The Hawaii Five-O Home Page.
It's easy to believe Mike Quigley when he says he's seen every episode of Hawaii Five-O except one.
The evidence, Danno, is right in front of our eyes on the Hawaii Five-O Home Page -- just named as one of the top five per cent on the Internet by Point Communications, which has a popular site of its own that rates web content.
Like Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord), Quigley has an eye for detail. In a section called Oddities, Goofs and Trivia, he offers what is almost a show-by-show accounting of the legendary tropical cop drama.
The former Vancouver journalist says he became seriously addicted to Hawaii Five-O during his university years in the late '60s and again when he returned to watching it in the late 70's.
Later, when the show was in re-runs on KVOS-TV, Quigley, who is now in technical support with Vancouver Internet service provider MindLink, took out his notepad.
The Point Communication's critic says that Quigley "seems to possess that sophisticated appreciation of the stupid necessary to worship this so-bad-it's-good classic."
Maybe so, but Quigley's page is a step up from this.
He doesn't just list the usual continuity goofs, bad hair days and those strange unexplained but inevitable shadows cast over tense scenes by crew or equipment. Quigley also notes the unthinking casting -- Ricardo Montalban as Japanese -- and the sexism.
For example, in the sixth episode McGarrett is asked about the chance of using a female police officer on a case. His terse, tight-jawed reply: "No dames."
While this sort of dialogue is not unexpected in the early episodes of a series that ran from September of 1968 to April 1980, the real surprise comes with Quigley's documentation of the racial slurs on a show that was noted for its use of Asian cast members.
In his introduction to this segment, Quigley warns readers about the content of the remarks "which would not be consideredly 'politically correct' today."
The only episode Quigley hasn't watched, he says, is one that is generally considered as being lost. However, he's heard that someone has a German-dubbed version of it.
So what is it about Hawaii Five-O that attracted Quigley in the first place?
"The main attraction is the scenery and the cool music written by Morton Stevens and a host of other composers."
Quigley says he also likes the interaction between the characters and the occasionally wacky plots.
While he doesn't see any significant changes to the page in the near future, Quigley has just added a one megabyte version of the theme music. And, through contacts in the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.hawaii-five-o he might add more links to other sites that feature the show.
Courtesy of The Vancouver Sun
RETURN TO:
The Hawaii Five-O Home Page.