Thursday, October 29, 2009

If nothing else, the car is DEFINITELY cool.

I've written before (here, here, and here) about seeing movies or reading books I fondly remembered from my childhood--stuff I thought was too cool for words when I was a kid and that happened to turn out to still be pretty cool when I revisited them as a grown-up.



Well, there's still a few things I remember liking a lot as a little one that I've never run across as a big 'un. One is a young adult novel about a couple of friends assigned to a PT Boat in the Pacific Theater during World War II. I don't remember any significant plot details or even the title, so I'm sadly unlikely to ever dig it up. (I only remember enjoying it enormously, plus a battle sequence in which the boat was fighting a bunch of Japanese barges trying to bring reinforcements in to an island. Oh, and I think the best friend of the point-of-view character was named Gary. But you can't find a book title with just that information. Trust me, I've tried.)


At least I remember the title of another fondly remembered item from my boyhood. It was a 1971 TV series called Bearcats. Boy, this show was cool.



At least I think it was cool. It only ran for thirteen episodes and I've never seen a re-run. It's never been posted online or released on DVD. And I can't remember the plot of a single episode.


It certainly had a cool premise. Two soldiers-of-fortune tool around the American Southwest in the years just before World War I. Their car? A beautiful-looking 1914 Stutz Bearcat. If you had a dangerous job that needed doing, you could hire these two guys.


The plot descriptions of the individual episodes available online make it all sound really good. They take on a bad guy who's using a stolen army tank to rob banks. Or they interfer with a German plot to start a war between the U.S. and Mexico. Or they rescue a band of archeologists from treasure-seeking thugs. All potentially great stuff if the writing is solid and if the characters are fun. It's a wonderful time period in which to set an adventure series. And that car really is cool.



But I have no idea if the show would hold up for me were I to see it as an adult. Well, I'm apparently not the only one with fond memories of the show. Maybe one day it'll be available to watch. Then I can find out for sure.







2 comments:

  1. Just came upon this old post, which is ripe for updating. As you may know, Bearcats is out on DVD now and is a lot of fun. The pilot movie Powder Keg isn't on the set, but is available on other DVD sets or separately. I'd really be curious to hear your thoughts on the series revisiting it as a big 'un. ~ Gary in Omaha

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    1. Thanks for reminding me of this post. I did get the DVD set last year & I agree its a lot of fun. I'll write about it in more detail when I get home from Turkey & have more time. I'll probably do a new post about it.

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