CHiPs

This was one of the shows that made up my afternoon routine as a grade-schooler in the early to mid '80s. "CHiPs Patrol" as the syndicated reruns were tagged, played every day at 4 pm, in their scratchy 16mm glory, on our local NBC affiliate, and for a little car-fixated youngster like me, it was like...well, like a car crash played in slow-motion. Literally. Set to bad disco music. The whole thing was so outrageously bad that I couldn't turn away. All the impossiblly stupid motorists doing impossibly stupid things on the sunny LA freeways, invariably ending up in a bloodless, perfectly timed explosion of the said automobile's fuel tank, held me rapt. Ah, the explosions. Large, chrome laden '70s cars flipped through air, jumping *through* telephone poles, turned into piles of twisted sheetmetal, or even just sitting there on the asphalt broken down...somehow they'd ALWAYS end up exploding spectacularly (except when they'd land in someone's swimming pool...damn physics!) with disco-horror music on the TV speaker. Even if it's a diesel powered school bus (which by definition can't explode) it's gonna explode as soon as Ponch and John courageously escort the last bowl-haircitted '70s child to safety.

Did I mention Ponch and John? Or rather Ponchenjohn? I almost forgot about them. These two suntanned, good-looking-in-a-70s-kind-of-way motorcycle cops were the viewers' guides through this wacky world of nonstop car crashes. They seemed reasonably okay, as did all their identically dressed CHP colleagues, rescuing vapid motorists when they weren't comically discussing Ponch's impending hot date or the practical birthday joke they were planning to spring on John. But the two storylines rarely mingled. Nothing of real emotional or dramatic depth ever happened. At the end of the closing credits, as the afterimage of Ponch's Pearl Drop smile begins to fade from your retina, all you can think of is: "Man, that was a beautiful '71 Trans Am they blew up."

In other words:

Mindless eye candy with a wonderfully plastic '70s sheen. Don't miss it!

When you are a young kid it doesn't take much to entertain you. "CHiPs" was a crime drama that was well over my head, but I still watched because Officer Frank Poncherello (Erik Estrada) and Officer Jon Baker (Larry Wilcox) wore nice uniforms and rode cool shiny motorcycles. That's all I needed to see. If they didn't do anything all show but ride around, I would've been perfectly satisfied.

In fact, one of my favorite surprise gifts from my mom that I still remember forty years later was a CHiPs motorcycle. I woke up one morning and it was on my dresser. I could've done backflips, I was so happy. It wasn't even my birthday!

Sure the formula was the same for every episode. Yes there were always two hotties for Ponch and John; criminals who scoff at the law at first then learn how foolish it was to run a gambling operation in the back of a tractor trailer after all. When I was a kid, I loved CHiP's. They were cops on motorcycles, for crying out loud.

I still love to watch it, but like many of you I can't take my eyes off the background. The best part of the show is the location filming. Real streets. I'm watching the cars, storefronts, etc. like an eagle. In a small way it's like walking through the world of my childhood again, taking notice of how some things have changed so much and others not much at all. It's very fascinating to me.

I don't think there have been many television shows as entertaining as this.

CHiPs was magical ... CHiPs was everything a young child wanted to see and much more ... it had great looking people, it had cop uniforms and cop cars, it had fast cars (hotrods), and yes it had Disco! What more could you want? Not to mention, you had Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada (who had become a 70's sex symbol). You just can't say anything bad about this show, because it was meant to entertain! Thats right ... it wasn't supposed to be a "stupid" reality show, like all we see today, it was meant to entertain and it did just that! I praise the producers for what they did with this ... because they made it huge and I still enjoy watching it today! There were many fine looking actresses then too and to quote a Hollywood exec. who once made the remark about Rock Hudson -- "They sure don't make them like that anymore"!

This was hands down my favourite TV series as a child. It was probably the first time I've ever been a fan of anything. I can still recall bits and pieces of some episodes even now!

I didn't have any problems comprehending the story lines, as far as I remember, so the other comments saying it's dead simple must be right. But while the series might seem dire for grown-ups, it was pretty impressive for children.

I would love to see this again just to see it from an adult's point of view, but I won't retract my comment that it's a very enjoyable series in its simplicity, and is a beloved personal memento of my childhood.