The above display is for my friends, or anyone who has been attacked by the lowlife scumbags who cause this pilikia that infects all it contacts while I am totally unaware it is going on. And when yet another person takes the time to advise me of this annoying encroachment that falsely bears my name, there isn’t a thing I can do to fix it since I am not sending them out. If you are a reader of this this blog—for which mahalo nui—please use this email address makuahe@gmail.com to contact me in the future.
It is time, enough already, to stop postulating about politics, the NBA (with a hooray for Charles Barkley, the best thing off the court), budgets and the price of gas-o-line, which was 23-cents a gallon when I first drove from town to this side of the island and, being older than the tunnels, was forced to drive “the long way” to get here, the Windward Side of Oahu. Time to tell of “funner” things and happy days. The least I can do for those of you who’ve been spammed as a consequence of knowing me or my now-tainted molecular address.
The perks that came with the gig when I was Program Director of KHJ Radio-Los Angeles in the mid-60s seem pretty incredible these days. An old buddy from our Fifties Honolulu radio days, Don Berrigan, was the first Promotion Director to work with me at Boss Radio. Perhaps his biggest triumph was recreating in real life the entire “Last Train To Clarksville” In 1966 when the Monkees came out with a song of that name, written and produced by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.
KHJ rented a town, a train and four helicopters to land there to meet several dozen Boss Radio winners who rode down to the station (in Del Mar, where the sign read “Clarksville” that day and our lucky listeners were the first people ever to hear the Monkees play live, which they did in the box car as the train rumbled back to Union Station in L.A. Berrigan also played a big part in the writing and logistics for “The Big Kahuna,” remembered by some as KHJ’s greatest “outside” promotion.
Berrigan perused the trade magazines daily, on the lookout for new TV shows and movies that we could tie in with. Being number one in L.A., particularly in those days, was as big as it got. Only New York was a larger radio market and several stations fought for the Top Forty audience. I will put the Best of KHJ up against anything that aired on WMCA or WABC during the years they were #1 in NYC.
Most “experts” believe KHJ was the best of the bunch; I do know that their deejays could not claim that Johnny Carson, Barbra Streisand, Elvis Presley and all the other stars who lived in Boss Angeles then tuned into the New York stations, for sure. Also, KHJ-TV, Channel Nine, was the top-rated independent television station at the time, so everyone was trying to get to me, through Berrigan, to arrange promotional tie-ins.
That is how we came upon the Monkees, having been the first people outside their studio to view the pilot of the new TV show The Monkees and clips of the original screen tests by the four guys who were hired. KHJ did promotions with Batman (played by my old buddy from KGMB-Honolulu in the 50’s when he was Bill Anderson before arriving in Hollywood to become Adam West), Star Trek (imagine Mr. Spock in full costume lunching at Nickodell’s with The Real Don Steele at full volume!), Laugh In, Yellow Submarine, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and other bigtime TV shows and movies, all of which were great audience-grabbers for their producers and our radio station.
One day Berrigan told me that there was something special that had caught his eye, because of our Hawaii connection, and he dragged me to the first studio screening of Hawaii Five-0. I thought it was OK, that it would do well, but nothing to write home about, literally, for me. The show’s creator and producer, Leonard Freeman, asked Berrigan what I’d thought about the show and he passed on my comment that I felt the program needed a killer theme song that could get Top 40 airplay and thus drive more folks to check out the new program.
Several weeks later Freeman stopped by with a new record by The Ventures. It was their Surf Rock version of Mort Stevens' Hawaii Five-0 theme. If you are reading this I assume you know the rest of both stories, about the hit record and the even bigger TV success of the show itself. Recently I was asked by a local magazine to compare the original show with what has been racking up big ratings for CBS again, the second time around:
The updated version of television’s Hawaii Five-0, “Serves as a metaphor for change, both in Hollywood and here in Hawaii.” So says Eddie Sherman, longtime Honolulu newspaper columnist and close friend of the program’s creator, Leonard Freeman.
There are many differences between the original Hawaii 5-0 that aired on CBS from 1968 through 1980, and the reboot, which debuted on the same network in the summer of 2010.
As with any remake, there are constants: The profile landmark Diamond Head (the pointy-tipped extinct volcano situated east of Waikiki) and the jut-jawed hero, Steve McGarrett, head of a special police force assigned to clean up the worst local crimes, are familiar touchstones.
The original McGarrett was played by Jack Lord. From the start he made the role his own in a classic TV moment, appearing in the opening collage: a brief shot of stern, black-suited McGarrett standing perched on a lanai at the high-rise Ilikai hotel.
Australian Alex O'Loughlin is cast as McGarrett 2.0. He first pops up in 5-0’s new lead-in as a headshot, one section of a frame that includes images of the adventures to come. James Macarthur portrayed wingman Danny “Danno” Williams. Faithful 5-0 fans know that, “Book ‘em Dan-O,” usually concludes each episode as McGarrett orders his faithful subordinate to haul off the latest evil perpetrator to face his fate for the previous hour’s heinous happenings.
Other than name and rank, the new actors bear little resemblance to their 1960s predecessors. Genders and ethnicity have been switched: 5-0 member Kono Kalakaua from jolly, lumbering Hawaiian Gilbert Kauhi to super-model slim Grace Park, a Korean wahine born in Canada.
As in any good cops’n’robbers epic, vehicles are central to the action. Cars carry cops from point to point, often at high speeds, through daredevilish maneuvers. In reincarnated Hawaii 5-0, automobiles are the focus of breathtaking helicopter shots as they race along Oahu shoreline, foamy blue Pacific with the greenery that flanks the roads. Hawaii’s land and sea were made for hi-definition TV—or is it the other away around?
And, cars represent the most apparent techno contrast between old and new. While McGarrett motored through lesser, lazier traffic in his black Mercury Parklane Brougham four-door hardtop, the new dudes zip to crime scenes in their silver Chevrolet Camaro 2SS coupe (with an HPD blue light hidden in its grill).
Automobiles serve another purpose, according to writer Burl Burlingame, observer of the local scene since 1971. Strapped in, seated and schmoozing, today’s 5-0 team talks back-story, furthers plots or establishes their characters, in what Burlingame calls “Car Talk.”
In Book ‘Em, one of several local blogs that report on the series, Burlingame describes: “After the requisite montage of neon-colored everythings some Car Talk with the Cuzzes as they tool up near Nanakuli.”
This time around Kono and fellow officer Chin Ho are cousins. The latter, once portrayed by middle-aged, ex-cop Kam Fong, now is Daniel Day Kim, last seen Lost on another island.
In comparing the original and current versions, Burlingame says, “Television always reflects the popular culture zeitgeist. The original was a standard cop-show set in an exotic location, and the politics of the time leaned toward top-down management with the ‘public good’ being a given. Think of McGarrett as Big Daddy. We live now in a more fractured time with far less trust in public leadership.
“The new Five-0 crew relies on teamwork and technology and less on deductive skills. It’s also faster, more colorful, louder and the scripts make less sense. Hawaii is also not as exotic as it once was, and to an American audience, seems more like home.”
For Hawaii viewers, both then and now, analyzing TV's exciting exploits and rigorous "reality" is a favorite pastime. The current chases would short circuit Google maps—or drive tour drivers insane. For example, speeding through Waikiki, McGarrett 2011 whips into a screeching right turn. In real life his Chevy would crash into Kuhio Beach and submerge into the ocean. But, in reel life, the car next appears somewhere such as Haleiwa on the North Shore, or Halawa, close by Pearl Harbor.
Such “details,” along with spotting family and friends on screen, are a still a fun bonus for island viewers.
The first Hollywood cop story filmed on location in Honolulu was The Black Camel, in 1931. It featured Honolulu Police Inspector Charlie Chan and set the standard for cross-ethnic casting. Norwegian-born Warner Oland played the Chinese Chan.
Much has changed over 80 years, yet so much remains the same. One thing is constant: from Chan to Steve & Dan, audiences can’t get enough of mysteries set in the sweetest, most unique, of our United States. The compelling action always pays off. As Chan himself says in Black Camel, “Always harder to keep murder secret than for egg to bounce on sidewalk.”
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