CHiPs-Crack-up

1978

Guests-

Phyllis Diller as Wanda, a patient at the hospital. You know doubt saw her using her brand of humor years ago, she was around for ever. I liked her when she loaned her voice to a bride of Frankenstein type character in Mad Monster Party.

Joey Aresco as baddy Niles who hates cops. A character with extensive work in TV over the course of 50 years.

Gary Sandy as Ray who works with Niles at the body shop. You probably know him best as Andy Travis from WKRP in Cincinnati.

The two armored car drivers were Marc Lawrence  and Huntz Hall. Lawrence had over 200 credits stretching across 70 years (he lived to be 95) and acted with everyone from Humphrey Bogart to Bugs Bunny. Hall had over 100 credits across 55 years, but was best known as for being in the Eastside Kids/Bowery Boys films.

Ponch and Jon witness a couple of shaggy haired thirty somethings drag racing and go off in hot pursuit. Both cops end up pursuing the scruffier of the two guys. Jon is in the lead and then the dirty, drag racer backs up and causes Jon to hit the car and go flying into the pavement. Take that, copper. The wild driver gets away as he flees on foot and Ponch checks on Jon. Mr. drag racer runs back to his friend the other drag racer who runs a garage. The guy that hit Jon reports that his car was stolen so they can’t pin the drag race or whacking Jon on him. Ponch ends up being teams up with the Sarge while Jon ends up in the hospital having to listen to Phyllis Diller tell rotten jokes. So they both suffer from this. The drag racer/hit and run guy growls about the cops having it out for him. He has to go an errand and takes the tow truck with him. While on the roads he sees officer Grossman on his motorcycle. The scruffy baddie decides to take out another officer so he lets loose the hook on his truck and begins speeding. Grossman pursues, but it’s a trap and Grossman gets whopped by the hook. This leads to a trip to being Jon’s hospital roomie and also listening to Phyllis Diller. Ponch and the Sarge pursue a speeder who actually abducted his kids.  Ponch gets the guy to stop but by using a method that the sourpuss Sarge didn’t approve so Ponch gets an earful afterwards. Ponch and the Sarge later pursue a speeder who is really the guy that injured Jon and Grossman. The Sarge is being lead in to a trap but Ponch blocks him from getting hurt. The mean fuzz face gets away, but the Sarge thanks Ponch when he realizes that he was being set up to really get hurt. Eventually Jon gets out of the hospital, he says goodbye to Phyllis Diller and he goes back on patrol with Ponch. An armored truck driven by couple of looney, paranoid oldsters flip over on the highway but won’t get out because they think it’s a plot to steal the money. Ponch and Jon try to convince them but they won’t come out not by the hair of their chinny chin chins or something like that. The polics call for a tow truck but when it shows up guess who it is? That’s right the cop smasher. Jon recognizes him so they give chase. The guy tries to whack Jon the way he did to Grossman but Jon dodges it and gets the drop on the not so nice dude. With that wrapped up they return to the armored car where the old guards still refuse to budge even when the Sarge shows up and that’s how it ends. Roll the credits.

The negatives-Phyllis Diller was hard to take, there’s way too much of her here.

The positives-Plenty of action, some good stunts and a chance to see Ponch and the Sarge team up as a sort of odd couple of bikes.

That will wrap up Erik Estrada week, hope you enjoyed it.

Guns

1990

Erik Estrada as Juan Degas (the S is silent) a gunrunner and all around not so wonderful fellow.

There are other people in this film, but no one that important for Danny Trejo who plays what else a nasty looking guy with an equally nasty disposition. It’s an Andy Sidaris film so the woman run around half dressed trying to act tough and spouting out cornball lines, the villain’s henchman act stupid and die while the good guys smile and show off their hair while they  normally get saved by the woman or by just dumb luck.

So Degas shows up under his fake hair helmet, I mean the fuzzy rodent on his head um very natural looking hair. Anyways he wants this one female agent dead. So hires these two goons-one looks like French Stewart only with his eye open while the other looks like a young John Saxon (only not nearly as cool). The above ugly hit men become even less cool when they dress as even uglier women to pull off their hits. Back to the star, Degas sets up to buy some weapons from a Chinese weapons dealer. We know the weapons are great because our villain uses tone to set stuff on fire, huh huh huh cool! The hit men kill the wrong girl in Hawaii then everyone goes back to Las Vegas because these Andy Sidaris movies seem to happen in bright colorful places. Guess the film wouldn’t work as well in the winter in Minnesota or something. Anyways there are some airplanes tossed in here and cars driving wildly to fill in time of some sorts. Degas gets tense over the female agents still being around and Estrada does some hammy eyeball popping moments to emphasize this for his character. Degas girlfriend kills some of the good people but then she gets it. Eventually of course the hit men in drag bite the dust as well. Despite the fact that the women in these films can’t run very fast and hold their weapons as awkwardly they still always manage to take down some tough customers. Degas captures this woman and threatens the heroes to get what he wants, but one of the female agents blows him up with what looks like a couple of caulk guns together carrying red and blue cardboard rockets. Yet it’s enough to blow Degas to a million pieces and do no damage to the agent who was just a few feet away. Oh well roll the credits.

The negatives-The film isn’t big on plot and if you expecting witty dialog then you need to search elsewhere.

The positives-Estrada tries and he’s decent enough as a villain. There are plenty of explosions and gun fights too. Nice locations as well.

CHiPs-Trick or Trick

Hey, it’s Erik Estrada week so let’s get it started.

1978

It’s Halloween in LA in the 70’s. Ponch says he loves the holiday. We also find out that he is superstitious as well as he and John pull over a speeder who is hauling a pile of black cats and then Ponch unwittingly walks under a ladder. Then he cuts himself shaving with an electric razor, wait is that possible? He did it so I guess so. Officer Grossman apparently does this little thing every year where officers take turns being the “hobgoblin” and read stupid rhymes over the police channel just to bug the Sgt. Grossman hands outs times for everyone to broadcast, oh joy.  Jon and Ponch ride off. Some time during this day some little wisenheimer squirts Ponch with perfume for not having treats and Ponch threatens to handcuff the kid, oh wait it was a joke, I think. Anyways the crybaby later runs off and his sourpuss dad shows up fussing at Ponch saying he caused it to happen. You bad policeman. So now the police are looking for the runaway kid. Also during the day our motorcycle riding coppers find two woman trying to take a sign, but it’s okay because it’s for a scavenger hunt. Oh, wait it’s not okay but since the sign isn’t off yet they let the woman walk and the guys get invited to a Halloween party after work- yee-haw. Meanwhile a couple decided to rob a liquor store and the female of the couple dresses as a ghost of some sorts. They rob a liquor store and coveniently enough Ponch and Jon happen to be in the area and give chase, whooo-whooo-whooo, but a car crashes to avoid the ghost lady and Ponch and Jon lose the robber. Darn it. Next on this high spirited night (see what I did there) a woman starts taking treat bags from kids dressed as skeletons. Go buy your own cheap candy, lady.  Oh and during all these goings ons all the police who were assigned to be the hobgoblin have not been broadcasting so Grossman has to be a pain all by himself. Ponch and Jon spot the lady candy grabber and pursue her. “Alright. lady drop the smarties and come out with your hands up”. Not quite but they do go to her house. Turns out she just got engaged and wore the ring even though it was loose and she thinks she lost it giving candy to a skeleton, not a real one though well real candy, but not a real skeleton. Our police guys help her out and find the ring in the candy bowl she was dishing out of. Hooray and they decide not to run her in for stealing Zagnut bars and candy corn. Oh and after riding past this old spooky house Ponch and Jon finally decide maybe the runaway kid is in there and hey he is. So everything has been wrapped up, whoops I forgot about that pesky dressed as a ghost woman and her partner that robbed a store earlier. They get greedy and Ponch and Jon are there again to give  chase, what are the odds? Well the baddies get between two teens playing a friendly game of toss the eggs across the street and whack the eggs hit their windshield and smash the thieves crash. Ponch and Jon nab them and are off to the Halloween party. Once there it seems a lot of their fellow police people are there too. Turns out bringing a cop to the party was also part of the scavenger hunt. Oh and the sarge figured out that Grossman was the hobgoblin and he’ll be in trouble. Oh gosh darnit, but everyone else laughs and enjoy the final hours of Halloween.

I remember this one from when I was a kid. I enjoyed it then and still do. It has the cheesy bits that were part of this show, but the face pace and car stunts helped. This one also has lots of scenes of 70’s style Halloween costumes for you to look at too.

There’s more Erik Estrada coming on Tuesday with Chupacabra vs. the Alamo.