Tue 23 Sep 2014
A TV Review by Michael Shonk: BLUE THUNDER “Second Thunder” (1984)
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[25] Comments
“Second Thunder.” An episode of BLUE THUNDER. ABC, 6 January 1984. Rastar Production Inc and Public Arts Inc in association with Sony Pictures Television. Cast: James Farentino as Frank Chaney, Dana Carvey as “Jafo” Wonderlove, Sandy McPeak as Captain Braddock, Bubba Smith as Bubba, Dick Butkus as “Ski” and Ann Cooper as J. J. Douglas. Guest Cast: Richard Lynch. Executive Producer: Roy Huggins. Co-Executive Producer: David Moessinger. Producers: Jeri Taylor and Donald A. Baer. Teleplay by David Moessinger and Jeri Taylor. Story by Fred McKnight. Directed by Gilbert Shilton.
There are very few reasons to remember this series unless you were a young person during 1984 and enjoyed watching helicopters and explosions.
The success of the film BLUE THUNDER in 1983 led Columbia Pictures (owned by Sony) to adapt the idea into a TV series. ABC bought the idea and scheduled it as a mid-season replacement for Friday at 9 to 10pm (Eastern).
According to TVTango.com, the first episode “Second Thunder” received the ratings of 17.9 versus CBS’s DALLAS (25.4) and NBC’s Movie THE JERK, TOO (9.6 overall). The series was quickly cancelled with only 11 episodes filmed and aired.
The most positive part of this was that one of television’s most creative producers, Roy Huggins, came out of semi-retirement to executive produce (showrun) the series.
However, Huggins did not last long. As he explained, “The people at ABC wanted to produce the show. I wasn’t being allowed to produce the show, so I quit. I had the same argument 35 years ago when I started television. These people weren’t even born then.” (ROY HUGGINS: CREATOR OF MAVERICK, 77 SUNSET STRIP, THE FUGITIVE AND THE ROCKFORD FILES by Paul Green, McFarland 2014)
The series attempted to mimic the film’s style but not its substance. There was a key difference between the two as the TV version approved of the idea of local police possessing top military hardware while the movie’s had the opposite view. Oh, and one of the character’s nickname “Jafo” bowed to TV censors and the f stood for “frustrated” (“Just Another Frustrated Observer”) rather than the stronger f word used in the film.
The first episode “Second Thunder” featured a drug smuggler with a grudge against Blue Thunder’s pilot Frank. The bad guy P.V.C. is willing to kill as many people as necessary to get Frank to meet him in a shoot-out in the sky. Frank is willing, but his Captain won’t let him because it is not by the book.
Currently all eleven episodes are available to view on You Tube, but BLUE THUNDER was released on DVD in 2006. Here is “Second Thunder.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBVvf_o3Hos
The problems of this episode and the series overall are obvious – lack of budget, bad writing, and a cliché cast of characters. You know what you are in for when the helicopter Blue Thunder is the most interesting character.
In this episode, James Farentino came off smug and annoying as the self-centered rogue pilot Lt. Frank Chaney. Dana Carvey was tolerable as the too cute character “Jafo,” the navigator and computer expert. As if Carvey was not enough humor the series featured the comedic relief team of Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith, two ex-football players in real life and in character, who manned the “Rolling Thunder” a giant van that supplied ground support and offer something to go with the helicopter should any toy company be interested.
Sandy McPeak offered nothing new playing the by the book grumpy Captain Braddock who dislikes Frank and exists only for gratuitous character conflict. Only Richard Lynch gave a nice performance as the cliché villain with a less than sane sense of humor.
While TV series have starred helicopters before (WHIRLYBIRDS (Syndicated, 1957), CHOPPER ONE (ABC, 1974), etc), the season of 1983-84 featured two, BLUE THUNDER and CBS’s AIRWOLF. The latter was the more successful of the two with viewers. BLUE THUNDER may have had the better helicopter but AIRWOLF offered more interesting characters, relationships that interested the viewer and better stories.
Granted the series was aimed at a young audience but the writing was horrible by even kid TV standards. The script was burdened by too many amateurish writing errors such as characters that told us what was happening as if this was radio and we couldn’t see.
“Here they come with the bomb,” Jafo announces as we watch the bomb squad arrive carrying the bomb.
Somehow they resisted labeling that device as “The Bomb,” but every gadget used in Blue Thunder had a button that would light up with its name so when Frank told “Jafo” to use some gadget such as “whisper mode” a button lit up with “whisper mode” on it.
The villain’s name P.V.C. was pointless when the intent was it to be mysterious. The writers made the mistake of having Captain Braddock comment about how mysterious it was but then never answered the mystery. The villain’s end would insult the intelligence of a comic book reader. (It did mine.)
Weak acting with bad characters and inept writing, you would think they would at least get the star’s scenes right. But even the air action with Blue Thunder was flawed by a lack of budget that forced the use of too many reused shots and footage from the film.
Toss in bad production values such as cheap sets and locations that had been overused by THE A-TEAM and you give up trying to find any redeeming value to this TV series.
And it was not just this one episode; for example in the last episode “The Island” Bubba and Ski take their positions behind barrels marked petrol for their gun battle with the bad guys.
Thanks to the DVD and the helicopter there are several reviews of BLUE THUNDER on the Internet, yet none I found mentioned Roy Huggins.
I wonder what kind of series BLUE THUNDER would have been if ABC had let Huggins have his way. It is interesting that the next series Huggins would work on was NBC’s HUNTER when Stephen J. Cannell asked him to take over after the disastrous first season. One of Huggins first changes with HUNTER was to feature less action and focus more on developing the characters. Funny, that is just what BLUE THUNDER needed (and some decent Huggins approved writers).
September 24th, 2014 at 1:26 am
The granddaddy of all these ‘the car’s the star’ type shows was KNIGHTRIDER The early 80s had loads of theses sorts of series, where the expensive vehicle was the centre of interest There was a series called STREET HAWK, about a man on a superpowered motorbike that could do 300mph (don’t fall off…)but it suffered from the same paper thin characters as BLUE THUNDER. You’re right that AIRWOLF was far better than BLUE THUNDER, but then the producers did have the sense to make the connection between the heroes and the powers-that-be rather more ambivalent.
September 24th, 2014 at 1:30 am
I remember seeing the movie BLUE THUNDER (1983) in the theater when it first came out. I was pretty young then, but I remember it being fairly violent, even to my elementary school action loving sensibilities.
I quite enjoyed AIRWOLF. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve enjoyed most of the Bellisario action TV series, from Magnum to Airwolf to NCIS
September 24th, 2014 at 12:21 pm
#1. Transportation has always had a special appeal to us, from Alley Oop and his dinosaur to the cowboy and his horse, from the PI and his car to the space traveler and his/hers ship.
But the successful stories remember the item must belong to the person not overwhelm the human for attention in the story. It has to be The Lone Ranger’s Silver and Captain Kirk’s Enterprise. BLUE THUNDER was more about the toy than the people.
September 24th, 2014 at 12:32 pm
#2. Bellisario has never gotten the attention he deserves for producing successful TV series (don’t forget JAG). His series have never been original enough to attract the critics’ praise nor the cult audiences the media obsesses on. Even the networks tend to ignore his work. NCIS was ignored by CBS for years over the CSI shows.
It is sad to see what has happened to him since he left NCIS. The show went to number one and now gets attention, then there was his loss in court over NCIS LA (he claimed it was a spin-off from his work and deserved a bigger piece, the court disagreed).
September 24th, 2014 at 3:47 pm
I think I watched the credits on this one and turned back to DALLAS.
Smug, annoying, and self centered ‘were’ James Farentino’s television persona. I can’t recall him in anything, including COOL MILLION, where he wasn’t that way but the producers kept trying to force his charmless personality down viewers throats in series after series, all of which failed as soon as they cast him. He had a remarkably long career for an actor whose specialty was being so smug the audience wouldn’t accept him as the hero. If he was a nice guy in person he had a real problem showing it on the screen.
KNIGHTRIDER worked because the car had William Daniels voice and personality, the rest of the mechanical ones didn’t — this one being one of three helicopter based series of the period (AIRHAWK and RIPTIDE), and WHIRLYBIRDS dates back way before that with Kenneth Tobey and Larry Pennell. Most of them just prove helicopters aren’t particularly good vehicles for narrative drama. These were so common after KNIGHTRIDER its a surprise they didn’t do a series called SCHWIN about the bike riding park police.
September 24th, 2014 at 5:17 pm
I enjoyed Blue Thunder in 1983, and haven’t sen it since then until today.
I very much recall its big appeal: I identified with the computer whiz character (Dana Carvey), and as a computer professional myself, daydreamed about what it would be like to be the the onboard computer whiz of the high tech helicopter. Similarly, I liked the scientist (Joe Regalbuto) who invented the motorcycle on Street Hawk. Cue the Tangerine Dream theme music!
I also liked Riptide and Knightrider. But I didn’t like the handful of Airwolf episodes seen, at all. No longer remmber why.
Am halfway through a Blue Thunder episode on youtube.It’s not Ugetsu – but then Ugetsu doesn’t have a helicopter 🙂
This episode is “Trojan Horse”.
Hero Farentino is going after a big time crooked financier who looted a a lot of poor people’s pensions. And he’s defying his superior to do it. He doesn’t seem “self-centered” to me.
September 24th, 2014 at 5:57 pm
5. There are many TV series featuring a helicopter, even MAGNUM PI.
While not a fan, I think you underestimate the appeal of that other David, this one named Hasselhoff. If it was just the car and William Daniels the remakes would have done better. I thought KNIGHT RIDER was bad TV, mindless junk, but the relationship between Hasselhoff and the car was what I think sold the show to the public.
September 24th, 2014 at 6:09 pm
6. Mike, I am not as hard on Farentino as David was. I liked him in some of the stuff he did. He is better here than he was in the sitcom MARY. His character grew less smug after the first episode and by the last episode Frank was a pale copy of the character we saw in episode one.
Mike, do you see anything but cliches with these characters? They are all stock characters that even in 1984 had been overused.
Oh, I forgot to mention in the answer to David in #7. James Farentino was not a nice man off stage suffering from many demons.
September 25th, 2014 at 1:22 am
The reason that I watched KNIGHTRIDER was neither liking The Hoff or the admittedly cool car,but rather because I had a crush on Patricia McPherson, who played jump-suited mechanic Bonnie (sigh).
September 25th, 2014 at 5:58 am
One more thing about “Trojan Horse”: the script constantly reminds us that hero Farentino is a Federal agent.
It’s like GUNSMOKE, where much is made of Matt Dillon being a Federal marshal, and taking his orders from Washington DC.
September 25th, 2014 at 9:47 am
9. One of the standards to TV aimed at the younger audience is to have eye candy for Dad, pretty woman who doubles as the character young females could identify with. BLUE THUNDER had J.J. Douglas played by Ann Cooper.
The reason I reviewed just one episode rather than the entire series was I could not stand the thought of watching eleven hours of this mess. Mike Grost might help us here and tell us what role if any J.J. played in the series. She was in the last minute of the first episode. “Jafo” hit on her, she repeatedly said no, and after she left Jafo told everyone she obviously wanted him. I can’t remember her in any of the other few episodes I watched.
September 25th, 2014 at 10:06 am
10. I understand why ABC wanted a kid show and the studio and Huggins wanted an adult action series. ABC was counter programming CBS’ hit DALLAS. I enjoy YA fiction (DR WHO for example) but one of its potential problems is when the story is being done by people who talk down to the audience. BLUE THUNDER did this.
From what I have seen, it is my opinion ABC network executives deserve all the blame for this series. You can see the lack of time and money in the result on screen. Writers-Producers David Moessinger and Jeri Taylor had just finished running QUINCY M.E. Moessinger credits include MURDER SHE WROTE and SIMON AND SIMON. Taylor credits include MAGNUM PI and STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION. These two were better writers than what aired on BLUE THUNDER.
I can imagine the notes the staff got from ABC, “make it clearer that Frank is a Federal Agent,” “make it clearer that those two people have the bomb,” etc.
September 25th, 2014 at 3:14 pm
It’s interesting that you reference DR WHO, in that I’ve recently been reading some interviews with the people who wrote and produced that show during the 70s They were very emphatic about the fact that the show had to be able to be viewed on several different levels. The youngest viewers would be entertained by the monsters and the action scenes, but there was enough meat to the stories that would appeal to the oldest parts of the audience. I recall one of the stories called THE SUNMAKERS, where an apparently straightforward ‘rebels defeat oppressive alien regime’ conceals a comic attack on the British tax system, with a plethora of gags that would fly straight over the head of the kids. As one of the interviewees said “It doesn’t matter how much you’re paying (or not paying) on the production. A good script costs no more money than a bad one”.
September 25th, 2014 at 3:23 pm
I was talking about how Farentino generally came across on screen, because even with a series like COOL MILLION that I wanted to watch his personality turned me off. The cool came off smug, he always seemed to be one breath away from preening in a mirror, and I couldn’t see his charm — something that seemed to be true of more people than me considering his record of failed series.
Once in a while actors come along that for some reason studios or producers keep trying to force down the audience throat and it just doesn’t work. Farentino felt that way to me: “Well, they didn’t like him in this, let’s try this.” Successful or not producers do have blind spots.
I was always surprised they didn’t work with those qualities because you can have a protagonist in a successful television series who doesn’t have to be ‘likable’ if the writing is good enough. Farentino was no Hasslehoff on screen, but they could have gone darker and let him be Farentino.
I’m not talking about his character on screen in any individual role or series, but his off screen persona that no amount of writing or direction seemed able to change.
As for the Hof, without him the whole Kit thing would not work, and did not when they tried to revive it. I wasn’t a fan of the series, it was too much like a live action Gerry and Sylvia Anderson ‘Supermarianation’ series for me, but Daniels and Hof did have appeal — sadly, for me at least, the only appeal of the series.
I will point out that a great many more people reacted to Farentino and BLUE THUNDER the way I did than the way Mike did, though everyone likes different things for different reasons, and maybe if I had seen it when I was 14 and not 34 I might have felt differently.
And didn’t DALLAS run at the 10pm Eastern (9 Central)spot on CBS? What genius put a YA series on that late on Friday night when no self respecting YA was home. Who would schedule an action series that late on the one night it was unlikely to have an audience? It sounds to me like they knew this was going straight to the toilet and guaranteed it by scheduling it when they did.
September 25th, 2014 at 6:14 pm
13. I have been watching DR WHO since the 70s Tom Baker era. I am now a long time fan who has viewed episodes featuring all the Doctors. Only the first Doctor is obviously aimed at children. But if you look hard you can see the effort to appeal to young and old in all the Doctors that followed. DOCTOR WHO knew kids could process the story without being treated as idiots.
Watching the modern Who versus the older simpler Who shows how more aware of the outside real world children have become.
It is a shame ABC’s BLUE THUNDER didn’t have the trust in the young audience intelligence.
September 25th, 2014 at 6:45 pm
Michael
Dr. Who is actually being written, made, and stars people who grew up watching it on television now.
I agree that only the first Doctor was really for children, it was more educational than science fiction then, and over the years it has become hipper and since this new series began very much more adult oriented.
I can recall once at a science fiction that Harlan Ellison. myself, and a couple of others on a panel (a friend ran the thing and one of the guests didn’t show so I was drafted) argued with David Gerrold and Andy Offut and most of the audience that Dr. Who was the greatest television SF show ever and STAR TREK a distant second, and Who actually real SF while ST was not. You can imagine that wasn’t a really popular opinion then.
September 25th, 2014 at 6:58 pm
14. David, like you I wondered why Farentino was hired so often by Hollywood. Then I looked at his bio. I was surprised he was a regular in only two series before BLUE THUNDER – BOLD ONES (lawyer) (1969-72) and COOL MILLION (1972). All three series had Roy Huggins involved in the beginning.
Farentino began on Broadway and would become one of Universals Contract players. I suspect that had much to do with his countless guest appearances on countless TV series. A good looking white guy was a popular type during that era. I suspect his Q rating was high (a measurement used by advertisers and networks to check on how recognizable and popular actors where with the public).
After BLUE THUNDER he starred in two sitcoms MARY (1985-86) starring Mary Tyler Moore and JULIA (1992) starring Julie Andrews. Neither series was very good, but while he didn’t help the shows he was not the reason they failed.
His personal life was a real mess, especially his life with women. He was convicted of stalking Tina Sinatra, had a bust for cocaine, and for battery. Towards the end of his life he found it harder and harder to get work. The Sinatra case still taints his reputation in Hollywood even now after his death a few years ago.
To me, during the days of three major networks, counter programming made more sense then trying to reach the same audience. ABC often in it past took on other networks hits with kids shows from BATMAN to HAPPY DAYS.
Friday was always a hard night to program for the networks because it was date night but remember ABC’s biggest successes on that night were during the kid programming of TGIF (FULL HOUSE, etc). Think Mom and Dad with pre-teens.I am willing to bet ABC was talking to toy makers before they dumped the series.
September 25th, 2014 at 7:11 pm
16. David, you type faster than I do:)
As for which series, STAR TREK or DOCTOR WHO is more sf I would vote for STAR TREK. I see WHO more fantasy than science fiction. Both contain heavy science influences and it really is a toss up. But one had the science of space travel vs the other’s time travel. Space travel is a fact in science, time travel is considered in science as impossible or near to it.
There are certain fundamental arguments in fiction, one is the definition of science fiction versus the definition of fantasy. The DOCTOR WHO versus STAR TREK frames that argument well.
September 25th, 2014 at 10:46 pm
Michael,
Our argument was that ST was space opera and like many space opera’s the science rather perfunctory. Who certainly was adventure but made a bit more effort about extrapolating real science. The communicator, transport, and Phazer may be plausible on ST, but there is a small problem with Warp drive, once you achieve it you spend eternity in it because you can’t stop, and to this day they haven’t suggested how they dealt with that little problem. It’s a bit like those aerodynamic X craft from STAR WARS flying in space where aerodynamics mean nothing.
For all Who’s monsters there was some solid science behind much of it that was not always true of ST’s Dylitheyum crystals and the like. At least we were supposed to chuckle at K9 and the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, which at least was plausible if it’s a bit of a magic wand too often.
I loved the original TREK, but it has always had a cavalier attitude to science compared to Who. The plots on Who more often depended on actual science fiction concepts where too often ST did that planet of the Nazis, Greek Gods, gangsters nonsense (the cultures the Doctor encounters tend to be well thought out even when they are designed to make a point) or total silliness like ‘Tholian webs’ and Spock’s Brain transplant. Generally you will find the wilder science on Who extrapolated from actual theories or hypothesis.
ST did inspire a lot of scientists, but more in spirit than any real sense of science. It was great, I just don’t think it was true science fiction as often as Who was.
September 25th, 2014 at 11:29 pm
19. The most fun arguments are when both sides can be proven right. 🙂
September 26th, 2014 at 3:11 pm
Why wasn’t JAFO (Dana Carvey) in the last episode, “The Island”? Did they introduce Terry (Lisa Sutton) as an attempt to boost the ratings? I think she would have made a good extra Blue Thunder team member if the series continued. Sadly, the series was just plain awful. Airwolf wins, no question there.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:43 pm
I’m pleased that so many people seem to enjoy WHO. I would say, though, that the first Doctor was a family show rather than strictly a children’s show. Certainly, some of the shows are quite bleak (THE AZTECS finishes with the chief villain triumphant, and DALEK MASTERPLAN sees three of the semi-regular good guys die horribly before the end of the story) By the mid-60s the makers had got hold of a scientific advisor for the show, and Hartnell’s final story introduced the Cybermen. The latter anticipated trends in spare-part surgery and ST:TNG’s Borg by several decades.
The style for the show seems to be that the writers should use stuff like quantum physics, astrophysics, and various speculative scientific ideas, but that they should have fun whilst doing so. Much as I love STAR TREK, I’ve always loved WHO more because it is much more playful than the sometimes too self important TREK.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:20 pm
21. It is interesting to listen to the adults such as Stephen Moffat talking about growing up watching WHO while hiding behind the family couch. As I understand it, the original purpose of WHO was to teach children history but that would change even with the first Doctor. THE AZTECS was to teach children about history of that era. It was criticized by Mothers (and others) for its violence, but kids loved it.
Granted, my own exposure came later, but my opinions are based on all the histories and articles that popped up during the series 50th anniversary and having followed the show closely for over forty years.
One of the reason for the series unbelievably long life is how it has changed and adapted over the years. Every Doctor, due to the actor and show runner producer, has brought something different to the role and the theme of the show. That is why it is important to check out each Doctor before rejecting the show entirely.
Even this week DOCTOR WHO episode of the bank robbery caper resulted in science fiction fans attacking the series for its poor science. For example, having the most secure bank located near such an unstable star that resulted in the solar storm that disabled the bank when science offered better choices. From the timey whimey explanations WHO gives to the repeated use of deus ex machina, WHO (as does STAR TREK and all fiction) never lets reality or factual science get in the way of the entertainment.
Yet all that said, I am with you BRADSTREET, I prefer DOCTOR WHO over STAR TREK.
September 26th, 2014 at 9:07 pm
The true 21. jk, sometimes the mysteryfile computer overlord hold up comments and it can make the numbers confusing.
jk, I too wonder what happened to Dana Carvey in the last episode. I could find no answer online. The show filmed only 11 episodes of what I suspect was a 13 episode order. This was the eleven aired but may not have been the last filmed. Carvey does get a screen credit and Lisa Sutton was listed as a guest star.
Everything was odd about it. The throw off dialog claiming Jafo must not know about the mission until it was over. The wasted character of Terry the co-pilot who offered nothing to the episode except fill time with training sessions. The vital knowledge she had of the island could have been supplied without her.
Maybe Carvey wasn’t available for shooting. I would be interested to know.
September 9th, 2022 at 12:40 pm
[…] John Badham’s 1983 movie “Blue Thunder” was a cautionary tale about the militarization of the police. Completely misunderstanding their own property, Columbia Pictures turned it into a kickass action show in which the good guys righteously use a super hi-tech military helicopter to take down the bad guys. Only the helicopter remained, piloted by James Farentino’s Chaney and a young Dana Carvey as the awkwardly named Clinton C. Wonderlove. Assisting them on the ground in a truck called Rolling Thunder were football players Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith, playing characters cleverly named “Ski” and “Bubba.” Much of the chopper footage was shamelessly reused movie shots. […]