Battle of the 80s Supercars

My love for Knight Rider is well known (and if not, it is now)  KITT (the Knight Industries Two Thousand) was a car ahead of it's time nearly forty years later we still haven't got everything that car could do.

The Battle of the 80s Supercars was in effect two specials in one.

The first part was David Hasselhoff driving around in KITT looking at the new wave of cars that were influenced by KITT and Knight Rider -  bulletproof cars, self driving cars, a self sufficent survival car, smart cars that you open through your watch as well as very fast cars.

In most cases, The Hoff drives the cars - there's part of me that imagines the creators of these vehicles were doing the "Knight Rider is driving my car" happy dance.  And it was fascinating to see what was currently being done.

There's a cool bit where the Hoff visits the desginer of KITT for the TV series and we see his design sketches for KITT.

The second part which was woven through the special was an 80s super car race -  now this was a great idea as a young boy in the 80s we had a number of supervehicles aside from KITT on TV:

• Blue Thunder (the one season spinoff from the movie), 
• Airwolf (helicopter), 
• Streethawk (motorcycle), 
• Automan's car, 
• the Coyote X from Hardcastle and McCormick, 
• The Highwayman's truck, 
• The A-Team van, 

and that is just off the top of my head.  (I was going to include Viper but that was in the 90s and we're not going into the Knight Rider spinoff TV Movies and series which would double the list alone.)

Okay we aren't doing the helicopters but that's an impressive list of vehicles and the producers got Dirk Bendict to drive the A Team Van - yes!  and Erik Estrada on his CHiPs bike - ah what now?

Now don't get me wrong CHiPs was a fine series and I have a feeling that my cousin Michael and I had CHiPs action figures but a) they were regular police motorcycles not super vehicles and b) CHiPs started in 1977.

A good chunk of the special had Erik Estrada hunting for his bike (which he did after accepting the challenge of the race) and Benedict getting the van serviced (at least he was spared running around looking for the van).

Really all they needed to do was what they did with Hasselhoff - make out that these guys were just driving around all the time in these vehicles.  I'm sure that most of us assume that to be the case anyway.

Partway through Hasselhoff runs into Morgan Fairchild who basically tells the Hoff  that she wishes he come last.  Morgan Freeman wasn't in any show even vaguely super car related, yeah she was in flashy soaps like Falcon Crest and Paper Dolls but why was she here?

We get to raceday and they get Catherine Bach (Daisy Duke from the Duke of Hazzard) as the race offical and starter which was a great idea, I suspect that instead of the four wheel drive she turned up in she was supposed to drive up in the General Lee, but given the sensitivity to the Confederate Flag these days that was sqashed,.  

The idea was first to win two races was the overall winner and I'm sure since this was Hasselhoff's special we can all guess who won.

The show ends with the Hoff talking a possible sequel with races with other super vehicles - that brought a huge grin to my face.

(I should mention that KITT brought the 

Jake Speed: The investigation closed

So I'm rather fond of Jake Speed (1986) which was a fun movie, which I reviewed here.  Then I discovered the prequel comic strip which was done as promo for the movie.




But the thing that had eluded me was the novelisation from Gold Eagle.  It has an ISBN (from Wikipedia "A novelization, written under the pseudonym Reno Melon, Jake and Des' writing nom de plume, was published on June 1, 1986, by Gold Eagle/Harlequin (ISBN 0-373-62102-7)."

Forces of Geek has a cover image, which may be a recreation from the movie.

The late Wayne Crawford said in an imdb post (from the now defunct message boards) that there was a novelisation. Amazon has a page for it.

The evidence all pointed that there was a novelisation.  People said that they had owned one that they had lost.

Then on facebook I found that Mark Ellis (who wrote for Gold Eagle under several names including James Axler) pointed out an article in the International Association of  Media Tie-In Writers newsletter.  by Ron Renauld.

Being a fan of serial vigilante TV, I recognised his name. Renauld wrote novelisations for Airwolf, Street Hawk and The A-Team both under his own name and under pennames Charles Heath and Jack Roberts. He says that those gigs got him his shot a Gold Eagle where he wrote several Able Team and Executioners but the first novel he was contracted to write was Jake Speed.  The movie's release was moved up six months and Gold Eagle scrapped publications plans and the book was never published.  So it was written but never published and the plans for publication would have included getting an ISBN before it was scrapped.

This mystery is solved ... for now.  Who knows the novel may come out or have gotten a facelift and been published (like 50 Shades of Grey started life as Twilight fanfic). 

There is a rumour that the first Jake Strait novel from Gold Eagle "Avenging Angel" by Frank Rich was a rewritten version of Jake Speed but the plot description "The city rises like an evil vision from its surrounding the heavily guarded suburbs, the garrisoned farmlands. Life is sweeter in the fortified elite Hill section where the privileged few live, but elsewhere the city makes its own rules for life and death.
Even in this ruthless, anything-goes world, Jake Strait has his limits-a line that he won't cross willingly. He won't do political jobs. But when a rich, pampered couple from Hill sets him up, he is drawn into a plot that plans to drench the city with blood." doesn't match up with what we saw in the movie at all..

Agent X (2015) - Pilot - Sharon Stone, Gerald McRainey and Jeff Hephner

Living in Australia can be interesting.  You hear about new TV shows from the States and hope that one of the networks here pick it up.  Sometimes it takes awhile (don't get me started on Season 2 of Arrow on Channel 9 or Agent Carter on 7) and other times we get fast tracked on the same day or within hours of the US or we just miss out.

So I hear about Agent X a couple of years back, the same time as The Player (Wesley Snipes and Philip Winchester), Limitless and Intelligence (Marge Helgenberger and Josh Holloway). All four shows have a few things in common, they had an interesting premise that I found interesting and they all lasted only 1 season.  Where Agent X differs from the other three, it never aired in Australia.



I had seen Agent X promos on YouTube and it seemed like an interesting variation on the President's Man films starring Chuck Norris.  With Agent X being the Vice-President's man.  As pointed out in the episode the founding father's gave the Vice-President almost no duties to free him or her up to run this agent.  I presume that the Vice-President has access to all the same briefings as the President and is able to discreetly send one agent to resolve threats to America.

So I found the pilot on line and I quite enjoyed it.  Littered with familiar faces: Jamie Sheridan (Arrow), Sharon Stone (Catwoman, King Solomon's Mines) Mike Colter (Luke Cage), John Shea (Lois and Clark, Mutant X) and Gerald McRainey (The A-Team movie, Simon & Simon).

The premise isn't the most original but the use of a Vice-President was an idea I hadn't seen before.  I presume that as the series progresses we find out more about John Case.

New Pulp TV Series

So after the top 50 New Pulp Movies list a couple posts back, I decided to do a New Pulp TV series list.  I've put them in alphabetical order (more so I don't double up) and not to play favourites.

1.      Adventure Inc

2.      Agent Carter

3.      Agent X

4.      Airwolf

5.      Arrow

6.      Bugs

7.      Burn Notice

8.      Daredevil

9.      Darkwing Duck

10.   Human Target

11.   Intelligence

12.   Jack of All Trades

13.   Jonny Quest

14.   Kim Possible

15.   Knight Rider/Team Knight Rider/Knight Rider 2008

16.   Legend

17.   Leverage

18.   MacGyver/MacGyver 2016

19.   Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

20.   Now and Again

21.   Nowhere Man

22.   Person of Interest

23.   Queen of Swords

24.   Relic Hunter

25.   Sable

26.   Sam Fox Extreme Adventures

27.   Soldier of Fortune Inc/ Special Ops Force

28.   Stingray

29.   Street Hawk

30.   Tales of the Golden Monkey

31.   Terra Nova

32.   The A-Team

33.   The Adventures of Briscoe County Jnr

34.   The Cape

35.   The Deep

36.   The Equalizer

37.   The  Finder

38.   The Green Hornet

39.   The Librarians

40.   The Mummy: The Animated Series

41.   The Persuaders

42.   The Player

43.   The Pretender

44.   The Punisher

45.   The Sentinel

46.   Transporter: The Series

47.   Vengeance Unlimited

48.   Veritas: The Quest

49.   Veronica Mars

50.   Young Indiana Jones Chronicles

Death Wish (2017) Trailer

So this came out the other day much to my surprise.  I had heard rumblings that a Death Wish remake was in the cards but I hadn't heard anything for some time and I presumed that it was stuck in some type of development hell.

If I'm reading it right this is a remake of the 1974 film and not a reinterpretation of Brian Garfield's 1972 novel.

One of the obvious changes from both sources is the action is moved to Chicago but that's not too big a deviation as the main character Paul Kersey (in the movies) and Paul Benjamin (in the books) moves to Chicago at the end of both.  The novel's sequel Death Sentence by Brian Garfield was set in Chicago.  (The odd numbered movies are set in New York and the even numbered in Los Angeles, the 2007 Kevin Bacon movie Death Sentence (Based on the novel) was set in Columbia, South Carolina)

The film seems to create a visual call back to Unbreakable (as Willis' David Dunn wears his rain poncho with the hood up in the same way as Dr Paul Kersey wears the hood up on his hoodie)  and I've seen it pointed out the visual similarity of Paul Kersey to Denzel Washington's Robert  McCall in The Equalizer 2014.

The script was written by Joe Carnahan who wrote and directed Smoking Aces and The A Team, and has written the script for the Uncharted movie.

I'm intrigued by this movie and I look forward to seeing it.

50 New Pulp Movies

Recently Derrick Ferguson announced that he was doing a list of 50 New Pulp movies.  The end result can be found here

When he announced it, it for shits and giggles I thought I'd try and see how well I'd go at predicting what would be on his list.

So here is my list the ones in red weren't on Derrick's list.

50 New Pulp Movies

1. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins

2. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

3. Sahara

4. Indiana Jones Quartet

5. The Rocketeer

6. Sky Captain

7. Hudson Hawk

8. Our Man Flint/In like Flint

9. High Road to China

10. Darkman

11. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou

12. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

13. The Fifth Element

14. The Phantom

15. Romancing the Stone

16. Jake Speed

17. Dark Avenger

18. Dark Knight trilogy

19. King Kong 2005

20. Kong Skull Island

21. The Mummy Trilogy

22. The Goonies

23. Cutthroat Island

24. Sunset

25. Shoot em up

26. Captain America: The First Avenger

27. Atlantis the Lost Empire

28. The Punisher 2004

29. Big Trouble in Little China

30. National Treasure

31. Cast a Deadly Spell

32. The Black Mask

33. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen

34. Brotherhood of the Wolf

35. The Black Samurai

36. The Black Scorpion

37. Billy Jack

38. Congo

39. Machete

40. The Man with the Iron Fists

41. Second Hand Lions

42. The Specialist

43. The Transporter

44. Cleopatra Jones

45. Coffy

46. Foxy Brown

47. Black Belt Jones

48. The Equaliser

49. The A Team

50. The President's Man

So with only 14 out of 50, I'm a poor prophet of Derrick's choices but it just shows the wide range of New Pulp movies out there (that is movies from after the 1950s in the pulp style)

The A-Team: The Mystery of Sue.

As a fan of 80s TV series I collect the UK annuals that came out over the years.  Recently I acquired the first annual for the A Team which is copyright 1984.



As you can see the full team are there Mr T as B.A. Dwight Shultz as Murdock, George Peppard as Hannibal, Dirk Benedict as Face and Melinda Culea as Amy.

Inside are five text stories, two comic strip stories, a profile of the four male members of the A Team, a Murdock Themed Plane Quiz (five planes are shown one is the product of Murdock's imagination which one, a "humour" page with B.A. at the Day Care centre.  Well I assume they were meant to be funny because they weren't.

So I read the first story Swamp Wreck, there's no Amy but there is a Sue who fills much the same role.  Sue appears in the next story the comic "Buried Alive."

The third story "When the War came back" had Zoe in the role.

Amy finally appears in "Seizure at Sneekerville".

Sue reappears in the comic "....Bring him back Alive." and the text story "The Scuzzball Diamond Set-To" .

In the final story "Hard Times in Hawaii" Ann is with the Team.

Lastly there is a board game "Get..The A-Team" where you have to collect the five members of the A Team Face, B.A, Murdock, Hannibal and Sue.  complete with pictures of the actors. 

Except Sue wasn't in the TV series

Who the hell is Sue? 

The picture isn't Melinda Culea, perhaps it was a guest star in the first season.  Looking through the cast lists for the season -Sue Beth appears in "The Rabbit who ate Los Vegas"  played by Michelle Avonne, an actress who appeared in five things and has no photos on the internet except this one



I watch the episode and she looks nothing like Sue from the Annual, nor does Katherine Moffatt who played Sue Beth's friend Darlene.  The episode isn't clear which character is which.

I show my wife and she points out that Sue looks a little like Patricia Richardson from Home Improvement.  I find a 1983 ad Patricia had done



Maybe  then I look at her filmography and in 1984 she did a show called Double Trouble

Where her hairdo looks a lot like that seen in the picture she appears at 0;32

 

 

I have no idea why they picked that photo of Patricia Richardson - she never appeared in the A-Team.  There were no characters called Sue in her filmography.

 

I have even less of a clue who Zoe and Amy are -  if I were to speculate there is a 10 year period while the A Team is on the run before they meet Amy Allen perhaps these women helped the team during that period.