Tino Insana | 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 Fridays, I will be reviewing SLEDGE HAMMER!, a cop comedy which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The entire series can be found on Prime!

My friend Pat McCurry introduced me to Sledge Hammer earlier this year. Starring David Rasche as Detective Sledge Hammer, this show was a parody of Dirty Harry and Hunter. Since I’m currently reviewing Hunter on Thursday night, it seems only appropriate to review Sledge Hammer on Friday night!

Episode 1.1 “Under the Gun

(Dir by Martha Coolidge, originally aired on September 23rd, 1986)

“HAMMER!” shouts police Captain Trunk (Harrison Page), “YOU COULDN’T RESIST BLOWING UP A BUILDING ON YOUR WAY TO WORK THIS MORNING, COULD YOU!?”

Captain Trunk yells a lot but that’s just because he’s been put in charge of managing Detective Sledge Hammer (David Rasche), a San Francisco cop who talks to his gun and who is currently on suspension for shooting a robber at a grocery store before then buying some eggs and “those little cocktail weenies.” When asked by a reporter if his response was too violent, Hammer replied that he really needed his groceries.

For the record, Trunk is correct. Hammer did blow up a building on his way to work. There was a sniper on the roof so Hammer pulled a rocket launcher out of the back of his car and took care of the problem.

Despite all of that, the mayor (John Vernon, who previously played San Francisco’s mayor in Dirty Harry) orders that Sledge Hammer be taken off suspension. The Mayor’s daughter, Francie (Judie Aronson), has disappeared. (“She was either kidnapped or she is just very good at hiding.”) The police think that she was taken by the Allied Violent Offence Network (AVON), a terrorist group led by Weird Willy Luxley (D.W. Brown). Weird Willy is so evil that his own parents gave him up for adoption three years before he was born. The Mayor thinks that Sledge Hammer’s unapologetic embrace of violence is the way to go.

Hammer is assigned a partner, Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin), an expert in negotiation and criminal psychology. At first, Hammer is uneasy about working with a woman. But, when he sees her beat up a man with a shotgun, he’s impressed. “That was excessively violent and totally unnecessary. I loved it.” Doreau mentions she was at the top of her class in hand-to-hand combat. “I’d like to fight you sometimes, Doreau,” Hammer replies.

Hammer promises to bring back “the mayor’s daughter, dead or alive.” Reasoning that it’s usually a member of the family who is to blame in cases like this, Hammer arrests and interrogates the Mayor’s wife. That gets Hammer suspended again but it turns out that Hammer was half-right. It wasn’t the Mayor’s wife. Instead, in true Patty Hearst manner, it turns out that Francie Flambo is a member of AVON and she arranged her own kidnapping!

It all leads to a shootout in a warehouse, as these things often do. When AVON makes their ransom demand, Doreau is sent to deliver the money. (She’s actually given a suitcase full of shredded paper.) Sledge Hammer crashes through a skylight and lands on a box, grinning.

“Why are you smiling!?” Weird Willie Luxley demands.

“I’m trigger happy, that’s why!” Hammer replies.

Soon, all of the members of AVON have been subdued and Francie has been arrested. The Mayor offers Doreau a promotion but Doreau refuses to accept it because she feels that Hammer is not being given the recognition that he deserves.

This seems like the start of a beautiful friendship.

The first episode of Sledge Hammer may be 40 years old but it’s still feels relevant and the laughs still feel earned. As played by David Rasche, Sledge Hammer is the perfect parody of every unapologetically violent action hero. Though there are hints of attraction between him and Doreau, the episode makes it pretty clear that Hammer’s true love is for his gun. At the same time, there’s something rather refreshing about Hammer’s total and complete lack of angst. As I watched this episode, it occurred to me that Hammer would probably get as annoyed with Daniel Craig’s self-pitying version of James Bond as I do.

This pilot was enjoyable and funny 26 minutes of pure entertainment. I look forward to reviewing the rest of the series!

Uptight suburbanite Earl Keese (John Belushi) is paranoid about his new neighbors, Vic (Dan Aykroyd) and Ramona (Cathy Moriarty). Ramona continually tries to seduce Earl (and everyone else) while Vic is loud and obnoxious, always telling off-color jokes and insinuating that Earl is less of a man than he is. Earl thinks that there’s something mentally wrong with Vic but Earl’s wife and daughter (played respectively by Kathryn Walker and Lauren-Marie Taylor) love both Vic and Ramona. Over the course of one very long night and morning, Earl grows more and more suspicious even as he starts to feel truly alive for the first time in several years.

Based on a novel by Thomas Berger, Neighbors is an unfortunate attempt at dark comedy that also turned out to be the final film appearance of John Belushi. It’s appropriate that Belushi’s final film featured him with his comedic partner and best friend, Dan Aykroyd, though I think most of their fans would rather remember them for The Blues Brothers than Neighbors. Originally, Aykroyd was cast as Earl while Belushi was meant to play Vic but the two actors decided to switch roles at the last minute. It takes a while to get used to seeing Belushi as an uptight character who worries about the neighbor’s dog digging up his flower garden but Belushi actually does give a good performance as Earl, revealing that he had more range as an actor that most suspected. Aykroyd and Moriarty also give good performances, though Aykroyd’s performance is not as much a departure as Belushi’s. Earl is an amiable eccentric with several out-there beliefs, which also sounds like a good description of Dan Aykroyd.

Why, despite the talented cast, does Neighbors fail? Director John G. Avildsen was the wrong choice to direct the film. From the first shot of Earl and Vic’s two houses sitting on a hill and looking like left-over sets from The Addams Family, Avildsen directs in a cartoonish manner that is not appropriate for a comedy-of-manners. The book’s humor comes from Earl becoming progressively more and more unstable but, in the movie, Earl seems to be unhinged from the start. Bill Conti’s musical score drives him every point with a thudding obviousness. Conti’s style was perfect for the soaring anthems of Rocky but not for a comedy like Neighbors.

Unfortunately, this would be Belushi’s final film. Neighbors was released in December of 1981. John Belushi died four months later.