Five-O Oddities, Goofs, Trivia -- Season 7

The opening is not good promo for the Hawaiian tourist industry -- a middle-aged guy gets drilled on the beach by one of the "People's Attack Group," right through his surfboard! The revolutionaries are typically full of B.S., coming out with banalities like "You are we, we are power, the power to be." (Five-O's writers had difficulty portraying such groups in a realistic manner). Their leader, Richard Stanwood (Scott Marlowe, identified in the end credits as "Army"), rather than coming from a university or political background, escaped from Joliet and has crimes like "manslaughter, robbery, narcotics, rioting and rape" on his rap sheet. His fresh-faced followers are described as "campus radicals" and "dopers." I'd like to know how the PAG figured out where Danno and professor Kurt Metzger (Wright Esser) would be eating lunch so they could kidnap them. One of the professor's newspaper articles about the recent terrorist phenomenon starts out with a paragraph about the murder of a Brooklyn racketeer, but the second paragraph talks about Honolulu Mayor Alcada being opposed to a city employees' competency test! Metzger's driver's license is number 547 10 8522 and he lives at 9568 Kahala Avenue, Honolulu 96815. He is 5'7" and was born in 1918. His body is dumped at the Governor's address, which has the street number 4659. McGarrett screams "Never!" when Manicote asks if they should give into to the terrorists. Danno's license number is X-9404. When gas station attendant George (Yankee Chang, uncredited) is filling up the PAG woman's car, note the gas pump -- one side has "Star Gasoline" pasted on it, but if you look quickly, you can see what looks like "Penney Gasoline" (the real name) on the side nearest her car. The PAG woman later telephones Stanwood, saying she was getting "negative vibrations" from George. Following a chase by undercover cop Danny Kamekona, the PAG woman's car blows up violently. The civil defense trucks make an appearance to do triangulation on the terrorists' mobile radio. Stanwood tells the Governor "'D' as in "Dudley Do-Right," obviously a snide crack at McGarrett. The ending of the film where McGarrett rescues Danno in the nick of the time is about as close as we'll ever get to seeing some "male bonding" between these two. There's no more Executive Producer credit for Leonard Freeman at the end of episodes, since he died earlier that year (1974).

Bernard Brown (James Olson) plants a detonator in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, threatening to cause an explosion which will cause lava to pour all over Hilo unless the Governor comes up with half a million bucks ransom to help pay the "psychotically desperate" Brown's debts. The Governor just happens to be visiting Kona, he's staying first at the Kona Surf, then at the Naniloa Surf. Danno is suddenly a munitions expert, figuring out that chemical fertilizers are used to make the explosives (shades of Oklahoma City). During the final pursuit of Brown on his way to pick up the ransom money, the helicopter containing Danno rams into Vince (Felice Orlandi), bagman for the loan sharks, who is in cahoots with Brown's wife Doris (Sheree North). This whole scene is stupid -- why doesn't Vince just shoot at the copter? The "gimmick" in this show is the remote control used to stop the timer on the detonator -- McGarrett has the usual brainstorm about this when using the remote on a TV. But why would the supposedly clever Brown use the remote control for his garage door and why would he leave one of these remotes in the car outside his garage? McGarrett wears a Vulcain watch. Seth Sakai appears as Dr. Rogers. In a scene where Vince is getting chummy with Doris, he tells her "OK, honey, I'll shove off."

Danny Goldman stars as the geeky Eddie Josephs, one of Five-O's most creepy killers, described by English-accented Dr. Judith Patrick (Linda Ann Ryan) as a "desperate paranoid schizophrenic" whose victims are "agents for his delusions." He kills people in a manner duplicating cases solved years before by Five-O while taunting "Mister" McGarrett with postcards and phone calls. At one point he refers to McGarrett as "Super-Cop." The mail service must be pretty quick, since McGarrett gets Eddie's cards almost immediately. When asked by his bookstore owner boss Mister Beecham (Ivor Francis) why he's acting weird, if he's on drugs, Eddie yells: "Drugs? Only filth and scum put rotten things in their bodies!" Chin Ho says of Eddie: "He chooses victims like you pick out meat at the supermarket." McGarrett says he wants "a list of all the stores handling this brand [of knife, known as "Genoa," which Eddie used]." Eddie listens to classical music like Mozart (second movement of the Sonata No. 5 in G, K.189h) and the slow movement of Beethoven's "Pathétique" sonata. Eddie's final attempt at crime is to try and duplicate the murder of a prostitute which happened on July 15, 1968. When cornered by McGarrett, he screams "You can't win!" and dives out the window to commit suicide. When the Five-O team arrives at the hooker's low-budget hotel, you can see crowds on the street in the background watching the filming. Harry Geller's imaginative score contains Bernard Herrmann-like ostinatos and a harpsichord. McGarrett uses chopsticks in this show. Seth Sakai appears unbilled as a doctor, Winston Char is Doctor Ying, Galem Kam is pawnshop owner Wan Soo, and Lippy Espinda is seen in a magazine photo as Bernie Fortuna, a wino. A 1972 silver dollar is seen. Eddie's car has the license number C-178.

Ray Danton as Ron Colby uses some kind of a special phone into which he inserts pre-programmed punch cards to dial numbers. I wonder what the advantage of these cards is, since he still has to look up the "subject" on the top of the card! A federal agent who's investigating Colby's fencing operation on the mainland is stuffed in a fridge (serial number XN53921) which is later fished out of Honolulu harbour. The agent's body seems to be in pretty good shape after all that it's gone through! Colby's car's license number is 5F-2794, a salesman's phone number is 786-2300. There is tons of elaborate writing on McGarrett's blackboard as Five-O analyzes the case. Nephi Hannemann plays Puni, Robert M. Luck is warehouse manager #1 and Dennis Chun (Kam Fong's son) appears as a punk. At the end, when McGarrett confronts Colby with a tape of his "confession," the tape is rewound awful quickly.

William Watson appears as the very nasty Hobart, who is robbing liquor stores using the gun lost by cop Dean Lyman (Charles Cioffi) three years before. Lyman wants to recover the weapon, since he used it to knock off a bank robber five years ago and the body of this robber which Lyman buried at the bottom of a grave has recently been discovered. This show makes a lot of use of the Identi-Kit (is this a product placement?). I don't understand why Cioffi can't see the difference between the pictures of Watson produced with this kit -- they are almost all the same! Cioffi has an Asian wife, played by Josie Over. A bum, one of Lyman's informers, refers to a prostitute as a "ho." When Lippy Espinda, playing another bum, walks by a porno theatre, a poster in the background says one of the films showing is "Dick and I." As far as the second film is concerned, all that can be seen is the word "banana"!! When the Five-O team arrive at the hotel for the final confrontation, the crowd watching the filming in the background is visible. The "trombone interval" theme is heard briefly. A taxi has a crudely-written roof sign with the phone number 538-9678.

Leslie Nielsen stars as Colonel Faraday, owner of a 200,000-acre ranch on the Big Island, who takes the law into his own hands when his son and successor is found murdered. The only thing I find wanting about Nielsen's performance is he's not old and cantankerous enough! (He was in his late 40's.) Bruce Boxleitner appears briefly as Cam, the murdered son -- why he's called Cam when he's identified in court as "Kenneth Andrew Faraday" is a mystery, or maybe a continuity goof. Perry King is his snivelling brother who does him in. There are plenty of Hawaiian actors in this episode, including Elissa Dulce as Cam's former girlfriend Carmen. When Danno gets news of Cam's death, he says it is on the "inter-island poop sheet." Considering how much rain is seen this show, I don't know how Che Fong gets blood and a fingerprint off the rock used as the murder weapon. Richard Shores supplies an expansive score with elements of country and western music included.

A confusing episode, which I had to view three times before I could figure it out! Local businessman Howard Crystal is murdered at the beginning under mysterious circumstances and although he is shot in the middle of nowhere, a kid finds his body relatively quickly. Alan Fudge soon appears as Paul Hamilton, yet another fed who tussles with McGarrett over jurisdiction since Crystal was actually a syndicate informer named Julio Bocher (mug shot #890028) living in Hawaii as a protected witness. Jessica Walter is Crystal's wife Carla. She seems unmoved by her husband's death, and as she grabs a drink, she says, "Howard always said after the second drink, I got less sexy and more verbal than any woman he ever knew." She tells McGarrett, "There was nothing between Howard and me for almost a year." She asks McGarrett, "You over-controlled?" to which he replies, "Yeah, most of the time." McGarrett is suspicious of Howard's business partner Jack Houston (Sam Elliott) and so is Hamilton, who says "to these people" adultery is "a status symbol." Abe Vigoda plays Abe Kemper, a retired gangland figure who refuses to deal with Chin and Ben. Later, he has more "respect" to McGarrett, saying to McGarrett, "you suffer from terminal honesty." In one scene where Danny and Chin are driving, Chin is talking, but his lips aren't moving. When Ben and Nick (Danny Kamekona) are tailing Carla, Ben says, "Keep your eyes on the lady." Nick replies, "I can't keep 'em off her." McGarrett is shown playing golf. We learn that Ben played football after the Korean War. During the investigation, Che Fong discusses anabolic steroids, saying "they can affect your sex life." Near the end, when two cops are tailing Houston as part of an entrapment scheme, Carla tells him, "Forget the macho." Keith Bailey writes about this episode: "At the end of this episode, Steve is shot in the arm. After arresting the shooter, he is bandaged by a doctor. But the doctor bandages his arm without taking off Steve's shirt! And the bandage is wrapped around Steve's shirt! How will Steve be able to take off his shirt when he showers or undresses for bed? Actually, considering what a workaholic he is, he probably doesn't do any of those."

An ominous opening sequence followed by one of Five-O's most "explosive" moments. After the bomb goes off, McGarrett is on fire in one shot and in the next, he isn't. After the bombing, his office sure gets fixed fast. S.N. Savage a.k.a. Dempster (Ivor Barry), the evil mastermind, has a very fancy map of Oahu complete with plastic overlay! When the bad guys turn on the TV, it comes on immediately -- were "solid state" TVs available at this time? McGarrett kids with Marni Howard (Carol White) about his middle name being Aloyisius and the fact that he is a Capricorn. Marni describes him as "a robot who lives and breathes police work." McGarrett gets entangled with her romantically, ending their date with "Good night, pretty girl," giving her a kiss. After she tries to kill him with a gun loaded with blanks, McGarrett tells her: "You're in a lot of trouble, honey." Ben isn't in this show, his duties are taken over by Doug Mossman. A Bernie's Cab has the phone number 555-2099. Stock shots of McGarrett's car taking a sharp turn with smoking tires, and Chin Ho interviewing an elderly Asian couple.

In this episode, which could be renamed "Wo Fat Goes to the Circus," there is a serious continuity blunder at the beginning. When the visiting Chinese dignitaries' plane -- United Airlines, of course -- touches down on the runway, the word "UNITED" is in capital letters. But in the next scene, when the plane is showing taxiing, "United" is in upper and lower case. Then, as the ground crew directs the plane, we're back to "UNITED" again. And, as the dignitaries disembark, the letters read "United." Jonathan Kaye is on hand for high-level talks with a Chinese minister whom Wo Fat refers to as a "foolish dove." Seth Sakai plays Rikoto, the bike shop owner who designs a bike with a gun in its seat. The speed with which the aerialist Rinaldo brothers (Richard Yniguez and Corey Rand) master the use of this weapon is astounding. James Hong plays the slimy translator Soong Chien, and Robert Nelson plays Wo Fat's main man, here identified as "Chong", rather than the usual "Assassin #1." The little boy in the bike shop who gets patted on the head by Wo Fat is Eric Ryan, son of Linda Ryan, who appeared in several episodes.

Quite a good show, dealing with the remains of Peking Man which were supposedly smuggled out of China to Hawaii prior to Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, the climax is disappointing. Parmel (Vic Tayback), the man who knows the grave where the bones are buried (that of a man named Crowe), switches the headstone with that of F.H. Heller, who lived from 1920-1945. At the climax, Heller's grave marker is shown "flopped," i.e., it's a reversed image, and when the coffin is opened, someone says the body is wearing ribbons from the time of the Korean war! Kwan Hi Lim is as oily as ever, playing the "entrepreneur" Maru Sunyako. In Ben's absence, Doug Mossman is Frank Kemana, seemingly one of the Five-O team. McGarrett quote in this show: "I like to read." In response to Jonathan Kaye's (Bill Edwards) plea for sympathy with "developing relations with China," McGarrett says, "I don't give a damn about Communist China." Kaye's Washington, D.C. phone number is (202) 655-4000. McGarrett takes sugar in his coffee. The "military theme" is heard. Joe B. Moore (now a TV anchorman on one of the Honolulu stations) appears as the administrator of the cemetery. When McGarrett arrives at the hotel of Professor Burke (Keene Curtis), it's a stock shot.

An interesting Thelma and Louise-type idea -- women desperately in need of money rob tourist buses. Dina Hale (Patricia Hindy) is shown as a strung-out junkie at the beginning and knocks off "James J." Borges, playing drug pusher Lou Chang. After this her appearance changes for the better (thanks, no doubt, to Chang's bankroll) and her drug habit is only mentioned briefly. The other two women look fairly middle-class: Fay Scott (Patrecia Wynand, whose accent seems to flip-flop between American and English) is a single mother with a son who needs an operation, and Maggie Hudson (Dale Morse) suffers with a husband (Eugene Roche) who looks much older than her and treats her terribly. When she doesn't make his dinner, he complains "You've been forgetting an awful lot lately since you've been going to them bull sessions with those dames," and goes on: "You go to one more of those hen parties, I'll give you something to bellyache about." After Maggie is killed, Roche is hardly sympathetic: "I worked my butt off ten hours a day for that broad but it wasn't enough for her." The case is cracked by Che Fong, who "computer enhances" some pictures of the women crooks which some elderly tourist snapped after a bus robbery. But what's with this line about "pictures are made up of a composition of small spots or dots called 'reseau marks'." I thought the only kind of pictures made up of "dots" were those which were screened for use in a newspaper! To track down the computer-enhanced car, the Five-O team has to check out two hundred 1964 Ford Comets. Then they have to check driver's licenses of various women. The numbers on the licenses are all the same: 546 10 8740. They finally track down Fay, who lives at 891 Hikani Walk in Honolulu. She has brown hair, weighs 128 pounds, is 5'6", blue eyes and was born on 9/5/37. A good exchange between Chin Ho and McGarrett: "Are you sitting down"? "It's kind of hard to drive standing up." Doug Mossman plays Frank (presumably Kemana). At the beginning of the show, the Five-O crew says that McGarrett took the day off, only after serious prodding by the Governor. The show closes with McGarrett telling Danno to "read them their rights [!!!], then book them ... murder two counts for this one." The score by Broughton -- featuring what sound like muted trumpets electronically amplified -- is excellent.

At the beginning of the show, the assassin (John Kerry) must have excellent eyesight, since the sight on his long-range rifle has no crosshairs! Although he is never named in the show, his name in the end credits is Dix Kercheval. Joshua N. Farin does a very good job as Moki, the kid who witnesses the assassination. McGarrett says he agrees with public defender Frances Chai (France Nuyen) about locking kids up. Alas, Nuyen's part in this show is much too brief! Do her tires squeal on sand near the end of the show? Tommy Fujiwara appears as a nervous informer, Ted Nobriga plays Judge Keona. Wright Esser, who appeared as a boat captain in the pilot episode, is again a skipper in this show. The computer technician seen in several episodes is finally identified in the end credits as played by Walter Yoshimitsu. A Western Union International teletype is shown. McGarrett plays handball with Bert Convy. The theme by Harry Geller for Moki played by a flute and what sounds like a recorder becomes rather cloying after a while. McGarrett outlines Five-O's mission when he says: "We're state police -- we deal with organized crime, murder, assassination attempts, foreign agents, felonies of every type." The long shot near the end where the cops arrive on Sand Island with the harbour in the background is exactly the same as one near the beginning of the episode.

The title of the episode comes out of the background. The soundtrack by George Romanis features sitars with the finale sounding like Indian melodies. At one point McGarrett says: "There's more to this bag of snakes [cobras?] than meets the eye." The motivation of some of the characters in this episode is complicated. Penelope Windust as Sheila Cramer drives a cool Mustang convertible. The Indian actors at the consul are rather bad -- Harvey Jason as Ram Busham reminds me of Peter Sellers in "The Party." Don Knight is his usual obnoxious self.

A dumb episode, not helped by Richard Hatch's portrayal of tennis pro Mike Anapo/Opana. Hatch's accent wanders all over the place. He drives a cool Red Mustang, though. His psychiatrist, Doctor Spear (John Stalker), is shown using a Panasonic cassette recorder with TDK tape. After Mike knocks off Spear, the body is removed in a Physician's Ambulance. The scene where the Five-O crew analyzes the symbolism of the weird painting Spear made after interviewing Hatch is very far-fetched. When Hatch watches Danno meeting the babely Glynis (Gretchen Corbitt) at the airport, the binocular angle is all wrong. The poison Hatch uses to dispatch one of his victims is "variathon phosphate" (VHP), allegedly like nerve gas. Doug Mossman's interviewing of Mike's former girl friend Connie Honaka (Josie Over) seems too polite. Her father is played by Ted Nobriga (uncredited). McGarrett knows much too much in this episode. When he orders a "code red," the dispatcher says "All channels are cleared for you." The tear gas ending is overkill to the point of being ridiculous.

This show, focusing on a clampdown on drugs, features a stereotypical black dope dealer at the beginning. There is mention of NCIC (National Crime Information Center), a data base for criminal records, warrants, stolen property, missing persons, etc. only available to law enforcement agencies. Jo Ann Harris is Laurie Benedict, who doesn't seem to own a bra, and Bruce Boxleitner as Kevin Caulder shows his teeth a lot.The date -- September, 1974 -- is seen on a calendar. The phone connection, as always, is bad when McGarrett speaks to people overseas. This show has shots of McGarrett both going up and down the stairs to his office. When Chin Ho spies on Bernie Ross (Ed Flanders), the binocular angle is improbable. The scene with a helicopter taking off is reused from another episode. When Ross lands at an airport, you can see the head of the real pilot in the seat beside him just sticking up above the base of the window! At the end, McGarrett says "The goods is in my possession." What does McGarrett intend to charge the mobsters with at the end of the show? Galen Kam is the manager at a motel where Chin Ho buys a Diamond Head Cola from a pop machine. Stock shots of cop cars.

This show features two teen idols -- Sal Mineo and Tommy Sands, both of whom appeared as lounge singers in the first season -- as junior mob types. Interesting photography at the beginning where the camera is on the gurney moving through the hospital. McGarrett says of the dead hitman: "He died a natural death -- isn't that ironical?" Seth Sakai plays the gangster Honomura. Doug Mossman tails Mineo and Sands in the usual obvious Five-O manner into a porno theatre where he films them equally obviously with an infrared camera. The music accompanying the porno film is unbelievably banal. Chin Ho follows a gangster whose car blows up spectacularly ... Chin tells McGarrett "the street was deserted, that's why I had to hang back [!!!!] as far as I did." Chin's license number is SF-2561, Duke's is SF-2570. McGarrett screams at one local gangster: "You listen to me, punk!" When McGarrett and Danno get into the hotel elevator, the Japanese sign on the wall tells about a guided night tour, including an adult movie and a drive to enjoy the spectacular view from Tantalus Mountain. Why does the hit man fall off the roof when he is shot by McGarrett and Danno? Would the force of the bullets be that strong?

The subject matter is unusual -- McGarrett has to track down an operation peddling black market airline tickets which is run by Win Low (Kwan Hi Lim, who gets feature billing for a change). Bill Edwards is Simpson, the boss of a travel agency who is hesitant to help McGarrett because of threats by Low's thugs. Look closely at the job application form which Low asks Shige Yagamatu (Tommy Fujiwara) to fill out -- although it has Moana Cab Company at the top, it looks more like a form for employment on Five-O with lines to fill in like "Have you worked in a studio?", "Which studio?" and "Union Member Now?" The window sign in Japanese that Fujiwara walks past at one point says "Japanese food." There is a good explosion when a travel agency is bombed. Che Fong uses a scanning electron microscope to discover that one of the bad guys has had a hair implant. When Danno and federal investigator Harry Rosen (Jack Kosslyn) set up a scam to buy tickets, it takes them about a minute and 55 seconds to trace the call. When Rosen goes to make a contact on Tantalus Mountain, Danno and some Asian woman (presumably a police officer) are sitting in a car doing surveillance.