MALLINation

Ah, the 80s.  If you wanted original programming you had your three networks (until Fox came along at the end of the decade and HBO jumped into original shows around the same time) plus PBS. Nowadays you’d have to go to the likes of the Sci-Fi Channel… oh excuse me, SyFy to see the level of cheese on display below.

What did you need to launch a show in the 80s? A cool vehicle (whether it be a motorcycle, car, helicopter, or boat) a slab of beef for a leading man with a  name like Rex or Perry, a crusty lieutenant type, a woman with big hair and shoulder pads, and a kick ass theme song.

Automan

Automan was an early 80s view of high-tech which was like Tron turned inside out – picture the pitch meeting:  “Instead of the guy getting sucked into the computer, the computer is  a guy who gets sucked into our world!” Where he befriends charisma-free Desi Arnaz Jr. Quick, let me back in! Along for the ride is Cursor, a “special effect”that doesn’t quite earn the sobriquet “special” but does appear to be a bit of a digital horndog. Love the font. Bonus points for having their slab of beef be computer generated.

Riptide

A mangy crossbreed of the helicopter show genre (there was such a thing – witness Blue Thunder and Airwolf), comical detective show, and geek chic plus a soupcon of Miami Vice‘s seaside setting. The rawkin’ guitar and Mike Post theme song credit is a giveaway that 70s and 80s cheese master Stephen J. (Magnum P.I.) Cannell is behind the scenes though this lesser show failed to light up the ratings. Make my slab of beef a double.

The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo

A spinoff of a show that was itself a cheese landmark, Greg Evigan’s starmaking vehicle BJ and The Bear, this stuntmen’s meal ticket starred country singer Claude Akins in the title role. Imagine if the Smokey and the Bandit movies were about Jackie Gleason‘s character, only played with a lot less verve and no cussing. Where’s the (slab of) beef?

Hello Larry

Maclean Stevensen’s career post-M*A*S*H had vital signs that resembled one of Frank Burns’ patients. This was yet another comeback attempt. I’d summarize the plot but the theme song does that for you, in excruciating detail. What it doesn’t explain is Meadowlark Lemon’s involvement. Meadowlark – fire your agent!

Street Hawk

Knight Rider with a motorcycle, what could go wrong? Rex Smith is the slab of beef designated as the lead, a pre-Murphy Brown Joe Regalbuto is the geek factor and the theme song is ripe for a re-working as a rap backing track.

Hardcastle and McCormick

A steakhouse of intrigue? Roaming accountants? Nay, Hardcastle and McCormick were judge and ex-con bound together to fight crime with a fast car. Daniel Hugh-Kelly is admittedly a high grade slab of beef and Brain Keith as the judge is a long way from the charming 60s bachelor-dad-com Family Affair. The tire budget must have been substantial going by the smoky burnouts and chirping 180s that are the show’s stock in trade.

Manimal

The improbably named Simon MacCorkindale led this fantasy about a dude who could shape shift into a handful of animals via pre-filmed transformation footage that rarely matched the surrounding scenes.  Here the feeling at the network seemed to be that the theme footage (and title) didn’t tell viewers enough to figure out the basic outline so they include some helpful exposition. Next time, try lyrics a la Hello Larry. Bonus points for using a horse as cool vehicle.

Whiz Kids

Nerds! You expect Ogre to jump out of the Hardcastle and McCormick credits to come on down here and kick some nerd ass. But he doesn’t. Instead we get lame magic, the kid from Little House, Barney Miller‘s Wojo sans hairpiece, and the lovely Andrea Elson who made my 12 year jockey shorts chafe when she played the violin. Too much information?

Hart to Hart

The best expositional voiceover ever? At least the best on this list. “When they met, it was moider…” If he were still alive, I’d want Lionel Stander as my GPS device voice. The theme is double time disco with a delicious horn intro that sounds like a Mack truck that went to finishing school and you get lots of Hollywood’s hottest dead spouse (Wagner’s wife Natalie Wood died under mysterious circumstances on their boat during a three person party involving Christopher Walken while Powers husband William Holden died non-mysteriously of cancer during the show’s run) non-couple in action. Bonus points for using a plane as cool vehicle.

TJ Hooker

Shatner running full speed is a special effect in and of itself. See him grab onto a car hood! See his stunt double do all the work! Adrian Zmed is a lean cut of beef to be sure but then you’ve got a slice of cheese cake that is Heather Locklear, the pin-up Beatles to Heather Thomas’ (see The Fall Guy below) Stones. How many different vehicles does Shatner subdue in this intro? Lots, including a school bus and a small plane.

Helltown

The video quality may be bad but believe me, the show is worse. Creepy murderer Robert Blake was still just the quirky dude from Baretta and somehow producers thought that viewers would swallow his ghetto priest character if they got a past his prime Sammy Davis Jr. to warble the theme song as he did for that earlier show.  But wait, you get Whitman Mayo’s head superimposed over a hungry goat, lots of nuns, cattle, even a black cat. Looks like a casting call for Manimal.

Foul Play

Remember the slight but charming comedy suspense caper starring Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn. Well this is the TV version and its exactly the same! Only there’s some lady as Goldie and Barry Bostwick in the Chevy role. But that’s better, right? Just like disco-ing up the Barry Manilow theme from the film is an improvement. Hey same shot of Highway 1 as in the movie. Mostly.

Hunter

The slab of beef in this case is pro football refugee Fred Dryer. The big hair and shoulder pads is the lovely and overqualified Stephanie Kramer. The vehicle is a Dodge Daytona, by all accounts an anemic piece of 80s automotive trash (basically a K-Car with a turbo engine and a swoopier body) that’s thrown around here like a Lamborghini. Don’t be fooled by the Mike Post theme song, this one is produced by Cannell’s sometime partner Frank Lupo.

The Fall Guy

Boy as a singer that Lee Majors sure is a good actor! The tongue-in-cheek theme song sets the tone for the stunt heavy show with Majors as beef supreme and Douglass Barr as a junior patty. Markie Post brings the hair and pads in her pre- Night Court days and Heather Thomas is an animated pin-up there to make up for the lack of a crusty lieutenant type.

Small Wonder

A change of pace from the relentless shoot-em-ups on this list, instead we have a pre-feminist creation myth set to 50s style easy listening tripe. All the men on this show look like Botero paintings.

The Powers of Matthew Star

I’m Lou Gossett Jr., and I’ll be providing expositional voiceover for this inspiring story of an alien prettyboy who comes to earth as a refugee, and then dates cheerleaders and develops his awesome poers to, us, move books. Hey he’s on the football team! This is the least alienated alien ever. You’ll just have to take my word for the fact that their are exciting run-ins with enemy assassins and so forth since you won’t see any of that action in the intro.

The Pheonix

Ancient astronauts leave a gift for mankind in some South American pyramid, a purse-lipped fellow devoid of body hair who resembles Space: 1999 star Barbara Bain. Only prettier. Is that James Earl Jones doing the voiceover?

Stingray

So the guy’s git a nice car – is that enough to build a show around? Sure when your main character is a slab of beef named Ray (or “Identity Unknown” according to this credit sequence). Occupation: Unknown? We call that unemployed round these parts. Anyhoo he does seem to have a sideline in shadow puppetry, glasses wearing, and the same kind of quasi-Masonic symbiology used in the credit sequence for The Phoenix.

Tales of The Gold Monkey

This Indiana Jones ripoff answers the burning question: What did the dad from Seventh Heaven do before that show and after his role in Star Trek: The Motion Picture? The answer is, he starred opposite a dog in a leather eyepatch as a Harrison Ford wannabee. Sure he’s low on the slab of beef meter but he does get the cool transportation right with a seaplane. Roddy McDowell must have had the same agent as Meadowlark Lemon.

Cover Up

How’s THIS for slabs of beef – it’s like a butchers shop in here. Sadly star Jon Erik-Hexum ended up on a slab himself after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a prop gun. Which makes his credit in especially poor taste Nevertheless it’s nice to see a credit sequence that dares to juxtapose the world of modeling with the world of soldiering, an implicit indictment of Reagen-era America’s superficiality in the face of it’s undeclared wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Or maybe it’s just plain cheesy editing.

Matt Houston

“Get me a Magnum!” was undoubtedly the cry from a TV executive jealous of the success of Tom Selleck’s action detective series on CBS. His minions delivered the equine monikered Lee Horsley, a supreme slab of beef. This whole credit sequence looks like the setup for a Will Ferrell movie. And then there’s Buddy Ebsen as Uncle Roy. Killer theme song though.