21 Jump Street

This was Fox's first serious drama. It was aimed at a young audience. 21 Jump Street had a great cast including a young Johnny Depp, Peter DeLuise, and Holly Robinson among the cast members, good writing, and innovative plot about young cops posing as high school students to capture a wide variety of criminals in the school system. The show lasted a few seasons on Fox without network infiltration like other major networks. It lasted long enough to leave its mark on the baby network. Now there are a dozen shows like 21 Jump Street without the cleverness and the strive to be better than just the average shows on TV. In fact, the show was probably the first American drama on Fox to be filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to cut costs. In the beginning of the Fox network lineup, 21 Jump Street launched a unique way of looking at secondary schools with a great cast. It was never awarded an Emmy which it should have been even nominated for Best Drama.

This television series held its own. I remember waiting patiently for the next episode to air when I was 13 and loving every second of it. Call it contrived and superficial, but I grew up with Judy Hoffs, Tom Hansen, Doug Penhall, Harry Ioki, Adam Fuller, and Dennis Booker....and I loved every second of it! Johnny Depp might renounce the fact that he was ever connected with this show, but it provided hours of entertainment for many individuals. For me, it is a reminder of a time in my youth where I was completely innocent.

Like most people of my generation, I LOVED 21 jump street. Like most girls of my generation, I LOVED bad boy Johnny Depp. This one episode "Swallowed alive" (season 3) really stuck. Especially the music ("are you sure" by the staple singers in the tunnel scene, "can't find my way home" by Steve Winwood at the very end...). Anyway, I had been waiting for years for a DVD release. Years. And then it came. I watched the first season thinking "wow ! so lame !" and what the heck is that electro-crap music ? I just thought I had embellished the show in my memory and that it just wasn't that good anyway. Well, that's part true. The dialogs are sometimes so cheesy they make me want to puke. No wonder Johnny Depp couldn't' wait to get the hell out of this show ! I hadn't understood his move at the time, but now, do I ! So, in search for comfort, I watched season 3 (without bothering with season2). And I watched "Swallowed alive". Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ! Totally ruined !!! What have they done to my episode ?!! Even though I knew there wouldn't be the original music because, well, none of the other episodes had their music, I kinda hoped they would have replaced it with something that would keep the spirit of the episode. Boy was I disappointed. Elevator music wouldn't have been worse ! So, my box set made an express on ebay and I am now 21 jump street-free. I was so looking forward to jumping back in my 15 year-old skin... Well, I guess that won't happen anytime soon. And you know what the worst part is ? I had that episode on tape. And some stupid family member taped over it. Life is so cruel.

I remember this as on of the shows that helped launch Fox as a network. Between this, Adventures of Beans Baxter, Werewolf, Traci Ullman and Simpsons.

I really enjoyed this show for most of it's run. The last season with Grieco did not leave me with too many fond memories. But for the first several seasons, I definitely made room in my Sunday lineup to see this show. For the most part, the stories were good. I just wish there was someplace that showed re-runs of 21JS. With the deluge of cop shows nowadays, i still think I could make time to see 21JS

This was definitely a quality show. This show was a far cry from what the Fox network eventually became. Many of the scripts dealt with what young people go through on a day to day basis and used a cop show to show it. Issues like date rape, drugs, teen suicide, school violence and incest were all covered in the first two years of this show. When Jump Street premiered, it was the shot heard round the world due to the fact that it was the very first show to air on the Fox network, which at the time was only being broadcast on Sunday nights and it ushered in a whole new era in television. Also, Johnny Depp wasn't the only good thing about this show. Peter DeLuise, Holly Robinson (Peete) and Dustin Nguyen all made this show one of the cult classics of the 1980's.