Rerun Junkie– Perry Mason

September 16, 2011January 20, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The opening strains of the theme song are immediately recognizable even if you’ve never seen an episode of the show. And if you haven’t, you should. Perry Mason is classic TV, quite literally. The show ran for nine seasons, starting in 1957.

The show centered around title character Perry Mason (Raymond Burr), defense attorney, his always dependable assistant Della Street (Barbara Hale), and private detective Paul Drake (William Hopper). The law side of things was often represented by state’s attorney Hamilton Burger (William Talman), Lt. Tragg (Ray Collins), and Lt. Anderson (Wesley Lau).

Each episode revolved around an innocent person being accused of a crime they didn’t commit. Perry would take their case and with the help of Della and Paul, he’d prove their innocence, usually in dramatic courtroom fashion.

Most of the cases involved a murder and some of them were quite over the top. Several faked deaths and lots of rich people doing horrible things. And Perry seemed to know a whole lot of people quite conveniently. It was how he got involved and/or how he solved the case.

With so many suspects, bad guys, and innocents, there was plenty of opportunity for guest stars. Bette Davis, Jerry Van Dyke, Alan Hale, Keye Luke, Adam West, Lee Merriweather, Victor Buono, James Hong, Denver Pyle, David McCallum, Jackie Coogan, Elisha Cook Jr, Gavin McCleod, Gary Collins, Louise Fletcher, James Best, and James Coburn all made appearances. Don’t recognize some of the names? Look them up. Most of them guested on the show before they landed the roles that you might know them from.

No matter the guest star or the storyline, Perry always came out on top. It made you almost feel bad for Hamilton Burger. I’d like to think that he won every case that didn’t feature Perry Mason on the defense.

Watching the episodes now, the black and white isn’t the only sign that it’s an old show. Back in the late 50’s/early 60’s people smoked freely, could easily board planes, were restricted by landlines, still sent telegrams, had to research by going through papers and files by hand, and social security numbers, birth certificates, and adoption records were more easily forged. There’s at least one thing (usually more) in each episode that could not be done today. Times have definitely changed and it’s fun to compare while trying to solve the case.

And that’s where you can find me most afternoons. Helping Perry, Della, and Paul solve a murder.

Where I Watch It

Rerun Junkie–The Monkees

August 19, 2011January 19, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

I know I’ve talked about the music before, but now let’s focus on the show. After all, it’s the reason for the music anyway, right? At least in the beginning.

The premise was simple enough: four band members lived in a kickin’ beach pad and had wacky adventures while playing really catchy tunes that are still played to day. Most episodes got two songs and these were usually set to “romps” in which the boys and the guest starts ran around and acted silly. There were also given an excuse to play at least one number in many episodes.

The second season got a little crazier as the guys were more prone to imporve and more prone to smoking pot. There weren’t so much as script as there were guidelines to an epidsode and even tehn they were quite loose. The episodes, though a little stranger, were still fun. “The Devil and Peter Tork”, “Fairy Tale”, and “The Monkees Christmas Show” remain to fan favorites.

The Monkees — Peter, Mike, Micky, and Davy. Yes, I know what episode this is from.

The band was comprised of Davy, the cute one; Micky, the crazy one; Mike, the in-charge one; and Peter, the dumb one. Okay, that’s over-simplifying things a bit, but the point was there was a “type” for every girl (though the target girls ended up being 8-12). Davy was the teen idol heartthrob with a British accent bonus. Micky was as charming and funny with a good heart. Mike was the epitome of the strong, sarcastic Texan with a protective air. And Peter was sweet, sensitive, and a little naive, which made you want to protect him. I think every one of these guys has been my favorite at some point or another. I think they planned it that way. Very clever.

The show managed to attract some fun guest starts including Rose Marie, Julie Newmar, Lon Chaney Jr, Monte Landis, Phil Leeds, Butch Patrick, Ron Maask, Rip Taylor, Ruth Buzzi, and Joey Forman.

Sporadic reruns of the show have garnered new generations of fans. I got hooked when I was six during their 20th anniversary tour. Though I listen to the music almost daily (I’ve got all but 2 albums on my iPod and I will have those one day, oh yes), I still love watching the show, particularly when I need a mood boost. Most of the eps I have are on VHS. It’s the only reason I still have a VCR.

I can’t imagine a higher compliment than that.

Where I Watch It

Rerun Junkie– Starsky and Hutch

June 10, 2011January 18, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The 70’s hit me hard when I was a young teenager. Never mind that it was the early 90’s at the time. I was in a love affair with a lot of 70’s reruns at the time.

One show that I rushed home after school to watch on TNT was Starsky and Hutch.

-David Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and Ken “Hutch” Hutchinson (David Soul), plain clothes police detectives on the mean streets of LA with direction from their dedicated captain (Bernie Hamilton) and help from their snitch Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas), not to mention a sweet Ford Torino.

The cases were gritty, involving drugs and murder, with a stock cast of 70’s bad guys (pimps, pushers, thugs, mobsters, cons, prostitutes). And of course, there were plenty of pretty girls to go around.

This is one of the earliest occurences of bromance on record. It takes buddy cop to the next level. The chemistry between the two is undeniable and they actually showed a pretty wide range of emotions for a couple of macho cops.

Two outstanding episodes that stick in my memory that highlight this are “Shootout” and “The Fix”. Both are early in the series (first season). In “The Fix”, Hutch is kidnapped and injected with heroin. Starksy working Hutch through detox really makes the episode. In “Shootout”, Starsky is shot during dinner at an Italian resteraunt and Hutch is charged with getting him (and everyone else) out alive. Agains it’s the death’s doorstep scenes that make it.

The show is awash in “Hey! I know that guy!” guest stars, but did score several recognizable names including Joan Collins, Suzanne Sommers, Lynda Carter, Mare Winningham, Jeffrey Tambor, Robert Loggia, Rene Auberjonois, GW Bailey, Sally Kirkland, Kim Cattrall, Veronica Hamel, and Pat Morita.

As per most 70’s cop shows, it could be heavy on the action and one or the other of the two main characters (sometimes both) found themselves in peril, injured, possibly dying, several times in a season. It also stretched some credibility with some of the storylines and the revolving door of women in the guys’ lives were usually just good for an episode (though “Starsky’s Girl” was pretty poigniant). Huggy Bear, though, was good for the run and was often a fun bright spot to the episodes. Captain Doby brought some greatness as well.

This show is so a wash in 70’s goodness that it’s like good comfort food. It makes you wish that style was still alive.

Well, almost.

Where I Watch It

Rerun Junkie– The A-Team

May 6, 2011January 15, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.

Are you humming the theme song yet? If not, that’s a shame.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I pity you, fool.

The A-Team was one of several 80’s action shows I watched as a kid and it remains one of my all-time favorites. It’s the best cotton candy for my brain ever.

The set-up was just as simple as the intro suggested. The team was comprised of the plan-making, wise-cracking, disguise-loving Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard); the smooth, charming, sometimes unsure, always a ladies man Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck (Dirk Benedict); the tough on the outside, soft on the inside (well, sometimes) Sgt. B.A. Baracus (Mr. T); and the ever crazy, same outfit wearing (read the shirts!) pilot Captain H.M. “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock. In the first and second seasons they were joined by Amy Allen (Melinda Culea) and Tawnia Baker (Marla Heasley), respectively, and chased throughout most of the series run by first Colonel Lynch (William Lucking) and then Colonel Decker (Lance LeGault). In the fifth season they attempted to reinvent the show by changing the premise somewhat. They added Frankie Santana (Eddie Velez) to the team and forced them into working for the vexing General Hunt Stockwell (Robert Vaughn).

The show is probably best known for the iconic build scenes (montages of them building something out of nothing; my favorite was the cabbage cannon), the gunfights in which no one was killed, and the car chases in which at least one car would flip wildly, land on its top, and the dazed occupents crawl from the car hardly scratched. Oh, and the explosions. Sometimes the storylines were a little out there, particularly in season four, but it was all in good fun.

With all the action, it’s easy to miss the dialogue, which as far as I’m concered, is where it’s at. These guys had some great, funny lines. This show gets the credit for my all-time favorite insult: “Your mother works on street corners and you’re so ugly, flies won’t land on you.” The show as a whole is incredibly quotable.

Also, if you’re in the mood for a show to jolt you out of your safe, politically correct world, this will do you. The early to mid-80’s weren’t nearly as sensitive (and you might feel bad for laughing).

The guest cast on this show was fantastic. Great stunt casting during season four. Boy George and Hulk Hogan. You can’t get bigger and more 80’s than that. But even the more low key guests were fab. Richard Moll, Alan Fudge, Red West, James Hong, Keye Luke, John Saxon, Dana Elcar, Dennis Franz, Markie Post, Alan Autry, Wings Hauser, and Claudia Christian, just to name a few.

Most of the kids my age loved BA, as they loved Mr. T. I loved him, too, but my heart belonged to (and still belongs to) Murdock. He was funny. He was crazy. He wore Chuck Taylors. He flew helicopters. He was the coolest of the cool in my eyes. To this day there’s still a little part of me that wants to be him.

I’ll settle for owning the entire series on DVD.

Side note: When I first heard about them making an A-Team moving, I was not on board. It was going to be far too difficult in my mind to recreate those characters and that chemistry. I had no interest in seeing it.

However, after several favorable reviews from friends, I was persuaded to see the finished product in the theater. I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it. It was fun like the show. It kept a lot of the show’s canon. And the new actors made the characters their own without completely alienating them from the originals.

I just wish the original cast could have played bigger roles.

Where I Watch It

Rerun Junkie–The Golden Girls

March 25, 2011January 14, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

This is one of my reruns that I watched during its first run. I was a kid then, of course, but I found those four old women really funny. Now that I’m older, I find them funnier since I get all of the innuendo and adult humor. And the theme song is still catchy.

I shouldn’t have to go into the details of this show, but I’m going to for my own amusement.

The premise is simple and something that probably wouldn’t have gotten the greenlight from NBC today: four women over 50 live together and eat cheesecake. The women possessed four distinct personalities designed to give viewers a favorite, if they could possibly settle on a favorite. Blanche (Rue Mc was the saucy sexpot. Dorothy was the sarcastic intellectual. Rose was the naive-to-the-point-of-nearly-stupid sweetheart. And Sophia was the wise-cracking old woman with no filter between her mouth and her brain.

The women as a group were lively, fun, caring, kind, and a little naughty. Together they faced the perils of aging while maintaining a mature, but youthful outlook. It wasn’t four old women sitting around talking about grandchildren and knitting things. It was four older women living life. They dated, they worked, they vactioned, they struggled, they laughed, they solved problems, they dealt with family, they ate a lot, and they dressed liek it was October in Wisconsin instead of any time in Miami.

Dressed Golden Girls — Why the long sleeves, ladies?

The show had its share of recurring characters and guest stars. Stan was my favorite. Herb Edleman was both fun and fantastic as Dorothy’s ex. Nancy Walker and Bill Dana as Sophia’s siblings, Sid Melton as Sophia’s husband, Debra Engle as Blanche’s daughter Rebecca, Scott Jacoby as Dorothy’s son, and Monte Markham as Blanche’s gay brother were also great. And, of course, who didn’t love Harold Gould as Miles Webber? (Side note: Harold Gould played a member of a mob family on Hawaii 5-0, which made his revelation that he was a mob informant on The Golden Girls that much better for me.)

Other notable guest stars included Leslie Nielsen, Robert Culp, Anne Francis, Debbie Reynolds, Steve Landesberg, Phil Leeds, George Clooney, Rita Moreno, and of course the cast of their spin-off, Empty Nest.

The plots were sometimes questionable (like Miles being in the witness protection program), but hey, it’s a sitcom. They’re supposed to be wacky. They did a decent enough job with continuity, which is more than you can say for most shows.

Besides, most of the time the show was too funny to notice any mistakes. The dialogue was always snappy and well done with some really memorable deliveries. It’s what makes watching the episodes over and over again so worth it.

Yes, I can quote large chunks of dialogue. Why do you ask?

Where I Watch It

Rerun Junkie– Hawaii 5-0

February 25, 2011January 14, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 4 Comments

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I decided to watch the old Hawaii 5-0 because nothing else was on and ended up liking it. It has the two things I like best in a show: 70’s and cops.

But it’s more than just a 70’s cop show. It’s blue cheese on a cracker, straight up.

You had Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord), the serious business man in charge with hair that doesn’t move no matter how windy it is. Dan “Danno” Williams (James MacArthur), his right hand man that had a fondess for monochromatic duds. Chin Ho (Kam Fong) was the token Asian good guy (since most of them were bad guys) who wore the same ugly tie throughout most of his run on the series no matter what suit he wore. And then there was the *insert token Hawaiian here* in the form of first Kono (Zulu), then Ben (Al Harrington), and finally Duke (Herman Wedemeyer). Of these three Duke was my favorite as he was actually on the longest, first in uniform and then in plainclothes. I have been known to give a prolonged “DUUUUUUKE” squeal at my TV when I see him onscreen.

I had trouble warming up to Ben as he’d guest starred on the show a couple of times before as a bad guy. Never could quite trust him.

Women? They had a few, but none you saw too often. Female officers were still a rarity in that world. However, they did at least have one that reoccurred for a few episodes. Baby steps.

The bad guys are the best. There’s actually some that are somewhat sympathetic or make an attempt at being sympathetic. And there are some that are just so over the top that they strain credibility. Wo Fat, the longest running villian on the show, is on the over the top side. He’s more like a Bond villian. His mustache is quite fetching, though.

Another stand out villian was Gavin McLeod as a dope-pusher named Big Chicken. He was pretty disturbing with the homoerotic undertones going on with his character, particularly in the prison episode in which most of the action too place in the shower. Maybe it was because they started off that episode with Big Chicken hosing off. I don’t know. I just know that I can never look at Captain Stubing the same way again.

Honorable mentions go to Ricardo Montalban as a Japenese guy (the make-up was questionable and the accent was all Ricardo) and the murding hillbilly family on vacation.

With villians like that you’ve got to have some over the top storylines. I think McGarrett was shot or blown up at least once a season. A couple of his girlfriends were killed, but since you didn’t really see much of his personal life, the deaths kind of lacked any impact.

There were snipers with hooked hands, derranged Vietnam vets killing his buddies’ wives, a guy who thought a comic book was real and killed people to protect the main character, lots of terrorists (most of them Latino), big government plots, a couple of convicts that use witness protection as an excuse to get married, marijuana that turns into heroin at some point during the episode, and much, much more!

The list of guest stars is pretty impressive, especially since most of them are bad guys. Along with Ricardo Montalban (on twice!) and Gavin McLeod: Richard Hatch, Meg Foster, Patty Duke, Harold Gould, Bruce Boxlitner, Donald Pleasance, Cindy Williams, Loretta Swit, Burt Convey, Robert Reed, and those are just the ones I can remember off of the top of my head.

But truly, the best part of this show was the fashion. Ugly shirts were required. The bad guys wore them. The good guys wore them. The good guys wore them when they were undercover so they could blend in with the bad guys.

And then there was McGarrett’s off-duty wear:

And that’s one of his tamer outfits, too.

It was by these powers combined that my day job-lacking afternoons were filled joy and entertainment.

I can’t lie. When two o’clock rolls around now, as I sit in my cube, I think of Hawaii.

Book ’em, Danno.

Where I Watch It

Rerun Junkie

January 28, 2011January 14, 2016 ~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

I am a rerun junkie. I always have been and I feel like I always will be. If a show has been off the air for ten years or more, there’s a good chance I will find it and watch the hell out of it.

The 70’s are my favorite era, I think, particularly 70’s cop shows. Oh! Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, Hawaii 5-0, Barney Miller, Banacek, Barretta, Charlie’s Angels, Rockford Files, I watched them all. I didn’t miss out on out on other hits, either. I enjoyed many episodes of Sanford and Son, All in the Family, and, of course, M*A*S*H. I can quote so many of those episodes word for word.

The old Nick-at-Nite was a great supply of reruns. Without it, I never would have been able to watch Laugh-In, Lancelot Linc Secret Chimp, Get Smart, or The Monkees. In FX’s infancy, I got to watch a lot of The Incredible Hulk, Batman, Green Hornet, and The Greatest American Hero. WGN was my go to place for The Addam’s Family and The Munsters, while on TBS I started many school mornings with Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Happy Days, and Laverne and Shirley.

I get to continue my rerun junkie ways today as shows I watched first run when I was younger are now old reruns. Murder, She Wrote, In the Heat of the Night, Matlock, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Golden Girls, and Unsolved Mysteries. In the past I’ve got to relive the A-Team, MacGyver, Knight Rider, and Air Wolf.

The biggest bummer about this new day job is that I’m forced to give up three of my current favorite reruns: Perry Mason, Hawaii 5-0, and Unsolved Mysteries. I’ll also be missing some Golden Girls reruns because I won’t be able to stay up as late to watch them.

The best part about reruns is that the older I get, the better they get. I don’t know how it happens, but it does.

I think it has something to do with my sense of humor.