There were a raft of American shows on offer when I was a kid. What’s that you say? Something about lots of American shows being on now? Well I’m not talking about the slickly-packaged likes of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. I mean the meat and potatoes that paved the way for all that stuff – no-nonsense action series that were the antithesis of high concept. Knight Rider with its yammering car and pouting hero. Street Hawk with its ridiculously fast bike and whoever was riding it. And then of course there was CHiPs. No that’s not a typo. It stands for California Highway Patrol and, following in a long line of comedians who are sufficiently desperate for material, Dax Shepard is going to mastermind a big screen version.
Created by Rick Rosner and running from 1977-83, CHiPs featured the multicultural exploits of Jon Baker and Frank “Ponch” Poncherello, two cops who zoomed along brightly-lit freeways on their big bikes getting into scrapes. Shepard (something of a motorcycle daredevil himself) will play Baker and Michael Peña is saddling up alongside as Poncherello. The tone of the movie is reportedly going to be a bit more strait-laced, so we may be seeing a confusing mash up along the lines of THE A-TEAM from a few years back. Good luck trying to adrenalize an audience with the name “Ponch!” being screamed at frequent intervals.
Source: ComingSoon
