Cars in T.J. Hooker

[RobertB]

     The quintessential, early 1980's cop show, T.J. Hooker, is full of good, old American cars with V8 engines and rear wheel drive.  Every weekday, the FamilyNet Network is showing a T.J. Hooker episode (in order as released), and the network is already into the show's third season.
    I've been enjoying seeing the Dodge Coronet and Polara police cars chasing the Ford Thunderbirds, Lincoln Marks, and Chevys through the streets of the unnamed city of LC (heh, really Los Angeles County).  Lots of tire screeching, wheel spin and tire smoke, cars flipping and exploding.  And the background cars weren't too shabby, either.  For some reason, Ford/Mercury full-size station wagons with the woodgrain sides were in many of the shots.
     Of course, all of this was enhanced by supercop, T.J. Hooker (William Shatner).  Whether Hooker was jumping onto a moving bus, hanging from the hood of a moving car, leaping onto a moving car transporter, or clinging to the back of a moving van, the viewer was always treated to great stunts.  Yes, those were the days on American television. 

         FCUG celebrating 33 years,
         Robert Bernardo
         Fresno Commodore User Group
         http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

[RobertB]

..full of good, old American cars with V8 engines and rear wheel drive.

Cop T.J. Hooker did not always chase big American cars.  The other night I saw him chasing an old American pick-up truck, and surprisingly on another night, I saw him chase an AMC Gremlin sub-compact.  I thought, "Who would win this chase... big Dodge police car or small Gremlin?"  It should have been a no-brainer; the cop car would have won.  However, the Gremlin could have had a V8 engine, instead of its standard 6-cylinder or optional, bigger 6-cylinder.  In the end, the Gremlin got away by driving over a drawbridge while it was going up, and Hooker's cop car could not follow over the raised bridge.

         FCUG celebrating 33 years,
         Robert Bernardo
         Fresno Commodore User Group
         http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

[RobertB]

     For the first 3 seasons of the show, the fictional offices of LCPD used Apple II computers in the police work.  The A2's were not connected to Apple monitors but to what looked to be televisions (with composite inputs?).  In one episode, the characters popped up a photographic image of the records of a suspect with a head shot of that suspect.  That realistic image came too fast and looked too perfect.  I suspect that it was a special effects matte shot, the filmed image of the records being matted onto the screen.

          Because A2's of that era couldn't really do that,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
          July 18-19 Commodore Vegas Expo v11 2015 -
          http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex

[RobertB]

     I just discovered this webpage that describes the various cars in T.J. Hooker -

          http://www.imcdb.org/movie_83486-TJ-Hooker.html

With that information, I looked on-line for the type of police cars the show used - the 1977 Dodge Monaco and the 1979 Dodge St. Regis.  Whoa, the former is hard to find, and the latter is almost impossible to find.

          Many having gone to the junkyard in the sky,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm