Are there any contemporary American equivalents of ‘Eighties television programmes aimed at boys, such as The A-Team and Knightrider? These programmes may not have been great art but they had a certain moral code and were quite popular. I have nephews aged ten and twelve and have been observing the differences between what I was exposed to at their age and what they watch.
As far as I can remember, these shows were shown on the UK’S main commercial network, ITV, in an early evening slot. It would be inconceivable for ITV to broadcast similar programmes now but the potential audience is still out there. There is a significant output of adult male-orientated shows such as Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead from the US that are popular over here, but there doesn’t seem to be anything for the demographic that my nephews currently inhabit.
Riptide had a helicopter too… it was pink and the pilot always had to thump part of it to start it. But you’re probably right… I never watched Airwolf.
Unfortunately no. That style of show died out with “for syndication” shows, which was early 00s.
That demographic is focused on video games now anyway.
I would argue that, in a way, Person of Interest is a spiritual successor to the A-Team. There’s a shady group of people working to save innocent people and prevent them from harm while simultaneously hiding from law enforcement forces out to get them. Instead of cool vans and guns, they have a (basically) magical ability to get into anything computer-related.
The end of the PoI intro (“If you’re number’s up, we’ll find you”) has always reminded me of the A-Team intro narration (“If you need help, and if you can find them…”).
Yes. They’ve tried to introduce me to the pleasures of Minecraft. Can you kill the sheep? Or square chicken things?
The only UK one I can think of was Robin of Sherwood. They couldn’t show people being shot with arrows in the thigh, for some reason. They could show headbutts and slashes to the belly though.
Oh, right, the one with the wife-beater. And Ernie Borgnine.
There was also Stingray - which had one or two very intelligent bits I remember. Magnum PI started off being a lot about the Ferrari and other toys Magnum got to play with, and Miami Vice had an awful lot of old Ferrari scenes, too.
Rather later, there was Renegade - which was sort of Knight Industries meets Sons of Anarchy Lite.
The Equalizer is getting a bit far from the premise, I guess.
I’m kind of bummed about not being able to find current shows of this mold. I can watch Knight Rider with my kid and he’ll be interested in the talking indestructible sports car and the guy fighting crime, and I don’t have to feel like I’m suffering through a pathetic kid’s show, just a dated show from my youth.
Maybe I’ll look into PoI and see what it may hold for us.
I’d say Leverage might be a modern version of the format. While nothing modern has the same “code” as eighties shows (everything has to be “dark” and “gritty”), it had the A-team feel.
This Jesse Mach, an ex-motorcycle cop, injured in the line of duty. Now a police troubleshooter, he’s been recruited for a top secret government mission to ride Street Hawk – an all-terrain attack motorcycle designed to fight urban crime, capable of incredible speeds up to three hundred miles an hour, and immense firepower. Only one man, federal agent Norman Tuttle, knows Jesse Mach’s true identity. The man…the machine…Street Hawk.
Street Hawk I’d forgotten, which I think is merciful. Even Dodge was uncomfortable with Viper, I think. I remember seeing an ad, might have been the ten-year anniversary of the Viper, with timeline of events across the bottom. Very close together were “Viper TV show premieres” and “Viper TV show is cancelled.”
