Thunder in Paradise

What you have to appreciate is the context. Thunder in Paradise was not about the acting or story or any such nonsense. Hulk Hogan can't act very well. He is not terrible, since all wrestlers have some experience in acting, but Hulk never rose above the wrestling level of acting, unlike some other wrestlers who broke through in Hollywood.

However, this show did combine a number of things that could really appeal to a young boy living in the cold North:

1. The paradise part. The blue water and palms sent you away from your rainy hometown on a little vacation every time you watched this show. It's a similar in effect to reading travel magazines or watching travel shows.

2. The boat, Thunder. It is awesome! It looks like a cooler version of the F117 stealth bomber. It has mini-guns and missiles and other funky tech. The show used computer generated effects for the boat transformations that look ok even today. This boat was the true star of the show that kept a boy hooked.

3. The theme song. This has a lot to do with point 1 on this list. The holiday-themed song just helped transfer you to that vacation setting.

4. Bikini babes.

Thunder in Paradise was a colourful show. Bright sun-lit scenes, blue water, green palms, orange explosions, etcetera. It's not about the acting or camera work or plot. It's about happiness. It's Margaritaville with miniguns. The fact that it was a silly show only underlined the happy attitude it was going for.

If you are an adult, and especially if you are an adult who is already happy with the climate of wherever you live, then you probably would not enjoy this show because it is a poorly acted kids show with a bunch of bikini babes.

Thunder in paradise has a few things going for it, a stylish crime fighting boat, hulk hogan and stylish look, sadly those are the only things that's good about this pointless uninspired mess, featuring ridiculously poor dialogue. Silly teleplay, bad acting throughout and many ridiculous episodes, yes 1994 was a great year for television, er for example, but this useless tv show is just too pointless to even conceived, it's a shame, because it's beautiful and stylish to look at, but embarrassing to watch, this is an ultimately empty tv show that doesn't work on any level except for the beautiful boat.

This is a very dull show.

I don't care what anybody says, I think these were great fun! As I said in the title, it was A-Team meets Miami Vice meets Bay Watch.

Guns, Girls, Gangsters, Gadgets and Good old fashioned fun with a capital Thunder which starts with T and rhymes with P and stands for Pool, swimming pool, that is. This is an action adventure fantasy show full of explosions, machine guns, girls in bikinis, guys in, well, swimming trunks and heaps of ham acting. And nobody dies, either! That's right, not one person is killed-to-death on this show. Nobody. Nor is there even any blood in sight, well real sickening blood, that is. Sure, the cuts and scrapes that any action hero gets in a normal day on the job are there to be seen, but nothing like you'd witness even on the tamest action flick (or computer game) nowadays. So, for me, Thunder in Paradise is sort of like Scooby Doo, only LIVE action.

It's all good formula stuff: The good guys, ex-Navy SEALs, invariably get into some kind of mess and try to find a way out of it which undoubtedly complicates things into an even bigger mess. Along the way they save the girl (or girls!), save the beach, save the hotel, save the kind old man or anyone else who needs help, and put the bad guys away - for good! Not to mention, they always get the girl in the end. Well, almost always. Oh, did I mention the huge amount of gorgeous bodies in the background of almost every beach scene? I think this show might hold the record. Carol Alt, who co-starred in it, is no slouch either. But the reigning star of the show is 'Thunder' the scarab experimental one-off water weapon that 'Spence' has built for the Navy. Hi partner 'Bru', and buddy for life pilots the hi-tech craft through calm harbors, rough seas or bullet-riddled jungle lagoons. This thing goes anywhere. And so does the plot for that matter! But you can be sure, by the story's end our heroes will be banged-up, bruised and aching, but also smiling ear to ear back at their favorite beach watering hole, the Scuttlebutt Bar N' Grill, run by Carol Alt's character 'Kelly LaRue'.

The jokes and fun, action and fights between our heroes played by Hulk Hogan and Chris Lemon (yes, Jack's son), and whatever bad guys come along, is nothing short of fantastic mediocrity! And that's why I love it. It doesn't try to be perfect or even high brow. This is simply a fun, B-movie ride of adventure and melodrama in the same way the old serials used to be - you know, those shorts that inspired "Raiders of the Lost Ark"?

Anyway, I loved it. When TV was like this, (A-Team, etc.) when there were limits as to how serious a show could get or how much gore could be shown (or inferred) for general audiences to ingest we had a lot less problems occurring in society, didn't we? A connection? Cause and effect? Does media influence society? You decide. As for me, I've already decided. Besides, I don't want to turn this review into a Marshall McCluhan seminar. All I know is, innocent, good-natured fun like this wasn't influencing young minds and inspiring disturbing behavior in real life to go out and do nasty things, or worse yet, be immune and sensitized when someone else does. Can you say the same about today's TV shows, usually glorifying a sadistic serial killer, or having us see up-close the gruesome details of a crime scene investigation which spares no blood, guts, organs and sickening details of torture for our viewing pleasure? All that stuff is child's play for most children nowadays who can recite from memory how to cut up a body for disposal, use bleach to remove DNA from a crime scene or how a month-old corpse looks when dredged up from a river. Well, that may be your cup of tea, but I believe in garbage in / garbage out. And thankfully, we get to choose our own garbage.

You can have your torture and stylish autopsies. I'll take fun in the sun and silly paradise any day.

Stop the haterade...I understand that view point now(considering that you are older and chances are you don't watch silly stuff). But back in 94 as a young child or as a devout wrestling/Hulk Hogan fan living in the US...Thunder in Paradise was a pretty cool show to watch. I enjoyed Thunder in Paradise all 22(I think) episodes of it. I'm not going on a limb to proclaim it greatness...but the show gave me and my younger brother some good entertainment. Sure we recognized the fact that the "force field" around Thunder was incredibly poorly done, and that some...okay..many of he lines were very much corny. But dammit we got to see El Gigante aka Giant Gonzales Jorge Gonzales(who oddly made two appearances in the series as what I think are two different characters), we also got to see our guy Sting play the role of Hammerhead, and we got to see what was a pretty cool boat. At the time I kinda wish that there was a toy line fashioned after it. So in conclusion, the show had its faults, but I'm pretty sure that it was targeted to younger children who will readily take in the fantasy world. As I look back on the show...yeah its pretty bad...but at the same time if TNT decided to air reruns...I'd probably watch or tape them as a piece of my childhood memories.

This was a largely undistinguished show. The actors were likable enough but the scripts were pretty lame.

But one thing that makes this series of interest to Disney fans is that it was produced at the Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World and virtually all of their exterior locations were on property at Walt Disney World. Alert eyes familiar with WDW can spot a number of resorts and parks that were used. EPCOT Center provided international settings. Underwater scenes were shot at the Living Seas pavilion.

You won't see this very often. Disney has rarely allowed outside productions at their parks.