CHiPs

Sure the formula was the same for every episode. Yes there were always two hotties for Ponch and John; criminals who scoff at the law at first then learn how foolish it was to run a gambling operation in the back of a tractor trailer after all. When I was a kid, I loved CHiP's. They were cops on motorcycles, for crying out loud.

I still love to watch it, but like many of you I can't take my eyes off the background. The best part of the show is the location filming. Real streets. I'm watching the cars, storefronts, etc. like an eagle. In a small way it's like walking through the world of my childhood again, taking notice of how some things have changed so much and others not much at all. It's very fascinating to me.

I don't think there have been many television shows as entertaining as this.

"CHiPs", what you can say. The California Highway Patrol got the best PR they could ever hope for in this classic buddy cop show from the 1970s. Built on comedy and riveting freeway chases, Larry Wilcox and Erik Estrada starred as officers Jon Baker and Frank "Ponch" Poncherrello. The series immediately found an audience, especially with children because of it's fantastic car chases and entertaining action stunts. It was guaranteed that a car would flip over or someone got thrown off a bike or flopped face first into cement in every episode. It didn't matter if they were so obviously staged, no one else was doing such things back in those days so it was fun to see it on CHiPs. There just had to be chase on the freeways in each episode, and they surprisingly hold up today. I guess a high speed chase at over 90 mph in 1977 is the same as one that happens in 2007. That's another thing, watching this series it's amazing how little life in North America has changed in the past 30 years. Only the fashions, music and obviously some media oriented (internet, fast computers, flat screen plasma and LCD TVs, palm pilots, etc, etc) electronic technology has changed. Otherwise look at how life in 1977 is still so much the same as 2007. It's weird watching Ponch and Jon today and reflecting that I'm now around the *same age* (freaky!) as those guys were back then (late 20s-early 30s). I see them in an entirely different light today then when I viewed this show as a child, as I can relate to more of their life and understand their still relatively young adult problems.

CHiPs had a tendency to be cheesy, especially with the way Erik Estrada hammed it up as Ponch. But who cared, Estrada and Wilcox had terrific on screen chemistry (even if they didn't get along in real life), that you just were glued to TV to watch these guys chase bad guys. The corny nature of the show has famously turned off people who were older and "too cool" during CHiPs run, but they missed out on a great TV show if only had they been children. Who cares what they think now anyway, they're old farts in 2007. Although CHiPs was clearly a '70s TV show, it actually ran over into the early 80s and in my opinion probably found it's massive cult audience in the 1980s. CHiPs was rerun ENDLESSLY in the '80s. It was on every freakin' day, Monday-Friday. Home sick from school? Watch CHiPs. Holidays? Make sure to watch CHiPs. And of course the summer months, watch CHiPs, usually airing at 8am or 4pm, sometimes both timeslots. Rainy days were and still are great for CHiPs viewing. Basically what I'm saying is that this is a show that didn't have a lot of depth to it, which is why children were so hooked onto it. It makes fantastic viewing for anyone that wants to pass the time with nothing but pure TV entertainment, with enough adult sensibilities going on to make it still very watchable. I slightly missed the original run of CHiPs, either I wasn't around or was too young, but I grew up as a child in the 80s and every single damn summer I watched CHiPs. I wasn't alone, every kid who was 12 and under in the 80s watched this show during the summer months. What an awesome way to pass an hour when you had no school. The cops never drew their guns and the violence was almost non-existent, this is a series that could never be made today. You got the day off from work and it's raining outside, time to watch an episode of CHiPs.

When you are a young kid it doesn't take much to entertain you. "CHiPs" was a crime drama that was well over my head, but I still watched because Officer Frank Poncherello (Erik Estrada) and Officer Jon Baker (Larry Wilcox) wore nice uniforms and rode cool shiny motorcycles. That's all I needed to see. If they didn't do anything all show but ride around, I would've been perfectly satisfied.

In fact, one of my favorite surprise gifts from my mom that I still remember forty years later was a CHiPs motorcycle. I woke up one morning and it was on my dresser. I could've done backflips, I was so happy. It wasn't even my birthday!

"CHiPs" was the best of the late 70's early 80's it was what childhood was all about, i loved Ponch then and i still think that he is the best thing on a plate (being chips of course). The re-runs are still going on every day here in the UK on the channel bravo, we just cannot get enough.

If you want more check out the great Taking care of chips site.

we have lots of fun there, and welcome new members, from all over the place.

Erika

Officers Francis "Ponch" Ponchorello and Jon Baker were the CORNIEST cool guys in the history of Hollywood TV. Make no mistake, these dudes were cool. Two young and reasonably handsome guys, athletic and fit looking while living that romantic fast life in Southern California. They were the man on bikes, high pursuit cops who enforced the law. Off duty their weekends could be spent jet skiing, sailing or sky diving, when the rest of us are off at the movies or perhaps hanging out at the mall. They also had the badge and gun, the uniforms, and of course the bikes that they would race at 90 mph on the highways while chasing bad guys, they were cool dudes. Then of course they romanced plenty of disco era honeys. But Ponch and Jon were not cool cool, they were just too over the top corny and Ponch was way too hammy. Then there was that silly freeze frame smile they all did at the end of the show. If you are over considerably over 40 today you probably think CHiPs is ridiculous because you were likely a teenager or young adult back then and you yourself were just too hip and cool back in the day to have appreciated CHiPs. And if you are 25 and under today then you are likely on the other side of being too cool for CHiPs because you may think the show is just flat out stupid. The series would likely look way too old for much of the early 20s and teenager crowd. The show had silliness, but not Dukes of Hazzard or Knight Rider silliness, Ponch and Jon were still grounded in something very close to our real world. If you are a middle-late Gen Xer born in the 70s and had a childhood in the 80s, then CHiPs was part of your syndicated TV diet. You know you watched.