Get ready for another classic TV crime drama to hit the big screen...

[only1moore]

...This time its "77 Sunset Strip." Can't wait to see who they'll pick to play Kookie....

http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/tvbizwire/2010/03/the-hippest-coolest-tv-show-of.php

 

[landtuna]

In this day of TMZ and its hundred imitators I would be very surprised if "Sunset Strip" could generate the same level of interest it did in the relatively unsophisticated 50's. My guess is that it would be a characterature of the old series and generate nothing but laughs. I mean, would anyone take a Kookie seriously today?

 

[Bob1370]

77 Sunset Strip's a childhood memory for me--but IMHO the show needs to be built around the central figures of the detectives themselves. Then you cast Kookie as a character who represents today's counterculture--either a figure out of the modern rock realm or out of contemporary hip-hop--just like Edd Byrnes played the character as a 1059-style greaser, a proto-Fonzie for his time. You don't try to do a pastiche of the past, you make every aspect of the show 2010-style contemporary, with the common thread being suave protagonists and comic-relief secondary characters who are fully contemporary.

 

[RicoGregg]

Like man, I don't dig that jazz, I ain't makin' this scene, where's the damn church key, ya dig?

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Are they just picking random old shows to make into movies now? What's next? "The Rifleman"? "To Tell The Truth"? "The Loretta Young Show"?

 

[jwgreek8606]

There was going to be a Press Your Luck Movie in 2000.

 

[bk77]

Are they just picking random old shows to make into movies now? What's next? "The Rifleman"? "To Tell The Truth"? "The Loretta Young Show"?

I have to agree with you. Whats next? Movies based on local shows? "Wallace and Ladmo...The Movie !!. I am sure people outside of Phoenix will flock to the theares to see that one.

If Hollywood feels there is a need to do a movie based on an old TV show, why not do one that is so off the wall? Totally unexpected. Thought its a TV show, recently on The Family Guy, I caught that scene where the father from those ultra conservative Family Circus cartoon comic strips was getting cussed out by Brian...in a bar. THAT was totally unexpected !! And it was funny too !!!

The Brady Bunch Movie was a success for the same reason.It was the unexpected that got peoples attention. People weren't expecting to hear some guy shouting "BRADYS SUCK", or that lesbian scene involving Marsha, the real Greg Brady ( Barry Williams ) making fun of "Johnny Bravo" or Florence Henderson telling Cindy to "...cut the crap !!".

A movie with a title such as "Snoopy will KILL you Charlie Brown"...ah chances are will attract more movie goers ( and make more money ) than a remake a Snoopy Come Home.

 

[landtuna]

77 Sunset Strip's a childhood memory for me--but IMHO the show needs to be built around the central figures of the detectives themselves. Then you cast Kookie as a character who represents today's counterculture--either a figure out of the modern rock realm or out of contemporary hip-hop--just like Edd Byrnes played the character as a 1059-style greaser, a proto-Fonzie for his time. You don't try to do a pastiche of the past, you make every aspect of the show 2010-style contemporary, with the common thread being suave protagonists and comic-relief secondary characters who are fully contemporary.

Maybe I'm a bit older than you but I don't remember Kookie as anything like a greaser. He was well-dressed, clean, polite (in a very cooooool Sinatra sort of way). Today we'd probably note his career in the hospitality industry or call him a gofer.

Does anyone today think valet parking attendants are successful people?

I don't think I've seen anyone under 30 carrying a comb in years much less sport anything looking like they actually washed and dressed their 'do. The "just got outta bed" style seems to be gauche these days.

Kookie today would have been a military veteran (spy guy or sniper type), "looking for his identify", sporting a big heater, able to pick up the ladies merely by zipping his zipper and always having a big wad to tip everyone in sight.

 

[bpatrick]

Given that the Dan Aykroyd-Tom Hanks version of "Dragnet"
was played as a comedy, and that CBS's '90s revival of
"Burke's Law" turned out to be so dated as to be unintentionally
funny, I won't be surprised if today's audiences hoot down a
remake of "77 Sunset Strip," which few have probably even heard of.

 

[Silkie]

In this day of TMZ and its hundred imitators I would be very surprised if "Sunset Strip" could generate the same level of interest it did in the relatively unsophisticated 50's. My guess is that it would be a characterature of the old series and generate nothing but laughs. I mean, would anyone take a Kookie seriously today?

Agents 86 and 99 didn't get too bad a office draw.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

I agree the reason "The Brady Bunch Movie" worked was the concept of the Bradys being stuck in 1972 (Marcia still having a crush on Davy Jones, etc.) and being fishes out of water in 1995. I also agree that the biggest problem with a "77 Sunset Strip" movie would be that nobody under age 50 even remembers the show! At least with the bomb that was "The Honeymooners" a few years ago, the show was on in reruns, so younger moviegoers at least knew a little about it.

 

[LKellerIII]

I agree the reason "The Brady Bunch Movie" worked was the concept of the Bradys being stuck in 1972 (Marcia still having a crush on Davy Jones, etc.) and being fishes out of water in 1995. I also agree that the biggest problem with a "77 Sunset Strip" movie would be that nobody under age 50 even remembers the show! At least with the bomb that was "The Honeymooners" a few years ago, the show was on in reruns, so younger moviegoers at least knew a little about it.

Hey - I'm 58, and I barely remember 77 Sunset Strip. It started when I was 6 years old, and was cancelled when I was 12...but my parents didn't let me watch it regularly. They thought those shows were mind-rotting dreck.

One of the retro TV networks was running it a few years ago, along with Surfside Six and Hawaiian Eye. They were all produced by Warner Bros. My parents were right - all 3 of them were awful - badly written, low budget, cheap sets, badly choreographed and fake looking fistfights...I could go on.


Reviving 77 is a ridiculous idea.

 

[landtuna]

Which brought to mind an interesting experiment.

One of those "private eye" type shows, in the Fall of 1961 I believe, spent their entire hour without dialog. They had music and sound effects but no talking. I remember watching it but can't remember which one it was.

Anyone else remember?

 

[kirkiefan]

Most people do not remember this program which aired on ABC (I think) on Friday evenings. My only memory of the show was the cool and catchy theme song:

77 Sunset Strip (click click)

77 Sunset Strip (click click)

The other reason for the shows popularity was then teen heartthrob Edd Byrnes as Kookie which was further popularized in the pop song "Kookie Kookie,Lend Me Your Comb."..who later appered as Vince Fontaine in "Grease."

Warner Bros Television (under William T. Orr's baton) was responsible for lining up as many possible young actors as possible to star in the shows he produced so have an appeal with young girls in that decade...the other notable one would be Troy Donahue in "Surfside 6" (another private eye series produced by Orr among subsequent others with smiliar catchy theme music) and launched Donahue's movie carreer....but nearly fifty years later I cannot see how a series set in the 1950s would work in this era as "Happy Days" did in the 70s....unless the script is modified to this decade....which is how the movie version of "Miami Vice" succeeded in its 2006 release.

 

[mleach]

Reviving 77 is a ridiculous idea.

Unless they have plans to star someone like Seth Rogen as a foul mouthed, horny, cigar smoking, energy drink drinker Kookie who has bipolar disorder....I agree that the idea of a new 77 Sunset Strip movie is a ridiculous idea.

 

[ercjncpr]

In this day of TMZ and its hundred imitators I would be very surprised if "Sunset Strip" could generate the same level of interest it did in the relatively unsophisticated 50's. My guess is that it would be a characterature of the old series and generate nothing but laughs. I mean, would anyone take a Kookie seriously today?

Agents 86 and 99 didn't get too bad a office draw.

Maybe so, but it was still awful

 

[only1moore]

Reviving 77 is a ridiculous idea.

Unless they have plans to star someone like Seth Rogen as a foul mouthed, horny, cigar smoking, energy drink drinker Kookie who has bipolar disorder....I agree that the idea of a new 77 Sunset Strip movie is a ridiculous idea.

I hope you know that Rogen is about to don the mask of the infamous dark suited vigilante riding in the Chrysler Imperial driven by his martial arts sidekick/manservant come this December.

 

[Studio20]

I hope you know that Rogen is about to don the mask of the infamous dark suited vigilante riding in the Chrysler Imperial driven by his martial arts sidekick/manservant come this December.
[/quote]

Reminds me of the infamous crossover episode in which said-superhero and super sidekick came to Gotham City and crossed swords with Batman and Robin..and how during the fight scene Bruce Lee gave Burt Ward a few welts, lol...

 

[mleach]

I hope you know that Rogen is about to don the mask of the infamous dark suited vigilante riding in the Chrysler Imperial driven by his martial arts sidekick/manservant come this December.

.......and as well as recently writing and doing a cameo on The Simpsons. Seth wrote the episode where one of Comicbook guy's creations was made into a Hollywood big budget movie..starring Homer.

Seth Rogen is among the handful of actors who can do a good job at getting the younger people into the theatre. Steve Carell is another one. This explains the success of Get Smart. It might not have been much of a movie..but it did have Steve Carell.

 

[DToTheJ]

Warner Bros Television (under William T. Orr's baton) was responsible for lining up as many possible young actors as possible to star in the shows he produced so have an appeal with young girls in that decade...the other notable one would be Troy Donahue in "Surfside 6" (another private eye series produced by Orr among subsequent others with smiliar catchy theme music) and launched Donahue's movie carreer...

The only time I have ever heard of "Surfside 6" was when there was a reference to it on an episode of "Family Guy" - i.e. Stewie singing the theme song.