The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo

I enjoyed B. J. and the Bear, and this spinoff The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo. Actually, Lobo is a common surname in India, so if there's ever a reboot to feature an Indian actor, this is it.

Anyway, there was some humor in TMOSL which warranted more than two seasons. Sadly it got axed, but I still have fond memories of TMOSL.

All I know is that my family watched Sheriff Lobo and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's been so long since I've seen an episode that I can't bring any real specifics to mind, but I know I always looked forward to Perkins' antics, week by week.

Of course, my taste in television wasn't critically-acclaimed, by any means. I watched the Dukes of Hazzard, religiously, but I never had much feeling for B.J. and the Bear. It was only recently I found out this show was a B.J. spinoff.

It would be nice to have this on TVLand (since there's no longer a TNN to show reruns of hick shows) so I could see if it really WAS any good.

I admit it -- I like "The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo." And I don't consider myself a fan of lowbrow TV. I hate stuff like "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Baywatch," and I don't watch wrestling. "Lobo" was the show critics loved to hate when it was on the air. And since then, the word "Lobo" itself has become synonymous with bad TV.

But it's not a bad show. First, the cast had a genuine chemistry. Claude Akins and Mills Watson had a terrific rapport. If they had been on any other show, critics would have praised them as a terrific comic team. They really clicked. (On any other show, Watson would have become a superstar.) The rest of the cast was solid, and the show had good guest stars, including Pat Paulsen, Sid Caesar, and Larry Storch.

And while it wasn't Shakespeare, the writing was much better than the critics would have you believe. Unlike "The Dukes of Hazzard," the show did have different story lines. It wasn't the same show every week, like the Dukes. (And it didn't have anywhere near as many chases as the Dukes.)

I believe that the "Dukes" connection is the main reason critics hated the show. "Lobo" came along at the same time as the Dukes, it was also set in the South, it also had car chases, and it also had scantily-clad women. It was easy to dismiss "Lobo" as a Dukes clone because of some similarities on the surface.

But look closer, and you'll see the two shows were very different. "Lobo" had better scripts, better performances, better production values, etc.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying "Lobo" is a great show; I'm not suggesting it didn't have problems. There were too many car crashes. The show's writing could have been sharper. It should have made more of an attempt to SATIRIZE police shows. And the move to Atlanta in the second season was a mistake. It was much better in Orly County.

But it's not junk, as some critics would have you believe. It's better than most of the stuff on TV today. And I'll say it again: Akins and Watson were a terrific team.

And the first season theme song -- sung by Frankie Laine -- was fantastic. I'd love to hear it on a TV theme song CD.

Ok, I was only ten or so when I saw this show in my country, but, in spite of what some people can say, it used to make me laugh a lot. I barely remember much about the show, but the fact that sheriff Lobo and his relative (I think he was brother-in-law) most of the times ended up in some wacky situation or failing to success.

Despite the possible flaws it might have, Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo was better than most of the crap nowadays airing anywhere in the world.

Although TV shows cannot be rated like movies here, I would give this show a seven or so.

Hey.

RTN is showing this series (perhaps along with B.J. & The Bear?) on Sunday afternoons/evenings.

When it was running the first time, the NBC affiliate for Tampa Bay refused to air it in its network-mandated time slot for something else (I forget just what) and put it on some horrible late-night slot on Sunday night/Monday morning. So I saw the tail end of an episode for the very first time yesterday.

I don't know if I would have liked it back in '79~'80 when I was turning teenager and was beginning to get overloaded on car chase genre action shows. This show is just so TYPICAL. You have the old man Sheriff, the goof-ball deputy, the pretty-boy deputy, and then the usual Central Casting darlings you see in all these shows. The writing and production values are standard-level, neither all that great or all that awful. No wonder it never clicked like some of the others had at that time.

Okay...I'll say one thing in defense of this series--it was better than "Border Pals."