Fri 24 May 2019
Saturday, February 7.
CONCRETE COWBOYS. “Pilot.” CBS, 60m. Season 1, Episode 1. Jerry Reed, Geoffrey Scott. Guest Cast: Billy Barty, Michael Fox, Phil Harris, Belinda Montgomery.
This is the replacement series for Secrets of Midland Heights, and a greater contrast between two shows is hard to imagine. Stars: Jerry Reed, with Geoffrey Scott, who takes the place of Tom Selleck (now of Magnum, P.I.), who had the part in the made-for-TV movie/pilot for the series.
If you’ve seen Jerry Reed act before, as in Smoky and the Bandit, the example that comes to mind right away, you know what to expect. He and Scott are a couple of happy-go-lucky guitar-pickin’ good-ol-boys (forgive the hyphens) out on the road, looking for a good time, and good con.
Phil (“That’s What I Like About the South”) Harris plays an old buddy of Jerry Reed’s, and he has 15 minutes in this opening episode before someone Reed has taken $4000 from in a poker game bumps him off. Why isn’t [it] Reed who is killed is hard to say, except of course it Phil Harris is not the star of the series.
Part two of our two buddies’ revenge will play next week, but as for me, I’m going to miss Jordan Christopher as the poor little rich girl’s evil Uncle Guy in Midland Heights. Now there was somebody you could really hate!
[UPDATE.] The series was broadcast on CBS from February 7 to March 21, 1981 and cancelled after seven episodes.
May 24th, 2019 at 3:45 pm
I’ve never heard of either of these shows!
May 25th, 2019 at 3:12 pm
As a TV series, my mentioning of Secrets of Midland Heights meant nothing to me either. I had to look it up on Wikipedia, and still nothing came back.
It’s described as a “dark, 1980s-style Peyton Place, both dealing with hidden secrets and scandalous affairs in a small town.” Among the cast members were Linda Hamilton, Bibi Besch, Lorenzo Lamas, and Jordan Christopher. It lasted eight weeks, one more than Concrete Cowboys, which took over the time slot after it was canceled.
I must have watched it, but any memory of it is totally gone.
May 24th, 2019 at 9:44 pm
Concrete seemed to describe everyone’s head on this one. I tuned out as soon as Phil Harris character died, he was an old family friend and the only reason I tuned in.
Frankly, even the television movie it was based on wasn’t that great.
May 25th, 2019 at 3:17 pm
I remember Phil Harris largely from his days on Old Time Radio, first as a regular on JACK BENNY, then as the star of his own series, THE PHIL HARRIS-ALICE FAYE SHOW. In person I have read that he was a lot more soft-spoken than he was in either of his roles on radio.
May 26th, 2019 at 8:40 pm
His film persona was just that.