Route 66

I got hooked on this through my obsession with Adam-12 and some tapes I bought off ebay. I've only seen 14 episodes, but they are 14 of the greatest TV episodes of any drama ever to make it into our homes. So few shows now make you think, but this does and that's good. Makes you think about human nature, the world, and your role in it. It's more than just a show about two cute guys in the world's coolest car (though there's nothing wrong with that), it's about people. I cry when I remember that no one has jumped at the opportunity to put this show on their network. What are they thinking??? This is the drama that all the dramas since have wanted to be but never succeeded at becoming.

Rt 66 was such a breath of fresh air. I have been a movie buff all my life and after seeing all the backlot tv shows from the mid fifties to 1960, this show had my eyes wide open. Everything was on location and the production values were as good as any theatrical movie. Some of the story lines toward the end of the run were stupid but the values were always there. Most of the time I would watch the show to see how good location filming done quickly could be done so good. I think the producer owned or had owned Republic Studios who were the best at making movie serials and that would explain a lot. In watching reruns it is surprising how little the Corvette was actually seen in some episodes. After this, I found backlot shows to be very cheap, boring entertainment.

It's said "they don't make 'em like they used to" and Route 66 certainly brings credibility to that statement. I was only about eleven years old when the show went off the air, but what an impact it had. I can't see one of those old two seater Chevys without the sweet theme song going lightly through my head. Here's a masculine buddy show, two good looking guys, side by side, all the way across the country. Pure and simple, clean and fascinating, both the relationship and the adventures they achieved. I have no doubt that my own cross country odyssey in a little open air two seater from New England to Southern California in the mid 1970s was subconsciously a way to live briefly as Buz or Tod. Can't wait for the DVD which I understand is coming out in a couple of months because the world is a place more lacking for want of reruns of this All American classic.

I have been living in Asia for the past 32 years so I don't know if

reruns of "Route 66" have ever been running on television in the States

over the past 3 decades. But 20 years ago when I read Alvin Toffler's

prediction in The Third Wave that the future would see professionals

not loyal to any one company but working with an honest fervor at a

given task and then moving on to the next worthy challenge, my

impression was, "this guy is describing the world of Buz and Tod on

'Route 66'." In an era when America was composed of white collar

office workers and blue collar union members, all working towards a

pension, 'Route 66' was a breath of fresh air, an escape, and a

challenge to try something different as well as a reminder that one

should move on not with a sense of despair but with a feeling of

jubilation and wonder at what is over the next hill. Against the

current economic climate in both Japan and the U.S.A., such a reminder

is especially needed today. Let's move on with a sense of jubilation

and wonder. And to help us do it, bring back the "Route 66" series.

I saw many of the 1960 and 1961 episodes while in the service. I was so taken by the show that in my mind (confusing reality and television), I decided to hit the road when I got discharged in 1962. I purchased a 1961 Vette and a buddy and I set off from Sacramento, California sometime in May 1963 a la Tod and Buzz to find adventure and romance at every stop. Unfortunately we only got as far as southern Utah when we totally ran out of money. I guess we forgot that Buzz and Tod took time out to work here and there. Anyway, it was fun while it lasted and my only lasting regret was having sold the Corvette. Back to the show: one fascinating aspect is in the scripts. Silliphant in particular was a great writer both serious and comedic - but what is amusing today is the amount of beat-era language, as well as existentialist philosophy. Sterling must have read his Sartre and Camus - or at least Tod did while at Yale. The show had at times a strangely schizophrenic nature: trite, even stupid story lines, but some very profound dialogue (at least for television). And the need for at least one fist fight in every episode gives the lie to any myth of a "kinder and gentler nation" before the counter culture invasion in the mid 60's.