“Don’t even TRY, CHiPs!!”

Any time I get too big for my britches, or start to take myself too seriously, my friend Mitchell is wont to say, quietly, ” ‘Don’t even try’…”

‘Don’t even try’ is a quote – or part of a quote – a quote from one of my more absurd moments. It is good to remember this moment on occasion, because it keeps me from thinking I’m some big cerebral wizard (uh … do I even think that?)

Here’s the scoop:

I was in college. All of us were at a party at “Sue and Seann’s”. Sue and Seann were a couple, their names blended together into one word: SueandSeann – and they had a house “down the line” (on the beach, that is) and we would convene there for raucous cast parties. Hilarious parties.

At one of these parties – I literally do not remember why this began – but someone turned on the TV and CHiPs was on. A show I watched obsessively as a young kid. I loved John, not Ponch. Ponch’s pearly whites alienated me. John seemed like a guy you could actually talk to.

So we all sat around, watching Chips, re-living our respective childhoods – there were about 6 of us doing this.

I hadn’t watched Chips in years – so it was hysterical – we made fun of it, throughout – the way they rode their motorcycles in formation, the terrible C-level actors who played bit parts – the cheesiness of Estrada’s behavior …

Now. Here is where it gets blurry.

I would block this event out, if Mitchell didn’t keep reminding me of it.

I was sitting next to my boyfriend at the time. And one of the age-old episodes of Chips came into my mind, and I started to describe it to him.

Perhaps you might remember it:

Ponch fell in love. He loved, lost, grieved, and recovered – all in a one-hour episode. The woman he fell in love with was Beverly Sasson, a dark-haired cheesy-looking beauty. Ponch’s love-personality was unbelieably cheesy. There were a couple of montages – of the two of them walking on the beach, eating ice cream … (to show time passing, love growing). There was even an embarrassing shot of the two of them on a carousel, laughing at how quickly their love was growing over this montage.

Were there issues in their relationship? I cannot remember. All I know is – Ponch loved this woman. I think Ponch wanted to marry her, and he bought her a ring. He was getting all ready to propose – when tragedy struck.

Beverly Sasson was crossing a street and she was hit, and killed, by a drunk-driver.

Ponch is devastated. Erik Estrada is given some screen-time where his eyes fill up with horrified tears – all to please the Tiger Beat audience members (of which I was one, even though I loved John. I loved John because I have always had a soft spot for the underdog … It didn’t seem fair to me, my 10 year old self, that Ponch got all the female attention just because of those damn teeth.)

Anyway – (listen to how seriously I am discussing this! It is so absurd!) The episode ends with Ponch standing on the sunset beach, the very beach where they had walked together, during their multiple montages, staring out at the waves, letting his lost love go. He throws the engagement ring into the surf.

You know, somehow, that Ponch will never love again.

The screen goes black.

And THEN – white words on the black screen:

“Every year 5 kajillion people are killed by drunk drivers. Please don’t drink and drive.”

Okay.

So there’s a lot going on here. Let me try to get my thoughts together.

Even as a 10 year old, I had HUGE scorn for that ending. Especially the white words on the black screen. I remember thinking, “But … the entire SHOW wasn’t about drunk drivers … ”

It seemed to me that the producers of Chips had a confused approach: they wanted to have a gushy romantic story, featuring Ponch, to please the ladies in their audience. But then they also wanted to do an “issue” show, to show that they are actually a serious series.

If the show had begun with Beverly being hit by a drunk driver, and then the rest of the hour spent with Ponch trying to get justice for her, or trying to punish the drunk driver – THEN those white words on the black screen would have made sense.

But as it was – it seemed like just a cynical ploy, a plot-point – a RUSE to make Chips seem like an important show …

I had HUGE scorn for that, as a 10 year old. I saw right through their stupid little game.

Okay, so there’s the back-story. Fast-forward to Sue and Seann’s. I was telling this whole thing to my boyfriend, who was listening patiently, I am sure on some level enjoying me, enjoying how seriously I took this.

“And so then, there’s this whole stupid montage where they fall in love … God, he was just so cheesy … and THEN … he buys her a ring … and he’s all excited … but you just know it’s not gonna work out well, because there’s only 10 minutes left in the show ….”

Then I described the ending, and the white letters on the blank screen.

I was caustic in my indictment: “They wanted to suddenly turn themselves into a serious issues show where they tackle stuff like drunk driving – but it was so stupid because she was killed in the last 15 minutes of the show – That’s not a whole SHOW devoted to an issue – They turned her death into some stupid plot-point, and then tried to SPIN it as some big important issue!!”

As I spoke like this, my rage at Chips grew.

And here is what happened next:

I was leaning right into my boyfriend’s face, all worked up at how stupid CHIPS was, and I was yelling (yes, I was yelling):

“Don’t even TRY!!!” (then, caustically, as though speaking right to them:) “CHIPS. Don’t even TRY, CHIPS!”

I said it multiple times. I was yelling, “Don’t even try, Chips” at my boyfriend.

At some point, he started laughing at me. He had been enduring my assault – and when he realized that somehow I had turned him into the producers of CHIPS – and that I was seriously yelling at him – he LOST it.

Mitchell, who had been watching me slowly get worked up for the last 5 minutes, stood off to the side, stunned – and then he started laughing at me too.

I was so ANGRY that “Chips” even “TRIED” to be a serious show. Like: do not even TRY, Chips!! You’re CHIPS. Accept that you are CHIPS. DO NOT EVEN TRY.

“Don’t even try, Chips” is still a common phrase between Mitchell and I.

Recently I said something to him like, “I mean, yeah, I’m a serious woman, and all that, and I’m cerebral – but that’s not all there is to it! I have other sides too.”

Pause.

Mitchell interjected, “Don’t even try, Chips.”

For some reason, the memory of me yelling “DON’T EVEN TRY, CHIPS” right into my boyfriend’s face reminds me that, after all, I’m kind of a silly girl. Would a truly serious person get all worked up over Chips?? Over Chips even “trying”?

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

39 Responses to “Don’t even TRY, CHiPs!!”

  1. Betsy says:

    When we were young, I would usually go over to a friend’s house on Sundays for the afternoon – a girl who I knew from church. Because we were at that in-between age where playing with dolls was something we weren’t supposed to do, but still secretly loved, we referred to our game as “the usual” so as not to have to name the game (which was basically ‘house’). We each had our own doll and we were married to the paramedics from ‘Emergency’ – I was forever married to Roy (Kevin Tighe) who was not as cute or popular as Johnny, but always seemed the more interesting person to me…

  2. red says:

    Betsy –

    I can’t believe I’ve never heard that story … “The Usual” … that is brilliant!!

  3. Ted K says:

    “Would a truly serious person get all worked up over Chips?? Over Chips even “trying”?”

    Yes

  4. Dan says:

    At first I giggled over the mental image of you screaming about CHIPS.

    Then I recalled the many, very earnest discussions and arguments I’ve had about the following shows: Dukes of Hazzard, Good Times, Speed Racer, Land of the Lost…

    ..and suddenly I wasn’t laughing anymore. Pot, meet kettle.

  5. Emily says:

    Hey – didn’t the beginning of CHiPS always start out with some horrendous highway smash-up that was supposed to teach us all valuable lessons about the importance of safe driving? It was society’s conscience from go!

  6. red says:

    “Marshall, Will and Holly
    On a routine expedition
    And the greatest earthquake ever known
    High on the rapids struck their tiny raft
    And plunged them down a thousand feet beloooowww
    To the La-and of the Lo-ost”
    (roooooarrrr)
    “To the La-and of the Lo-ost”

  7. Jim says:

    See how the “frame” of Emily’s posts give a clear indication of what coast she lives on…

  8. red says:

    Emily –

    I just did not pick up on Chips’ higher calling as an “issue” show. I wish I had, because then my rage would not have been so great, and would not have lasted a decade, causing me to yell at my poor boyfriend in public.

  9. red says:

    Ted:

    Thank you very much for your vote of support.

  10. Jim says:

    When anyone gets excited over anything CHiPS-like the safest thing to do is patient humor.

  11. Emily says:

    Speaking of geography, Jim, how’s the weather out there?

    Does anybody remember the episode where Danny Partidge starred as a KISS-like rock star who’s life was in danger? I think his name was Morloch? What I want to know, is why in the hell was the highway patrol on that case?

  12. Dan says:

    I don’t recall that one. I do have fond memories of the roller-skating robbers though.

  13. red says:

    Morloch? Sounds very Tolkien-esque.

    I don’t remember that one. The roller-skating robbers ring a bell.

    Why is it that I can remember, point by point, the stupid Chips with the love-story and the drunk-driving?

    Memory is so interesting, so bizarre.

  14. Pat W says:

    Sheila, I’ve got a good CHiPs story for you next time I see you.

  15. Bill McCabe says:

    You have to be kidding me…CHiPs had a “very special episode”? I hate it when that happens. Remember the “very special episode” of Diff’rent Strokes with the pedophile? Attention, this is supposed to be funny. CHiPs is for poorly filmed car chases, not high messages.

    Sometimes, the special episode is just out of place. Enterprise did an AIDS allegory last year that might have been thought provoking if written in 1985, but the message that everyone out there shouldn’t recoil in horror at the sight of an AIDS sufferer is largely ridiculous in 2003.

  16. Ken Hall says:

    I think The Sleestaks would be a great band name. In fact, it probably has been.

  17. red says:

    One quick note:

    I love that so many of you are taking the time to type CHiPs correctly. I find that unbelievably heartwarming.

    Pat W – can’t wait – remind me.

  18. Bill McCabe says:

    I have many happy memories of CHiPs reruns on cable when I was ten, it deserves to be spelled correctly.

  19. red says:

    Bill –

    As you will notice in the post, I started out typing it correctly, but it quickly became way too high-maintenance. Forgive me.

  20. Bill McCabe says:

    If I had to type it twenty times, I’d give up too. I’m not nitpicking or anything.

  21. red says:

    You better not be, cause that would be really embarassing.

  22. Bill McCabe says:

    Thanks to you, I will never spell that word wrong again.

  23. red says:

    You should have it tatooed on your arm.

  24. Emily says:

    Er…CHiPs isn’t technically a word

  25. red says:

    CHiPs. It’s funnier and funnier every time I see it. But then again, I’m wacked.

  26. Bill McCabe says:

    Here you go: CHiPs Online

    It’s actually still on TV, on TBS at 4 AM.

  27. red says:

    Ponch and John (not to mention Grossman) must love those residuals.

  28. Bill McCabe says:

    Assuming they got residuals, the cast of Gilligans Island got screwed, after all.

  29. Bill McCabe says:

    Assuming they got residuals, the cast of Gilligans Island got screwed, after all.

  30. Emily says:

    I just had to type something here, because it’s just too funny to think that a post about CHiPs received thirty comments in reply…

  31. Bill McCabe says:

    It’s too bad CHiPs isn’t available on DVD.

    Not that I’d buy it or anything, cheesy TV series are what Netflix was made for.

  32. red says:

    The residual laws were passed by the time CHiPs came around.

    Emily – I KNOW!!

  33. sid says:

    Thank God I peed in the toilet before I got to this post.

    I wonder if anyone ever stumbled out of a party, got into the driver’s seat of the car, then stopped and thought about poor Ponch having to do montages all alone and then got out and called a cab.

  34. MikeR says:

    “a truly serious person”

    Who wants to be around those folks?!

  35. red says:

    “Having to do montages all alone…”

    Sounds like my life. I’m always doing freakin’ montages all by myself. I ride on the carousel, laughing as my hair blows back – I eat ice cream as I walk through the zoo, laughing – I stare into a pet shop window, giggling at the sleeping puppies – My very own solitary montage. All with sappy music playing over, of course.

    That’s actually kind of a funny idea for a short film, now that I think about it.

  36. Da Goddess says:

    My God, woman! How dare you do this to me at 1 am…when I already can’t breathe!

    And, don’t get me started on sleestaks and Chakka – okay?

    It’s like watching Bubble Boy all over again. (Don’t ask) RUN AWAY!

  37. sid says:

    Sheila …

    Just make sure you use that soft-lighting fuzzy-edges filter that is a standard for all romantic montages and every woman on “Star Trek.” And put an echo on your laughter when you’re just out of the ocean and having a drink on the deck.

  38. red says:

    Sid –

    heeeelllllp!!

  39. CHiPs

    I was driving to work on the 210 Freeway (east bound) on Monday morning and out of nowhere eight CHiPs on motorcycles came roaring from behind and zipped into the carpool lane. It was quite a sight. The theme music…

Comments are closed.