The Final Episode #89: The Fall Guy (1981 - 1986)

 

I don't know for sure why I picked this as one of the five shows for people to pick the order of shows contest thing I had on my Facebook. I think the big reasons were I had never seen this show and Jay of the Game Chasers praises it all the time and I've been curious about the show ever since then. I have a feeling that was the first time I even heard of this show. I also feel that I picked it because I want to discuss television shows that aren't sitcoms or cartoons. I won't stop doing the sitcoms or cartoons but TV is and was a big landscape full of crazy stuff and it feels like I'm not covering enough different stuff. I think I've only covered one sci-fi show for crying out loud! 

So what is The Fall Guy you fine people may be asking? Well it was a television series that ran from 1981 to 1986 for five seasons and 113 episodes. It was created by Glen A Larson for the American Broadcasting Company. You should know Glen A Larson because he created a ton of famous shows from the 1970s and 1980s, including Battlestar Galactica, Magnum P.I. and Knight Rider. You couldn't throw a stone in TVland without hitting a Glen A Larson program in the 1980s! Wow that's probably the worst sentence anyone has ever written in the history of mankind. I love winning because I'm so terrible. The Fall Guy starred Lee Majors, Heather Thompson, and Douglas Barr as stunt performers for movies and stuff like that who moonlight as bounty hunters. It even had Markie Post from Night Court in the show! Who could say no to television like that? Portnoyd probably.

As with TV shows I had never seen before writing the article, I watch a few episodes besides the Final Episode and discuss all of them with you fine beautiful folks. I picked out a few from the last season that I felt deserved some discussion. Now let's get down to talking! The first episode I watched was Femme Fatale and it guest stars the least talented person from the 1980s, Scott Baio. Yep, Charles in Charge himself, except he is not in charge! Someone is trying to kill him because he saw them commit a murder! He hides out in a drag club and the trio of bounty hunters have to go find him. This episode was a lot of fun. You get your usual silly drag comedy where a very conservative man is like "OH BOY I WANNA KISS THIS LADY" when in fact the lady is clearly someone who's being forced to dress as a lady. You get some great action! You get Scott Baio probably not loving what he has to do because he's ridiculously conservative. You also get Ken Foree! You know the badass black dude from Dawn of The Dead. Ken Foree is so cool he should be in everything!

The next episode is a Halloween episode! Had I known this show had two Halloween episodes I probably would have talked about both of them in more detail but anyway, this one was a hell of a lot of fun. It has the gang being forced into a "haunted" house by a shithead movie producer. they go there and it's the house of an British weirdo and a grumpy butler (grumpy butlers should be in everything.) and a mad man who escaped a mental asylum! How are the gang gonna get outta this one! I'm not gonna tell because I thought it was a neat episode and all that AND it has the best guest stars ever. It had Elvira (yes that Elvira), Doug McClure (from such films as At the Earth's Core and The Land that Time Forgot), Vincent Shavielli (the weird looking subway ghost from the film Ghost) AND Vernon Welles. That's right mother fucking Bennett is in this episode! Bennett may be the best action movie bad guy ever. Name me a better one. I dare you. I miss when shows would do a big episode for the holidays. 

Speaking of holidays, we have Escape Claus. And with that spelling you know it's about that jolly old fat man who gives presents. Or at least someone pretending to be him. It's that usual old plot of IS THIS GUY CRAZY OR REALLY SANTY CLAUS. It always turns out to be santy claus. Unless you are watching Silent Night Deadly Night then it's just a crazy person. This Santa is played by Dr. Bombay from Bewitched and age did not help him. His entire face looks like it shrank and he has no chin. it's weird and I don't like it. This is your usual cheesy Christmas episode where Santa and the gang have to save an orphanage from going under. You either love this stuff or want it to burn. Personally I'm a fan. The only problem was the bad quality of the upload..........I mean dvd I watched. You know what would be cool, if they made a streaming service of just old stuff. People would watch it. Sadly they won't do that and fun shows like this just sit rotting away in some jerky studios jerk storage.

The Final Episode was called "The Bigger They Are" and was written by Glen A Larson and Stephen Glantz. Stephen Glantz has written for shows like The New Adam-12 (can I say that 98% of shows with New in the title were bad?) and the movie Showdown in Little Tokyo. Yes, with Brandon Lee and Dolph Lundren. I think that might be the most homoerotic action film ever made. It's great and I recommend it highly. Anyway the episode starts out with Colt, Jody and Howie doing their day job of stunt work. It's a crazy big stunt and It goes well. Colt is met by a lady who I'm going to name Judy and she talks about her son who I'm gonna name Jimmy who is angry at the world because his dad has passed away.  

Colt talks to him and Jimmy really wants to become a stuntman. Even asking for Colt to be his mentor. We then get Colt getting Jimmy to go to a baseball game. After the game Jimmy asks Colt if he will teach him how to fight so he can beat up a bully. Colt does the old "OH I CANT HELP YOU LEARN HOW TO FIGHT YOU MUST USE YOU WORDS" stuff and I'm like man teach the poor kid how to fight and hope he mashes the bully's face into goop. Fuck bullies. In the dickhole. Colt tells him about a boxing place and he goes there. He totally runs into Billy Wolfe, which is what the bullys name is apparently. I think I'm going to change my opinion and say bullies rule because really who couldn't love someone named Billy Wolfe? Anyway they go inside the boxing club and it's ran by this cop dude that Colt knows. The cop talks about how he's got a restraining order on him because he's been investigating the largest PCP seller in the state. PCP is such a 1985 drug.

The Cop tells him that he's not so easy to catch because he uses kids to do his dirty work. He tells him that he keeps a list of all his drug houses in a computer that he has in his disco office. This guy is running a disco in 1985 so I can see why he needs to work in the drug trade also. He's gotten Jody and Howie in on the action. They are even dressed up. Jody actually has a pretty nice dress on and Howie hoo boy I think he pulled that tuxedo out of the shithole. They have to distract Jones the PCP Pusher until Colt can find all the information on the drug houses. It turns out that the dastardly Billy Wolfe is working with Jones the PCP Man and getting him kids to help sell PCP. Man I take it back I'm not a fan of Billy Wolfe anymore! Drug dealing is not cool, jerk. 

Jones the PCP Man is leaving when Jody and Howie literally start beating the SHIT outta each other to keep him from leaving. This is some wild shit. Tables going everywhere. It's a hoot and a half. That's right, almost two hoots!!! This gets them kicked out while Colt is still upstairs!! There's a fight and Colt jumps through an unopened window. I think that's my favorite action movie stunt. It's always just so cool to see a dude or lady blast through a window. It's back at the boxing club where Jimmy is learning how to keep stamina and coordination but he just wants to punch. PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH!!! Colt is still trying to keep him from getting murdered by BILLY WOLFE. Who is now being told of the offer by Jones second in command. I'll call him PCP Man #2 because I just like the term PCP Man. Does anyone even do PCP anymore?

Jimmy ends up in a fight with BILLY WOLFE and his gang. One of his gang members looks like he could be a silent movie comedian. He's got the silly hat AND some suspenders. Suspenders are cool. I can't wait to be an old man to use them. Anyway Jimmy takes a fucking beating and his mom is worried and Colt came to see whats up. Colt talks to Jimmy and learns that his tormentors are also the PCP drug dealers. Colt tells him he will deal with them. Now Colt and The Cop are in a stakeout watching for something at the ONE drug house he was able to find. Jesus Colt really sucks at computers. Anyway they find out that the PCP people are putting the drugs in a garbage bins and taking them back via garbage trucks. A pretty brilliant plan if you ask me. They try to take the drug dealers but the Cop gets shot and Colt gets a truck to drive through the damn drug house. Trucks wrecking a house needs to be in more action related cinema and tv. Just saying.

Thankfully the Cop is fine. Jody and Howie go after some slimeball that knows everything. I think this guy is played by someone I should recognize but I don't. Anyway he pretty much lies to Howies face and steals his money until Jody pretty much puts the squeeze on him. Jones the PCP Man and his #2 guy played by BILLY DRAGO are planning to kill Colt and the Cop before the big shipment comes in.  Jimmy and Colt have a nice chat about what Jimmy is really angry about. Which is his dad dying and leaving him and his mom. That's what he's angry at. Now for some weird out of place comedy that still made me laugh because it's so goofy. Colt's truck gets shot at when trying to get to the place where all the PCP is going to be delivered and crashes into a huge cake. It goes flying and hits a man a lady and a Benji like dog. I laughed when it hit the dog. Poor dog.

Jimmy takes his Walkman and tries to get information on the gang. His mom calls Colt and well I guess it's time to go beat the shit out of Billy Drago and hope to get some information this way. They get their way and are told its in some warehouse! Jimmy is found out and Billy Wolfe is made to kill him, but Colt ain't letting that happen by CRASHING THROUGH THE DAMN DOOR! Colt and Howie beat the shit outta Jones the PCP man and random guy. Jimmy ran after Billy and gets him to the floor. He's about to hit him when he decides not too. Colt's words have gotten through to him! We end on some silly joke and that's that!

FINAL VERDICT: A very fun 1980s action show. Fun likable characters. You can get a goofy plot about saving Santa or a more serious plot about drug dealing. I enjoyed my time with The Fall Guy and I'm sure I will return to watch more. I didn't even get to see Markie Post!