Police Squad!

[Random_Spock]

I got to watch a couple of episodes on dvd... it was really funny . Loved the movies as well, but they weren't as funny.

 

[ToddPence]

Is Police Squad the greatest TV series never to last into double-digit episodes? It would be right up there with the magnificent anthology series Darkroom, which I believe aired during the same TV season.

 

[Forbin]

Space Rangers! A 1993 1-hour toungue-in-cheek sci fi action show. Six episodes filmed, only 5 aired.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106144/

 

[Christopher]

I'd hardly call Space Rangers the "greatest" anything. It had its moments, but it was pretty mediocre all around.

I was rather fond of the original, 1992 TV series version of Human Target -- which, unlike the recent Mark Valley series, actually had something to do with the comic it was based on besides the title and the main character's name. (The premise was that Christopher Chance disguised himself as people whose lives were threatened, making himself the target. The Valley version just made him a bodyguard for hire, a much duller idea.) It was from Danny Bilson & Paul DeMeo, who had previously produced the live-action The Flash and written The Rocketeer, and it had pretty innovative visual effects, lots of clever split-screen variations to show the disguised main character interacting with the people he was disguised as. It also delved a lot into the psychology that would drive the lead character to constantly risk his life, and explored the consequences of constantly subsuming his identity. It was a neat show, but it didn't catch on and only ran for seven episodes.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

There is one scene I don't get: in the first episode, there's a scene taking place at (in Drebin's words) "one of those all night wicker places". I don't understand the joke at all. The scene involved Drebin meeting someone at a store where people were walking in and out with various things made out of wicker (including things like TV sets). But there's apparently some higher meaning to the phrase, which is completely lost on me.

 

[Trekker4747]

Probably a reference to Wicker Park in Chicago.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Maybe it's a reference to booze? 'Wicker' rhyming with 'liquor'. That's about the only thing I can think of right now.

 

[Christopher]

Maybe it's a reference to booze? 'Wicker' rhyming with 'liquor'. That's about the only thing I can think of right now.

That sounds right to me. There are such things as all-night liquor stores, apparently.

 

[Forbin]

It may just have been a non-sequiter. Sometimes the joke is that it actually means nothing.

And I LOVED Space Rangers.

Okay, the Buddy Hackett episode was pretty bad. But the Claudia Christian one was fun.

And Marjorie Monahan with elf ears? Woo!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

If they ever reboot Police Squad:

- Michael Hogan as Frank Drebin
- Edward James Olmos as Capt. Ed Hocken

Don't tell me you wouldn't watch. You know you want it.

 

[Christopher]

And Marjorie Monahan with elf ears? Woo!

Monaghan's character was one of my biggest problems with Space Rangers. The show came along at a time when attempts were being made to break female characters out of stereotypical roles, but it was still assumed that the only way to portray a "strong woman" was to write her as more tough and cold and macho than the men, and it felt like overcompensation. We had plenty of super-tough women later on, like Buffy and Xena, but they still came off as female, as people who were tough in a feminine way (or feminine in a tough way). It didn't feel as self-conscious as Monaghan's character, didn't feel like they were trying to compensate for a perceived inferiority.

Monaghan was certainly a striking presence (although I don't remember any elf ears), but she was better served in other roles.