B.A.D. Cats

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Name:	B.A.D. Cats
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:
Date(s):	January-February 1980
Medium:	Television
Country of Origin:	USA
External Links:	B.A.D. Cats at Wikipedia
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B.A.D. Cats was a very short-lived American television series that aired two months in 1981 on ABC. There were ten episodes.

B.A.D. Cats stood for 'Burglary Auto Detail, Commercial Auto Thefts'.

It starred Michelle Pfeiffer in one of her first major acting roles, as well as Vic Morrow, Lance Henriksen, Wanda LaPage, and Jimmie Walker.

Brief Synopsis for a Brief Show

Nick Donovan (Brauner) and Ocee James (Hanks) were two former race car drivers who joined the LAPD as part of the B.A.D. C.A.T. squad (which stood for Burglary Auto Detail Commercial Auto Thefts). Using their superior driving skills, the two mainly saw fit to run the bad guys off the road rather than question them. Their superior, Captain Nathan (Vic Morrow) publicly chastised the two, but privately encouraged their "loose cannon" style. Officer Samantha Jensen (Pfeiffer) would occasionally lend a hand when a more feminine approach was called for. Also seen were Ma (LaWanda Page), who owned a bar which the boys frequented, and Rodney (Jimmie Walker), a former car thief trying to get on the straight and narrow.

The Starsky & Hutch Connection

from Rerun #1, a filk by Laurie Haldeman

It was produced by Aaron Spelling, one of the creators of Starsky & Hutch.

Fans almost universally disliked the show, citing bad acting, but more importantly, they hated the idea that it appeared to be a cheap, soulless replacement for their very recently canceled favorite, Starsky & Hutch.

1979

Some of the letters in your zine discussed the possibility of an S&H revisited special in a few years' time. I thought you might be interested in knowing that Spelling 1s indeed going to remake S&H, essentially, this season.

It's a two-hour pilot called THE B.A.D. CATS (Burglary Auto Detail) for ABC, and I hear it's wired to go to series. It is, no kiddin', Starsky and Hutch in a clever disguise. It involves two ex-race drivers, best friends, who become undercover cops. These two even live together, in an apartment on the second floor of a commercial building in Venice (maybe it'll be Venice Place ... they've got plenty of stock footage, not to mention a set designed to fit) and have a souped-up Nova, and work for a black captain of detectives. Their favorite snitch is a black ex-car thief trying to go straight, called Roadrunner, or Runner. The guys are a Southern aristocrat who meditates, runs, and eats health-food and is squeamish about blood; and a diamond-in-the-rough New York street kid. They're both in their late twenties. The mother of one of them has followed her boy to LA, where she runs a bar called Ma's in which they hang out.

I'm told it's not a bad script at all, and if they cast anyone remotely presentable in the starring roles (one is filled, but I haven't heard by whom), it should be interesting. I'll watch it ... I like partnership shows and refusing to ever watch another in memory of S&H seems foolish. I don't expect lightning to strike twice (and neither, I'll bet, does Spelling ... what he seems to be aiming at is some thing just like S&H, but this time with actors he can control) but then I wouldn't have thought it would happen with S&H, either, which 1s why I didn't even bother to try It 'til people started talking about it.

I never liked anything Spelling ever did before S&H, and I almost missed out on a good thing by not even taking a look.

Besides, B.A.D. CATS (I do hope it gets a title change ... after all, CHARLIE'S ANGLES started out as a series idea as ALLEY CATS) sounds like a far more interesting and potential-filled partnership

show idea than CHIPS or 240-R0BERT, heaven knows.

1980

B.A.D.C.A.T.S.

A TRULY DISTASTEFUL TOPIC, BUT ONE I MUST DISCUSS NEVERTHELESS.

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT THIS SHOW IS ACTUALLY ON THE AIR. ABC HAS SUNK TO NEW LOWS IN ITS PROGRAMMING.

THIS SHOW IS: A DIRECT RIP-OFF FROM S&H. IT IS S&H DONE ON A SHOE-STRING BUDGET. IT IS S&H WITHOUT THE "SOUL" (pardon the pun). IT IS S&H WITHOUT THE TALENT, THE EFFORT, AND THE CHEMISTRY OF GLASER-SOUL. IT IS A POOR IMITATION OF THE ORIGINAL. IN A WORD, IT S-T-I-N-K-S.

SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, MR. SPELLING PRODUCES THIS TURKEY. SPELLING AND GOLDBERG PRODUCED S&H.

DO YOU SUPPOSE THAT THEY EXPECT TO FOOL US WITH THIS CHEAP COPY?

I SUPPOSE WE'RE EXPECTED TO SAY: "Cripes, with one one closed the blond one almost looks like Hutch's brother."

C'MON! JUST WHAT KIND OF MENTALITY DO THEY THINK WE VIEWERS HAVE?

[...]

I SAY, BLAST B.A.D.C.A.T.S.!!!!!! WRITE TO ABC, TELL THEM, IN A POLITE, BUT FIRM LETTER WHY, YOU AS A VIEWER, NOT NECESSARILY AS A S&H FAN, FIND THE SHOW SO BAD.

[...]

I HAVE WATCHED 5 AND 10 MINUTE SEGMENTS OF THE SHOW, IN ORDER TO GET MY DANDER UP. IF YOU WATCH B.A.D.C.A.T.S. WEEK AFTER WEEK, HOWEVER, YOU WILL INCREASE ITS RATINGS POPULARITY, A VERY BAD THING TO DO. THE NAME OF THE GAME, PARTNER, IS RATINGS.

It would seem humanly impossible to clone a show and totally leave out the charm. We watched the pilot – up until President Carter cut in with speech on Iran or whatever that night’s crisis was…

The truly horrible thing isn’t even that it’s how people who never watched S&H visualize S&H it. It’s that it’s how the people who made S&H visualize S&H. They [Spelling and company] never knew what they had, let alone how they ever got it, and they never ceased trying to whip Soul and Glaser into line, and make them shoot the show as fast and carelessly as any other Spelling show.

WE ARE GLAD TO NOTE THAT ABC HAS CANCELED B.A.D.C.A.T.S. AT A LOSS OF OVER $600,000 TO THE NETWORK. EVERETT CHAMBERS, PRODUCER OF THE SHOW SAID, "It was an ill-conceived and ineptly executed series." YOU READ THAT FIRST RIGHT HERE IN ISSUE #1 OF ACTV'S-PARTNERS. AREN'T YOU GLAD THAT THOSE LETTERS AND CARDS THAT YOU SENT WERE READ? AREN'T YOU GLAD THAT YOU PERSONALLY HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH HAVING B.A.D.C.A.T.S. CANCELLED? I KNOW THAT I AM. YOU CAN HAVE A SAY IN WHAT IS SHOWN ON TV, BELIEVE ME!