Robert Hoff | 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 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 Jon’s attempts to keep the highways safe are endangered by a young man with a fast car, a bad attitude, and diplomatic immunity. Cue the music!

Episode 2.9 “The Shiek”

(Dir by Phil Bondelli, originally aired on November 18th, 1978)

The title character of this week’s episode is Barney (Kario Salem), the son of the ruler of a Middle Eastern country. Wealthy beyond belief, Barney is in the United States. He’s supposed to be studying but he spends most of his time recklessly speeding around Los Angeles in his sportscar. When Ponch and Baker pull him over, he announced that he has diplomatic immunity. When Ponch tries to reprimand Barney for putting people at risk, Barney slaps him.

Barney gets arrested but again …. diplomatic immunity! In fact, the State Department sends a representative to come down personally and ask that Barney not only be released but that Ponch and Baker apologize for inconveniencing him.

Barney subsequently invites Ponch and Jon to a party on his yacht. Ponch spends his time flirting with Barney’s assistant, Fay (Marianne Meeks). Baker struggles to hit on two French girls. But when someone passes out while on a speeding motorboat, Ponch and Jon both jump on their jet skis and save the day.

Barney, it turns out, is interested in seeing how the American police do their job. He is scheduled to return home and take over his father’s private police force. Despite the fact that it sounds like Barney will basically be rounding up and torturing political dissidents, Baker and Ponch take him on a ride along. Witnessing a real car accident and the struggle to save the lives of the people involved all leads to Barney renouncing his speeding ways. Ponch and Baker have to agree that Baney’s not such a bad guy.

This episode felt a bit strange. Instead of featuring several different storylines and rescues, the entire episode pretty much revolved around Ponch and Baker’s relationship with Barney. It’s never really made clear which country Barney is from but Ponch does mention the Shah at one point. If Barney is planning on returning to Iran, that means he’s going to return just in time for the revolution. Poor Barney.

Anyway, Barney had a nice car and the jet ski rescue was exciting. Baker was charmingly inept at speaking French. Ponch smiled a lot. It was pretty much a basic episode of CHiPs. Seen today, it’s probably most interesting as a portrayal of a pre-911 America’s attitude towards the Middle East and its leaders. Barney may have been spoiled and arrogant but ultimately, he just needed some straight-talking, no-nonsense, blue collar Americans to explain the way the world worked to him. Ponch and Baker were happy to oblige.

This is such a weird episode.

Episode 1.8 “Green Thumb Burglar”

(Dir by Christian I. Nyby II, originally aired on November 10th, 1977)

This week’s episode is an odd one, largely because it all hinges on the usually uptight Sgt. Getraer suddenly revealing himself to be a fanatic about plants.

When Ponch and Baker roll up to headquarters while on their motorcycles, Getraer is so busy talking to some potted plants that he has set up outside the station that he almost forgets to yell at Ponch. Getraer is really into taking care of plants and he’s not happy to learn that there is a criminal gang lurking on the highways and stealing plants. Getraer says that he’s upset because of how much taxpayer money is being wasted due to the thievery but it’s pretty obvious that Getraer is actually taking the robberies personally as a plant lover.

Baker suggests that maybe the plants are being stolen by people who are disguised as city employees. To me, that seems like a pretty obvious possibility but both Ponch and Getraer are amazed by Baker’s suggestion. Crooks disguising themselves so that they can commit a crime without anyone calling the police on them? Seriously, who would have guessed!? Both Ponch and Getraer are so impressed that they each initially take credit for Baker’s idea. Baker is quick to let everyone know that he’s the one that figured out the extremely obvious way that the criminals were operating.

And have no fear! The Green Thumb Bandits are caught by the end of the show. In fact, they are captured as soon as Baker comes up with his extremely obvious idea. As is typical of CHiPs, the episode focuses on the cops pursuing the crooks and, as a result, we don’t really learn much about the crooks. Personally, I would like to know how they came up with the ideas to steal plants.

This is a weird episode, even beyond Getraer’s obsession with plants. At one point, Ponch and Baker pull over a guy wearing a fuzzy, yellow monster costume. “It’s PuffnStuff!” Ponch exclaims. A quick Google search revealed to me that PuffnStuff was apparently a children’s show character in the 70s. Ponch is really excited to see him but I have to wonder if the actor who played PuffnStuff would actually wear the costume while driving. PuffnStuff does say that he’s heading to a photo shoot but still, why not put the costume on when he arrives?

(Baker, for his part, does not own a TV and has no idea who PuffnStuff is.)

Finally, Ponch and Baker pull over two middle-aged twins for running a stop sign. The twins explain that they are the world-famous Tidwell Twins and that they can see the future. After Ponch laughs at their claim, one of the twins explains that Ponch will have four bad things happen to him. One will involve a sharp object. One will involve an authority figure. One will involve a fire. (Agck!) One will involve a romantic disaster. By the end of the episode, Ponch will have cut his hand on a can of beans, gotten yelled at by Getraer, gotten covered in fire-extinguishing foam, and dumped by his latest girlfriend. Ponch has the worst luck but at least he got to meet PuffnStuff!

This was a weird episode. As always, the California scenery was nice to look at and the motorcycles were cool. But the plot was just all over the place. At least Robert Pine got to do something other than just yell at Ponch. He seems to be having fun portraying Getraer’s plant-obsessed gentle side.

Next week …. Ponch takes up bowling? That’s what the plot description says. Maybe meeting PuffnStuff inspired Ponch to follow his bowling dreams. We’ll find out soon!