Tonight, I’ve decided to share a bonus hour of televised horror. Tonight, we present to you an episode of Baywatch Nights that originally aired on February 9th, 1997. In this one, two 900 year-old Vikings are causing chaos in Los Angeles! Who can stop them?
David Hasselhoff, of course!
(You can read my review of this beautifully odd episode here. Valhalla!)
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Baywatch Nights, a detective show that ran in Syndication from 1995 to 1997. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
From Iceland to Malibu, you can’t keep a good Viking down.
Episode 2.12 “Frozen Out Of Time”
(DIr by Rick Jacobson, originally aired on February 9th, 1997)
After a volcanic eruption in Iceland, a frozen Viking boat is discovered floating in the ocean. Inside the boat are two Vikings, who have spent the past 900 years in blocks of ice. Under the orders of Dr. Lancaster (Edward Mulhare), the Vikings are transported to Malibu. Lancaster’s plan is to thaw the Vikings out and see if they can be revived. Daimont Teague, who has a habit of popping up anywhere that someone is trying to do something stupid, is not sure if Dr. Lancaster knows what he’s doing so he decides to call Mitch and Ryan to the lab.
Now, you can justifiably say, “What is Mitch going to do with a frozen Viking?” It’s a legitimate question. Of course, you can also wonder why Dr. Lancaster thinks that he’ll be able to revive the Vikings. I mean, they’ve been frozen for 900 years! That’s a long time to float around in a block of ice.
Of course, the Vikings are revived. Unfortunately, it turns out that they were on that boat because they were trying to settle a blood feud. The first Viking (Sven-Ole Thorsen) goes on a rampage through the lab and then runs around Malibu pier. Mitch and Griff are able to capture him and bring him back to the lab. Unfortunately, the other Viking (Nils Allen Stewart) has woken up and the two Vikings soon reignite their interrupted duel to the death.
I’m actually leaving out a few details but you can probably guess everything that happens in this episode from what I’ve told you. It’s not really a shock when Mitch turns out to be an expert in Viking culture. It’s also not a surprise when the two Vikings end up killing each other and Mitch gives them a traditional Viking funeral. It’s not just that Mitch puts them on a wooden raft and then shoots a flaming arrow at it. It’s that Mitch dramatically yells, “Valhalla!” while doing so.
Myself, I’m a bit curious about how the Vikings manage to go right back to fighting as soon as they thawed out. It would seem like, after 900 years of lying prone in one position, they would be a little bit stiff. I would imagine that there would at least be some backpain or maybe a touch of arthritis. (I mean, I’m not even 40 and I’ve already got arthritis in my ankle.) Also consider that the Vikings have no trouble breathing the air, despite the fact that Los Angeles’s polluted air is undoubtedly a lot different from what their lungs are used to. And that’s not even to mention all of the germs that the Vikings have never experienced before. It seems like the Vikings should have at least had a cold or something.
Was this episode a good one? Hey, it featured David Hasselhoff, Angie Harmon, and two 900 year-old Vikings. Of course, it was good! Baywatch Nights is always at its best when it embraces the absurdity and there’s nothing more absurd than this episode.
°ëØ
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…
President Skroob (Mel Brooks), the evil and incompetent leader of Planet Spaceball, has squandered all of the air on his planet and is planning on stealing the atmosphere of the planet Druida. To pull this off, he arranges for the idiotic Prince Valium (Jim J. Bullock) to marry Vespa (Daphne Zuniga), the princess of Druida. (All together now: “She doesn’t look Druish.”) Vespa and her droid, Dot Matrix (voice by Joan Rivers), flee Druida with Lord Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) and Colonel Sandurz (George Wyner) in pursuit.
In debt to the intergalactic gangster, Pizza the Hut (voiced by Dom DeLuise), a mercenary named Lone Star (Bill Pullman) and his associate, the man-dog hypbrid Barf (John Candy), accept a contract from Vespa’s father (Dick Van Patten) to track down his daughter. They take off in their space Winnebago to bring Vespa home. Though they start only interested in money, Lone Star and Barf come to learn about love, freedom, and a mystical power known as the Schwartz. (“No, the Schwartz!”)
Back when I was growing up and just being able to have HBO made you the coolest guy on the block, Spaceballs was one of my favorite movies. I watched it every time that it came on cable. As usual with Mel Brooks, there were a lot of double entendres that went over my young head but there was also enough goofy humor that I could laugh at what was going on. I could quote all the lines. I laughed whenever Rick Moranis showed up in his Darth Vader-costume. I laughed at John Candy’s facial expressions. I laughed when Mel Brooks showed up as Yogurt, the Spaceballs version of Yoda. Pizza the Hut? That’s hilarious when you’re a kid!
I recently rewatched the film. Revisiting it was a lesson in how your memory can trick you. I could still quote most of the lines with reasonable accuracy but nothing was quite the way I remembered it. Rick Moranis and John Candy were still hilarious and, being older, I could better appreciated the frustration felt by George Wyner’s Colonel Sandurz. I also realized what a good performance Bill Pullman gave as Lone Star. While everyone else mugged for the camera, Pullman played his role straight.
I also discovered that a lot of the scenes that I remembered as being hilarious were actually just mildly amusing. Mel Brooks was always hit-and-miss as a director, the type who would toss everything and the kitchen sink into his films. Spaceballs has a lot of hilarious scenes but it’s obvious that Brooks didn’t have the same affection for the source material as he did with Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles or even High Anxiety. Brooks is poking fun at Star Wars because it’s popular but he doesn’t seem to have any strong feelings, one way or the other, about George Lucas’s space epic.
I still laughed, though. Even if Spaceballs wasn’t the masterpiece that I remembered it being, I still enjoyed rewatching it. The jokes that hit were funny enough to make up for the ones that missed. Even with his weaker films, Mel Brooks is a national treasure.
Tonight, with Halloween only a few days away, The Shattered Lens is proud to present a bonus episode of televised horror! In this beloved episode of Baywatch Nights, two 900 year-old Vikings are causing chaos in Los Angeles! Who can stop them?
David Hasselhoff, of course!
This episode originally aired on February 9th, 1997!
On tonight’s episode of horror on TV, we have an episode of Baywatch Nights that originally aired on February 9th, 1997. In this one, two 900 year-old Vikings are causing chaos in Los Angeles! Who can stop them?
David Hasselhoff, of course!
On tonight’s episode of horror on TV, we have an episode of Baywatch Nights that originally aired on February 2nd, 1997. In this one, two 900 year-old Vikings are causing chaos in Los Angeles! Who can stop them?
David Hasselhoff, of course!
Through the Shattered Lens 