CHiPs

CHiPS was such a fun show to watch. I loved watching Jon and Ponch racing those big Kowasakis chasing after the bad guys. It's a shame that plain old fun, action-packed shows like this aren't on the air anymore. Next to Dukes of Hazzard, this was the most fun show on the air from the 70s!

'CHiPs' is one of the most fun TV shows ever aired. It is a genuine feel good show, and each episode usually taught us a lesson. Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox make great partners and are both underrated actors. 'CHiPs' has some of the most horrific car crashes ever seen on television. Add to that the great early 80's vibe the series has, and you can't go wrong. God bless CHiPs!

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!

Officers Francis "Ponch" Ponchorello and Jon Baker were the CORNIEST cool guys in the history of Hollywood TV. Make no mistake, these dudes were cool. Two young and reasonably handsome guys, athletic and fit looking while living that romantic fast life in Southern California. They were the man on bikes, high pursuit cops who enforced the law. Off duty their weekends could be spent jet skiing, sailing or sky diving, when the rest of us are off at the movies or perhaps hanging out at the mall. They also had the badge and gun, the uniforms, and of course the bikes that they would race at 90 mph on the highways while chasing bad guys, they were cool dudes. Then of course they romanced plenty of disco era honeys. But Ponch and Jon were not cool cool, they were just too over the top corny and Ponch was way too hammy. Then there was that silly freeze frame smile they all did at the end of the show. If you are over considerably over 40 today you probably think CHiPs is ridiculous because you were likely a teenager or young adult back then and you yourself were just too hip and cool back in the day to have appreciated CHiPs. And if you are 25 and under today then you are likely on the other side of being too cool for CHiPs because you may think the show is just flat out stupid. The series would likely look way too old for much of the early 20s and teenager crowd. The show had silliness, but not Dukes of Hazzard or Knight Rider silliness, Ponch and Jon were still grounded in something very close to our real world. If you are a middle-late Gen Xer born in the 70s and had a childhood in the 80s, then CHiPs was part of your syndicated TV diet. You know you watched.

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.