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July 4th, 2004RodVision
RodetteVision is back with TWO new writers. Helen Earl and Georgia Soley have taken over the mantle of The Hot Rodette, left by MJ Cogburn. Oh, and just in case any Hot Rodders out there on The RodTernet are deluding themselves with visions of grandeur, allow The Rod to state: The Next Generation of Greatness is going NOWHERE Baby! Happy 4th of July Leapers. What or Who Killed Classic Television? Let’s travel back in time, back to the 1980s. Back to when TV was in its golden age. Some may dispute The Rod’s usage of the phrase "Golden Age", but what He means are shows such as: Knight Rider Airwolf There were many more, but He wishes to focus on these in particular, for these may have a lot more in common than simply being action series’. They also have a commonality with Quantum Leap. Airwolf Perhaps the greatest TV serial of them all. In case anybody was living under a rock, and has never heard of Airwolf (Yeah, and believe The Rod, He MET somebody the other day!!) this classic show was about a small team (Stringfellow Hawke, Dominic Santini & Caitlin O Shannessy) who kept a highly sophisticated attack helicopter to ransom from the CIA until the CIA could locate Hawke's brother, presumed dead in Vietnam. In the beginning it was almost a cold war show. It featured different adventures involving spies, espionage, kidnap and murder. Personal issues of revenge were also prevalent. However in its 4 year run, only the first 3 seasons are really considered as part of the official Airwolf lore. For the 4th season, Bellisario and his production team were "fired" and a new, smaller Production Company were hired (Barry Van Dyke). The main stars of the show (well, other than "The Lady" herself) were written out of the show in strange ways and a newer cast headed up by Hawke's brother replaced the old. The result, a syndicated TV show that was a POOR imitation of a classic. Many people have questioned why this happened. DPB is almost legendary for his shows, why DID this happen? Towards the end of Season 3 of "Airwolf", it was costing $800,000 to $1,200,000 dollars to produce one 1-hour episode. The budget was so cut back in Season 4, that it only cost $40,000 to make one 1-hour episode. Huge difference in quality. They had to use a lot of stock footage from the 1st 3 seasons, for a new scene to fit for the episode's storyline, because they could not use any newly filmed Airwolf aerial shots, as they didn't have the real helicopter to film them, instead they used a very badly computer generated Airwolf. Not surprisingly, Universal terminated the show after this 4th year. Officially Universal says that poor ratings along with the spiralling production costs ended DPB’s run as producer. If you look closely at any of the latter episodes, you will see that instead of "Produced By", he has been reduced to "Created By" in the opening credits. In the ever humble opinion of The Rod, the 1st 2 seasons were awesome, storyline wise they were gripping, effects wise spectacular. The 3rd season was pretty terrible, but a thousand miles superior to the 4th season. In the 3rd season, the storyline is so trivial that it was almost funny. "Quick, Old Ma Parkers cat is stuck in that tree…….Scramble Airwolf" Rumors abound that Universal had somehow stuck their nose into a great formula, and had "suggested" ideas to DPB (Sound familiar leapers?), hence the terrible stories in S3. Cast problems, namely with Jan Michael Vincent (Stringfellow Hawke) and his tragic tale that it his personal life undoubtedly did not help. S4 tried to reinstate the classic ideas, but without the creative genius of DPB and with the new cast and reduced budget a mockery of Airwolf was created, unfortunately tainting her legacy forever. Knight Rider Knight Rider had similar problems to Airwolf. It aired for 4 seasons and suffered for the same reasons. Cost. Anybody who watched (& loved this show as The Rod did) knew that KITT was destroyed, and rebuilt with NEW features. Super Pursuit Mode being the chief addition. The reason for this addition was due to falling ratings. By now, the sitcom was beginning its stranglehold on the networks, and as a result, action programs such as Knight Rider started suffering. So, Universal threw an estimated $250,000 to the main "beauty shot" car and added these new features. This was just the tip of the iceberg as far as costs went. For each episode of Knight Rider, the crew destroyed approx 5 KITT look-alikes and a helluvalot of baddie cars. As you can imagine, this aint cheap! New additions to the writing crew produced some really terrible storylines, and finally Knight Rider was dropped. The really sad thing about the end of Knight Rider was that they never had a fitting finale. It just stopped. The reason for this was that NBC had contracted Universal for 5 seasons, however as the season progressed, ratings were so poor that they cancelled any promise of a 5th season. Thus the cast & crew were left to follow the original storylines set down. No finale was ever made. In 1997, they tried making a TV movie entitled Knight Rider 2000. With some of the original cast, with the exception of the REAL star. The 1982 Pontiac Transam used in the show. 5 were kept as "beauty shots" after the show cancellation; David Hasselhoff kept 3, and later sold 2 to museums in the United Kingdom and 1 to a private buyer, again in the UK. The remaining 2 were shipped to Universal studios Orlando & Hollywood for storage and public display on the backlot tours. Without the main star of the show, this TV Movie was merely a poor imitation. Again though, Universal interfered with the running of this show by imposing new writers, undoubtedly leading to the demise of Knight Rider. Quantum Leap Quantum Leap suffered what is by now, a very similar fate, and for much the same reason. Costs for Quantum Leap were by no means as high as either Knight Rider or Airwolf. There were no real car chases, aerial fight sequences or any similar action scenes. So what then, was the main downfall of THIS classic show? Allow The Rod to explain it to you: Ratings had dropped slightly, so once again Universal decided to try and "pep" up the storylines by adding celebrity name dropping and a hint of evil to the mix. Marilyn Monroe featured in "Goodbye Norma Jean". Attempting to add conspiracy theories into her death. Elvis Presley featured in "Memphis Melody". Apparently Elvis wouldn’t be where he is today without Sam. The Evil Leapers made a return in "Evil Leaper: Return" & "Evil Leaper: Revenge". DPB was none too pleased, and has often commented on his wishes that he had been left alone. For any more info on this show, www.quantumleap-alsplace.com can fill you in. To Summarize, The Rod feels that two contributory factors killed off Classic Television. Universal Studios. Ironically enough, Universal struck the death blow to lets face it what became THEIR genre. Without Universal, shows such as Knight Rider, Airwolf and Quantum Leap would NEVER have been successful. In other words. You should have BUTTED Out Universal! The Sitcom. Like a disease, sitcoms are EVERYWHERE you turn now. Don’t get Him wrong, The Rod likes a good chuckle every now and then. Shows such as Family Matters, Full House & Cheers were revolutionary because they were so funny. Every new sitcom is a parody on these originals. Even Friends, now The Rod did enjoy Friends, but by the end the show was that stale, He didn’t even bother watching the last episode. Friends is one of the most expensive shows made. More expensive than Airwolf (Which had state of the art live action scenes), wanna know why? The cast of Friends deluded themselves that they were great stars, worthy of vast sums of money per HALF hour episode: After a well-publicised scrap with NBC, they were eventually rewarded with wages reputed to be in the region of $1,000,000. How is this Right???? Shows such as Airwolf & Knight Rider were never given a fitting finale, yet these Jamokies demand a million dollars per episode AND get to self glorify themselves in a finale for a stale show? Sheeeeeesh! The RodMobile V2.0 ‘Rock n Roll’ Corner Baby!! This month, The Rod respectfully requests you pay attention and listen to Ole Blue Eyes himself: My Way. The Very Best of Frank Sinatra All of his classics are on this fine CD, including "New York, New York", "My Way", "Fly Me to the Moon" & one of The Rod’s personal favourites "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". Of course, The Rod has to try and tell you how this particular brand of music could fit into any Quantum leap episode, but you know what, it just would! Don’t complain, this is RodVision, and He’s The Hot Rod Baby!! He IS The Hot Rod BABY!!! Rod Out!
therod@quantumleap-alsplace.com Keep Leaping Sam, maybe one day YOU can be The Rod. |
