is revealed to actually be Lionel. Chris and Jamal make fun of El-Train’s real name, no longer concerned about dying because Ms. Noble apparently has the power to magically quash all beefs.
Still, Ms. Noble isn’t going to just shrug off Chris’s attempt to get Jamal killed. She orders the two of them to work as co-editors of the “video yearbook.” Because, seriously, why shouldn’t the yearbook be used as a behavior modification experiment?
The end credits roll. I’m sure these neat guys will have all sorts of adventures over the next four years of high school!
1.2 “For The Love Of Mother”
(Directed by Frank Bonner, aired on September 13, 1997)
Immediately after the opening credits of the second episode of City Guys, it becomes clear that things have certainly changed from last week.
Chris and Jamal have gone from being weary acquaintances to best friends!
Ms. Noble now knows all of the students and speaks to them as if she’s known them for years!
Tina has vanished and been replaced, as Dawn’s best friend, by Cassidy (Marissa Dyan). Cassidy is just as blonde and pretty as Tina but the actress is a bit less abrasive!
El-Train is nowhere to be seen!
For that matter, neither is the video yearbook that Chris and Jamal are supposed to be working on. Instead, this episode centers around Jamal’s sudden proficiency as a keyboardist and Chris’s desire to have a closer relationship with his mom (played by a very chic Susan Anton). When Mrs. Anderson visits the school, she hears Jamal playing the keyboards that he’s just purchased from Al. Mrs. Anderson takes Jamal under her wing and even arranges for him to play at a fundraiser that she’s hosting for the school’s music department. Chris gets jealous because his mom promised to take him to an Eric Clapton concert on the same night of the fundraiser….
Wait …. Eric Clapton? In the year 1997, were teenagers really going crazy over Eric Clapton tickets? Maybe one can excuse Chris for being into Clapton because he’s supposed to be a rich outsider. But all of the other students at Manhattan High are just as excited as he is about the chance to see Eric Clapton perform live. (What 15 year-old in 1997 wouldn’t be excited about hearing Wonderful Tonight live!?) NBC certainly had its finger on the pulse of youth culture! Of course, the main reason why the students are so excited about Eric Clapton is because the middle-aged people who wrote and produced this show would have been excited about Eric Clapton. It’s an example of how City Guys, a show about young people growing up on the hard streets of New York City, was created by people who were neither young nor New Yorkers.
This episode of City Guys also features a Japanese cook, who, of course, has a temper, bows whenever anyone insults him, and who speaks heavily accented English. He’s portrayed as being such a stereotype that I’m surprised they didn’t have someone hit a gong every time he entered a room. City Guys was a show about how whites and blacks should get along but apparently, the message of respect and defying stereotypes didn’t extend to Asians.
Anyway, it all works out in the end. Jamal impresses all the old white people with his music. Chris gets over being jealous. Mrs. Anderson …. well, she remains the same.
So, that’s it for the first two episodes of City Guys. Will the show get better or was I led astray by nostalgia? Check here next Thursday for my thoughts on episodes three and four!
Through the Shattered Lens 