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Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux

By Jeralyn, Section Media
Posted on Sat Jul 22, 2006 at 09:55:28 PM EST
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Did anyone see the replay on NBC tonight of the pilot of Miami Vice ? I forgot Jimmy Smits was in it for the first five minutes. I forgot how Don Johnson and Ricardo Tubbs became partners. I forgot how good they were, how hot Don Johnson was -- and the incredible music. The show so totally captured the 80's -- and the cocaine cowboys. Here's Phil Collins with In the Air Tonight:

What would Miami Vice be without the official theme song by Glenn Frey,You Belong to the City . Or my all-time favorite, Smuggler's Blues.

While I haven't yet seen the 2006 movie opening this week with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, they played a scene of it tonight and I just can't picture them being anywhere near as good as Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas.

One thing conspicuously missing: cell phones, I guess they didn't have them yet. There were car phones and cordless -- and even pay phones-- but no cell phones. Watching drug dealers without cell phones is so last century.

One more: Sonny Crockett's theme.

If you aren't familiar with the cocaine trade in the 70's, here's your ticket: Snowblind:

Snowblind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade
by Robert Sabbag

Snowblind is an all-out, nonstop, and now classic look at the cocaine trade through the eyes of smuggler Zachary Swan. In a brief Roman-candle career, Swan served an elegant clientele, traveling between Bogota and the nightclubs of New York, inventing intricate scams to outmaneuver the feds. Creating diversions that were characteristically baroque, surviving on ingenuity and idiot's luck, he discovered in the process a hip, dangerous, high-velocity world that Robert Sabbag evokes with extraordinary power and humor.

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    Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux | 11 comments (11 topical)
    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#1)
    by Che's Lounge on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 01:00:53 AM EST
    Yeah I used to go over to a friend's house a couple times in Manhattan Beach, CA where they were all snorting coke as the show started. I had my first and, fortunately, my only experience with crack cocaine back then. Great buzz that lasted only a few minutes. Someone turned me on to it. I would never in a million years pay money for that crap. But I can see how the lure is there for someone with less to look forward to and a desperate desire to relieve the depressing outlook that comes with living in the ever more competitive and complex world of the United States of America. I enjoyed the episodes with Willie Nelson and Phil Collins. They did a great job with that guy who was an ex junkie on the team. His character added tremendous depth to the ensemble. Mann did a pretty good job there. Quite a unique show.

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#2)
    by Che's Lounge on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 01:04:43 AM EST
    Oh yeah, Swan et al had some great schemes for smuggling coke. It was so much less Cartel-like back then. Also see "Blow" with Johnny Depp.

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#3)
    by teacherken on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 05:00:22 AM EST
    I remember an episode with Edward James Olmos where he was helping the wife of someone who had been in Russian Intelligence that he knew from Vietnam. In the film getting her way from danger there was incredible use of Russian Orthodox Church Music. There was also creative casting - G. Gordon Liddy as a corrupt former military man heavily involved in the drug trade. And introducing people to things about which they might not have known - the number of Native Americans who had participated in LRPs - long-range patrols of the Marines. I remember an episode where they were trying to figure out a pattern of burglaries and Olmos showed how a good detective takes the information available to to eliminate non-connections and focus on possible connections. And finally, it was the first time I ever saw Liam Neeson, who played a Irishman who ostensible wanted a peaceful resolution to the N Irish troubles but in reality was a hit man. Sandarf Fernandez had fallen hard for him, but shot him as he wa attempting to use a Stinger to shoot down an airliner (?Brisith? as it was taking off from Miami. I saw parts of the pilot last night. And tons of memories came flashing back. That show was better than it had any right to be.

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 05:34:58 AM EST
    The past just never goes away, does it. We can have some fun with this. I never paid much attention to politics in the 80s, well...not so much in the 90s either and....hmmm,...the 70s are still a bit fuzzy for memory purposes but thankfully I now have the internets to fill in the blanks of my altered conscious states of awareness back then. :-) Any chance Prince Manna (Manner) had a cameo role? An eccentric figure in a bathrobe with cane, wandering the streets of Liberty City in pursuit of dupes and provocateurs? Trial and attempted shooting in a storage bin serving as a Moorish Science Temple? Cameo by Gus Boulis? Rudy Dekkers? ...the possibilities are mind boggling. Here's a chronology to serve as a memory trigger Miami Chronology: 1980 to 2002 Cool piece of trivia I found
    The Phony War on Drugs ndeed, Bush has an impressive resume of bureaucratic titles to back up his claim to be America's top anti-drug fighter. On January 28, 1982, Reagan created the South Florida Task Force under Bush's high-profile leadership to coordinate the efforts of the various federal agencies to stem the tide of narcotics into Bush's old family bailiwick. On March 23, 1983, Bush was placed in charge of the National Narcotics Border Interdiction System, which was supposed to staunch the drug flow over all US borders. In August, 1986 US officials presented to their Mexican counterparts a scheme called Operation Alliance, a new border enforcement initiative that was allegedly to do for the US-Mexican border area what the South Florida Task Force had allegedly already done for the southeastern states. George Bush was appointed chief of Operation Alliance, which involved 20 federal agencies, 500 additional federal officers, and a budget of $266 million. ... To crown all these efforts, Bush sought to obtain a cameo role for a brief appearance on the television series Miami Vice. He was perhaps inspired by his mentor, Kissinger, who had walked through a cameo of his own on Dynasty. But Bush was unable to accomplish his dream.
    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 10:41:14 AM EST
    I hate to admit I caught part of it. Maybe it's because I was middle school age back then but to me it just seemed way over the top. That line when he calls his wife, "tell me, what we had . . . was it real" just oozes cheese. I remember how every episode seemed to end with Crocket's character yelling "Noooo" as someone was shot. Plus I can't help thinking about all the drug cops today who grew up watching that show and use it as grounds to support their misguided take on the drug war. I like the NY Times take on Mann, Style over substance. Don't get me wrong, it was good TV for its time, but now it's clearly dated.

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#6)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 11:12:26 AM EST
    Agree with B...it was a trendy show, but it stayed well within the confines of the cop show formula. Nothing really groundbreaking there. One more thing...it, along with Phil Collins, Glen Frey, etc. hark back to the Reagan era, a time almost as frighteningly dreadful as the current. Hardly pleasant escapism!

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 02:51:22 PM EST
    I had very long hair, wore Dior pantsuits with silk t-shirts and canvas Nikes to fancy functions. People would sometimes refer to me as "Sonny Crockett's Girlfriend". It made me laugh. Thanks for the great music links, Jeralyn.

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Jul 23, 2006 at 03:15:32 PM EST
    Back in the '80's, being home on a Friday night when MV was on meant I was late for my "going out and doing all kinds of cocaine" dates. I miss the '80's. (sniff)

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#9)
    by Slado on Mon Jul 24, 2006 at 07:20:22 AM EST
    What a great idea replaying old shows like that. Other then Entourage last night I am in the Summer repeat duldrums. I'd love to see some old shows of Magnum PI, Million Dollar Man, Dallas and maybe a little V and A-Team to top it all off. I hope this becomes a trend to show shows in prime time like they used to be veiwed instead of running them endlessly at noon on USA or TBS. Good times.

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Jul 24, 2006 at 02:17:23 PM EST
    I like it Slado. It'd be sorta cool to see a random NBC Thursday night 80's line up. A little, cosby show, family ties, cheers, and night court. Wow, and I made fun of MV.

    Re: Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux (none / 0) (#11)
    by jondee on Mon Jul 24, 2006 at 04:05:53 PM EST
    Crockett kinda reminds me of Ricky Nelson abruptly time-tunneled to the eighties and getting to live out all the stuff he'd been daydreaming about while he was sitting around listening to Big Mama Thornton records. Right before Ozzie and his brother told him to "turn that d*rn stuff down!"

    Late Nite: Miami Vice Redux | 11 comments (11 topical)