Couldn't wait for it every Friday night.

Had several custom fishing poles made with the colorful shiny satin guide wrap, first one was turquoise and pink - looked great then and still does to this day.

At the time I was more into the 44mag, but you couldn't get a 10mm from Bren and it wasn't until later that 10mm became reliable and available.

Great show!

My favorite show from my high school days. Would always record episodes on the VCR on Friday nights when we had football games.

Terrific videos linked by the way. Brings back a lot of great memories.


Michael

I'll add a lesser known Jim Zubiena.
This came up before in The Lair but I found it quite interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
I was a cop when the show was on and it amazed me that quite a few coworkers began to dress like Don Johnson, including the Jackass rig!

Me and my friends dressed like them. We were 12. Everybody wanted a jackass rig. We packed ziplocks full of flour to school.

We like watching the re runs. My wife was an extra on about 4 episodes, with some decent camera time. We always look for the changing landscape(then/now) in Miami.

I worked with Don Johnson on a photo shoot once. He was a dick.

The show was cool, though.

quote:

Originally posted by Jimbo Jones:
Great video...loved that show! I dont remember seeing any of those actors but I do remember seeing Little Richard (brief cameo in opening scene as I recall) and the Ted Nugent (played a drug dealer...surprise) and Phil Collins (played a game show host con artist) episodes.

You do know that Ted Nugent doesn't do drugs, don't you.

http://www.songfacts.com/facts-ted_nugent.php

I never got that into Miami Vice during its original run. It wasn't until it ran in syndication on USA in the '90s that I really started vibin' on it.

I dug that the show could have so much silence, just relying on mood and ambience. Modern cop shows have to have constant exposition, forced comedic dialogue to goofy music, or action - silence is not allowed. Modern TV cops bust down a door and immediately run inside shouting "clear!" Crockett would take a while to clear a hallway, looking afraid that he might get shot.

^^^^ Funny you mention that. One of the things that I noticed that made the show different was that the cops could be nervy or scared, that they made mistakes and that things went wrong for them. Pretty new for a cop show when most things got solved neatly in on hour.

Also different story telling back then. Unlike Law and Order, CSI, NCIS and related shows; where the police discover the crime scene and take a good chunk of the episode figuring out who the bad guy is; in MV you usually knew who the bad guy was and what he was doing before the opening theme ran.

I was in my teens for most of the seasons and I loved it. Some of the episodes seem cheesy now but that was the eighties.

I met my spouse in the mid-80s.

Miami Vice had been on for two years when we took our first trip to see her family in the Palm Beach area.

I suspected parts of the show were pure TV drama, until one Saturday when we were at Harpoon Louie's on Jupiter Inlet.

As we are eating dinner, a 40ish foot go fast boat chugs by heading out to sea. I jokingly made a comment about the boat heading out to pickup a load of cocaine.

Three minutes later along comes 38' Scarab emblazoned with "U.S. Customs" down the starboard side.

Leaning over I said "See, I told you so."

quote:

Originally posted by sargespd:
Groundbreaking TV. The integration of popular music in the plot and cinematography was cool. Whenever I hear "In the air tonight", I still see Don Johnson driving in the rain through Miami.

Agreed. That scene did it for me as well. Always been a fan of the Ferrari Daytona even if it was a replica. I just happened to tune in to the show with that episode on the screen. The music and the chrome wire wheel spinning in the rain. I said to myself, this is one cool show .

quote:

Originally posted by NK402:

quote:

Originally posted by sargespd:
Groundbreaking TV. The integration of popular music in the plot and cinematography was cool. Whenever I hear "In the air tonight", I still see Don Johnson driving in the rain through Miami.

Agreed. That scene did it for me as well. Always been a fan of the Ferrari Daytona even if it was a replica. I just happened to tune in to the show with that episode on the screen. The music and the chrome wire wheel spinning in the rain. I said to myself, this is one cool show.

For me, Crockett's car was the star of the show the first few years.

My understanding is that Ferrari complained bitterly "You can't call that thing a Ferrari!"

When things got to the point of a lawsuit, the show wrote the violent demise of the replica into the script. Apparently by then they could afford to replace it with the real thing. But I never could warm up to that one somehow.

quote:

Originally posted by John Steed:
For me, Crockett's car was the star of the show the first few years.

My understanding is that Ferrari complained bitterly "You can't call that thing a Ferrari!"

When things got to the point of a lawsuit, the show wrote the violent demise of the replica into the script. Apparently by then they could afford to replace it with the real thing. But I never could warm up to that one somehow.

Strangely, the original Testarossa was Metallic Black, a relatively rare Ferrari color. They painted it white for the show.

Per Wiki, I think the original show car is in a museum, but I'd have to go back to Wiki again for the details.

James

Miami Vice, along with 24 and Justified = my three favorite TV shows.

I have all the DVD for all three of the above... going to re-watch Justified soon, then its Miami Vice again.

quote:

Originally posted by John Steed:
That scene did it for me as well. Always been a fan of the Ferrari Daytona even if it was a replica.

We wer living in Houston during the heyday of the show. The local Ferrari dealership had a real Daytona Spider on the floor; black with the tan interior just like the show. I believe it was a 1968 model. The sticker price on this nearly 20 year old car, at the time, was $350k. It was beautiful.

I was in High School in South Miami 83-85, junior high before that. We had a trailer in the keys and I'd kneeboard in front of Nixon's place before heading to Coconut grove and Monty Trainer's.

The show was cool - but the real Miami at the time had a lot more strange stuff going on than you could imagine. Less gunfights though did catch one on US1 one night headed to laser light show...Drug smuggling was everywhere.

I have to admit it was the singular show that "felt" like the 80's and I was influenced enough to also dress like Crockett. I joined the Army Reserves in 1984 and then went full time Army in 1985 and continued to dress that way. I don't think there was ever a gun show back then in which I didn't seek a Bren Ten, Detonics, or similar sidearm used in the show. Every trip to the Florida coast felt like the show. I still watch the show and, when in Florida, feel like I need to watch some Miami Vice and remember the good old days.

quote:

Originally posted by sargespd:
Groundbreaking TV. The integration of popular music in the plot and cinematography was cool. Whenever I hear "In the air tonight", I still see Don Johnson driving in the rain through Miami.

Legend has it, it was pitched to the network as "MTV cops."

quote:

Originally posted by M'headSig:

quote:

Originally posted by sargespd:
Groundbreaking TV. The integration of popular music in the plot and cinematography was cool. Whenever I hear "In the air tonight", I still see Don Johnson driving in the rain through Miami.

Legend has it, it was pitched to the network as "MTV cops."

Over lunch between Brandon Tartikoff and Michael Mann, Mann wrote on a napkin "MTV cops" and the rest is history-or so goes the legend.

And who didn't think an alligator named Elvis wasn't cool? LOL

Yes, the Bren Ten, the black Ferrari kit car (built on a Vette I think), Miami in the 80s, the opening credits with the two girls walking away from the camera-good times!