Last summer, I had written an essay with the hypothetical premise of “what if” the fictional Charles Townsend Detective Agency from the 1970s television series Charlie’s Angels had used AMC products instead of Fords. It was fun to draw parallels between corresponding models between the two makes, and it wasn’t all that hard to do. I had proposed the alt-world swap of Jill’s (later Kris’s) Mustang II Cobra II to a Hornet (or Concord) AMX, Kelly’s Mustang II Ghia to a Pacer D/L wagon, Bosley’s Thunderbird to a Matador coupe, and last but not least, Sabrina’s orange Pinto to a Gremlin. I’m a huge fan of all five seasons of this show, which I’m in the middle of watching on DVD in chronological order. I’m toward the end of the fourth season, which was the one where the character of Tiffany Welles, played by highly successful model Shelley Hack, had replaced Kate Jackson’s Sabrina Duncan, a character that was written off as haven gotten remarried (she had been a divorcée) and with a kid on the way.
After solid showings in the Nielsen top-ten rankings for its first two seasons, the show’s third season was the first not to make the top ten, topping out at No. 12. Rankings fell even further, to No. 20, for this show’s fourth season. I’ve read a few theories that assigned the blame to the beloved Jackson’s departure and Hack’s inability to really warm up her acting chops until well into the season, but I’m going to say something that some fans of the show may find controversial. Tiffany Welles is my favorite Angel. There. I said it. I know that picking favorites is often discouraged, and even among our own family members, we are taught to love them all equally. Jill, Kelly, Sabrina, Kris, Tiffany, and Julie all have their great qualities. They’re all strong, intelligent, resourceful, extremely beautiful women. There is not a shred of apparent “woe is me” victimhood in any of them, varied though their backgrounds may be. These ladies are in control.
Tiffany Welles behind the wheel, with Kris Munroe up front and Kelly Garrett in back.
It’s just that Shelley Hack, in portraying Tiffany, was just so darned perfect in looks, voice, and demeanor. She had that million-dollar face, a cool, understated confidence, and even despite her slightly goofy, bouncy gait when she walked, she spoke to me the most, as the Angel with perhaps the least obvious sex appeal, though she had it in spades. Tiffany also seemed really compassionate, which was apparent in her interactions not only with her teammates at the detective agency, but with the people she was hired to help. She also came from this patrician, affluent background as part of the rollout of the introduction of her character, but one simply could not imagine her asking to speak to the manager at the local Starbucks because the foam on her latte didn’t look right. She would simply pay for it, say “thank you” with that gorgeous smile, drink it, and like it. While one character trait that Tiffany seemed to share with Sabrina was that both women seemed very down-to-earth, Tiffany seemed extremely refined, like she probably owned a few, choice items of jewelry from Tiffany.
It is for all of these reasons why the orange Pinto seemed extremely miscast as her assigned company vehicle, which she had inherited from Sabrina. The Pinto seemed to fit Sabrina’s no-nonsense, basic goodness, and also like pretty Sabrina, the orange hatchback was slightly gilded, as it wore wire wheelcovers, had an upscale plaid interior, and a white vinyl roof. Kelly was posh, so the Mustang II Ghia was a good fit for her. Both Jill and Kris Munroe were the California-look blondes (though with personalities very different from one another), with great bodies and the most obvious mainstream appeal, so their Cobra II’s assignment to them was spot-on. But, Sabrina’s same orange Pinto… for high-fashion Tiffany? I actually chuckled during a scene I recently watched where Tiffany had arrived at a movie theater in the Pinto and she exited the car. I think the Pinto’s ’77 restyle was both attractive and effective, and I especially liked that it no longer had to share taillamp lenses with the Maverick. It is a decent-looking car. It’s just that there’s such a huge disparity between the appeal of this model / actress and car that this juxtaposition seems ludicrous.
Just like Nielsen rankings for this show had fallen for the fourth season with this second change in the cast, the Pinto’s first significant restyle (outside of the acquisition of larger bumpers) for ’77 brought a 30% drop in sales that year, selling about 203,000 units for ’77 against 290,000 units the year before. The new front clip and taillamps had less to do with the Pinto’s drop in popularity than the fact that ’77 was this car’s seventh model year. The wagons were again the most popular, single model, accounting for about 79,500 sales against 49,000 trunked sedans and 74,000 hatchbacks. The sedan always seemed redundant to me. Why weren’t all coupes hatchbacks, as they all shared the same styling and basic overall structure? What benefit outside of price would there have been to purchasing one of the two-door sedans over the hatchback, and was there actually that much of a different in production costs between the two?
The Pinto’s rival from Chevrolet, the Vega, will probably always remain the gold standard to me for styling among economy subcompacts of the ’70s. I’ve always thought it so ironic how a car so flawlessly styled (in hatchback form, anyway) could have contained such a myriad of inherent flaws, at least up until maybe its penultimate or last model year on the market. The very last Vegas would be sold alongside the refreshed Pintos of this vintage, though I cannot tell for sure if this one is a ’77 or a ’78, even after attempting a license plate search. I think our featured car looks terrific with its two-tone white and persimmon paint job and color-keyed interior of dark red. I always thought the hatchback’s two, glassy rear-door designs were some of the Pinto’s best features, especially the all-glass version present here that would make its debut for ’77 with the styling refresh.
I have not yet gotten to this episode of the fourth season, but I can see it very clearly in my mind’s eye where the orange Pinto had been destroyed at the mercy of a huge piece of construction equipment that dumped a large load of something like concrete blocks on it while Tiffany was on assignment. However, the orange Pinto returns to be driven by the character of Julie Rogers (played by the late, great Tanya Roberts), who replaced Tiffany for season five. How cheap did the Townsend Agency have to be to then scour the used car lots of the area’s Ford dealerships to find yet another, identical, orange ’77 Pinto… in 1980? You mean to tell me that as he called from his yacht, Charlie Townsend couldn’t authorize John Bosley to spring for an upgrade to a restyled ’79, or (gasp) a Fiesta S? Maybe the office budget had simply been blown on all of that fabulous decor back at headquarters in Beverly Hills, where the office space, itself, undoubtedly cost a pretty penny. In the meantime, I have my friend Kelly D. to thank for these wonderful pictures, and for the chance to showcase the love I have for the Ford Pinto, Charlie’s Angels, and Ms. Shelley Hack.
Belmont Heights, Chicago, Illinois.
June 11 – 14, 2021.
Print ad and TV stills as sourced from the internet.
You said “Jill, Kelly, Sabrina, Tiffany and Julie all had their great qualities”. Why was Kris left off this list? She had her charm as well. My first car was a copper colored Pinto sedan. That trunk was mostly useless. My brother had an orange hatchback, but not with the white upgrades. Another brother had a wagon. These cars were OK and certainly more reliable than the Vega.
Oh, man! I blew it – I loved Kris, as well! I’ll fix it.
The ’77-78 was probably the Pinto’s best look – the big glass hatch looked modern and the new face kept up with the times while still fitting the rest of the car (as opposed to the ’79 facelift whose blocky 1980s-style grille and square lights clashed with the early-’70s rest of the car. One reason to pick the separate-trunk sedan (other than price) was that unlike modern hatchbacks, there was no cover to hide the contents of your luggage area.
TV shows and films that obviously have one manufacturer sponsoring it usually have the worst carcasting, probably because the sponsors are choosing the cars rather than the writers and directors (and they have to all be new cars).
The wagon carries off the ’79-80 facelift a little better than the coupes, not as well as if Ford had chosen to black out the window trim at the same time but still. Trunk coupes (“2-Door Sedan” according to Ford, was it the lowest car ever marketed as a sedan at 50″ OAH?) were favored by SCCA Showroom Stock racers due to being marginally lighter and stiffer, but that’s not really a use case compact cars are designed for.
Agreed on product placement leading to poor car-casting. In Charlie’s Angels’ case the fact they were all current-model-year Fords worked since they were company cars in-story, but they were fully loaded in a way that bumped them back into being unrealistic for being part of a fleet deal.
A few of the late Pinto wagons did have blackout window trim (which also tried to make the beltline look lower and straighter) with the Rallye or Cruising Wagon trim packages. (I really liked the Cruising Wagon concept but wish it had been applied to something less nerdy than a Pinto).
I have always liked Pintos, and I agree these years are the best looking. Spent lots of hours in the co-pilot seat, as my friend had a ‘ 76 Pony MPG (remember those?) and a ’77 Bobcat wagon. If I could find a nice ’74 or earlier wagon, I would be tempted…
Ah, those high-MPG variants that were popular offerings from the mid-’70s to early ’80s – have we had a feature about them? They didn’t sell amazingly well, but did allow manufacturers to advertise incredibly high EPA fuel economy figures. The trick was to take maximum advantage of loopholes in the testing methodology process, changing the drivetrain just enough so it would be certified as a separate model, then avoiding heavy optional equipment, only offering it in the lightest body style (wagons and convertibles were tested separately, but not other styles), tweaking aerodynamics with spoilers and flat wheel covers, maybe fitting an aluminum body panel instead of steel, and the like. Most of them probably didn’t actually deliver much better mileage than the standard versions. The high-mpg variant of the 82 Nissan Sentra didn’t offer factory a/c, so the EPA numbers didn’t average in a percentage of cars being so equipped. In actuality, Nissan was cheating the process as many did get dealer-installed A/C which on ’80s Japanese cars was usually identical to the factory-installed units. But dealer-installed air conditioning didn’t affect the EPA numbers.
The same thing happened with the Honda CRX HF models. They all did it, or tried to do it. Gremlin couldn’t manage it because it was basically 2/3rds of a heavy 1969 Hornet. GM tried with the Vega but didn’t succeed. The Japanese had lighter platforms and did better. But the real world cars never lived up to the numbers.
I have to imagine that the Pinto sedan was priced significantly less than the hatchback and thereby represented a budget entry into a budget line. I recall that the dad of a friend in high school had a 2-door sedan total stripper model as it was the cheapest car he could find. NO ONE wanted to ride in that thing because the expanse of plastic in the front seat was just icky (particularly in DC summers) and the back seat was downright nausea-inducing within moments of closing the doors.
It’s easy to see why the Angels chose the hatchback.
(And now I have to get the sound of that darned Charlie! – Kind of young, kind of now, Charlie! – perfume commercial out of my head 🙂 )
“And now I have to get the sound of that darned Charlie! – Kind of young, kind of now, Charlie! – perfume commercial out of my head”
Oh, but you can do so much worse than having Mel Torme as your earworm!! 🙂
I remember that omnipresent jingle from when I was a kid but hadn’t heard it since, and had no idea until now that Mel Torme sang it or that the perfume’s name was a Charlie’s Angels tie-in.
A friend of mine had a Mercury Bobcat sedan, the MPG edition. She needed a car for work and wasn’t interested in looking for a used car. It was the cheapest she could find, and the Mercury was in stock. It actually suited her needs and was reliable, although she only kept it 3 or 4 years. I drove it a number of times and I felt it was pretty good for the price.
as I remember, Hack was a hack – they got rid of her in short order – and replaced w/ the Bond actress Tanya Roberts
IMO bottom line: Hack was a terrible actress and she showed it in her subsequent “work” – she seemed to be a one dimensional model
but to each their own
as for the Pinto, only in America
I remember the Bond series did replace Ford products w/ AMC – the Roger Moore Bond
At which point I quite watching the James Bond movies completely. I could live with the realization that the movies only used the book’s titles and went off . . . . somewhere, I was disgusted with Roger Moore’s take on James Bond. Dammit, man, he’s The Saint, not Bond.
But when you’re putting AMC vehicles in place of exotic cars and a disgusting stereotype southern sheriff . . . . .
I’ve watched some of the other Bond films, decently enjoyed them, but the series died after George Lazenby.
Charlie’s Angels is one of those shows that struck gold with the original casting but struggled when the replacements started coming.
As for the Pinto, it was a really old car in 1977, which would be one reason for drooping sales. 1977 was a hot sales year, so Pinto’s sag was even more ominous. That year was probably the peak of “normalcy” between the 1973-74 and the 1979-80 double whammys of bad economies and high gas prices. There were so many other choices that appealed to the Pinto’s intended demographic by then. Somewhere after about 1973 the Pinto went from being something you wanted to something you settled for.
Finding this one, in this condition, is really amazing.
You hit the nail right on the head. My first car was a 1975 Pinto, bought in 1979 and bought for $2,300. I had my eye on a 1976 Toyota Celica, but it cost $3,200. That was an insurmountable difference in 1979. But look at the collectibility of early Celica’s now vs the Pinto. My Pinto was relatively reliable and it got me through college. Friends Vega’s were self destructing around me. My car was involved in an accident in 1982. I bought a Honda Accord as a replacement and never looked back. I had one disastrous return to Ford in 2002, but I have stuck with Honda reliability since that.
And Kate Jackson was always my favorite Angel. Shelley Hack was just so wooden. A model who could not act. I have given up on the show before Tanya Robert’s came in. I even built a model car if Kate’s Pinto.
I think they kept the Pinto because of all the establishing shots of the three cars. They didn’t want to have to do them over.
I also wondered why Ford bothered with the 2-door sedan. Never even realized there was a non-hatchback version until I saw a sedan version in a parking lot. I do like the big glass hatchback on this one as well.
For the sake of utility, I can see why the wagon was the biggest seller. When I was growing up, my family had an inherited ’79 Pinto Squire wagon (with the rectangular headlights). Yellow with fake wood and a nice hot black vinyl interior, and 4-speed manual. After my brother took it to senior prom, we called it the “Prom Pinto.” Useful for hauling, but otherwise a terrible car that had fluids leaking through the dashboard, and could backfire on command.
It’s great that people are starting to appreciate the “disposable” cars of the ’70s and ’80s. I saw two really nice Chevettes at the Sloan Auto Fair this year, and there’s certainly a niche following of the Pinto. My mom drove a ’74 Pinto well into the early 1980s, so I have a soft spot for Pintos dating back to my earliest years. My parents would take me Pinto hunting in the evenings. 🙂
Regarding Charlie’s Angels, I’ve never watched for more than a few minutes, but I’ll say my favorite is Kelly because I like brunettes.
I really like the oversized front bumper guards/bumperettes with crossbar!
It’s funny to read or watch ads from the period talking about protecting the grille and lights from parking damage, and these oversized guards with grille-protecting crossbar is a nice touch.
It’s actually a little funny that the rear bumper has no guards whatsoever. It’s possible that the rear bumper has been replaced, or the guards removed. In the rear they could be an obstacle to loading and unloading the cargo area.
Well, “funny” in the sense of the automakers pretending it was this great idea they’d come up with to be all charitable-like and protect the buyer’s investment, when in fact it was just a cheapassed way of complying with the law
Right in the same vein as many manufacturers touting safety features like:
* Reverse Lamps
* Hazard Warning Flashers
* Side Marker Lamps, now with Retroreflectors!
* Door Anti-Intrusion Beams
…many years after these items were mandated. They usually showed up on standard equipment or safety feature lists, worded it in a way that could make a casual observer think that you didn’t get these thoughtful features on other cars or some such.
“I had proposed the alt-world swap of Jill’s (later Kris’s) Mustang II Cobra II to a Hornet (or Concord) AMX, Kelly’s Mustang II Ghia to a Pacer D/L wagon, Bosley’s Thunderbird to a Matador coupe, and last but not least, Sabrina’s orange Pinto to a Gremlin. ”
How about a GM theme? Mustang swap for a Camaro and a Firebird. Thunderbird swap for a Monte Carlo. Instead of a Pinto, make it a Chevy Nova.
Mopar? Challenger and a Barracuda. T-bird for a Cordoba. Give Sabrina a Duster Twister instead of the Pinto. They could have used Fury models for the cop cars too.
This restyle of a Pinto was kind of like putting lipstick … somewhere it didn’t belong. Were they still selling the Bobcat in 1977?
“She would simply pay for it, say “thank you” with that gorgeous smile, drink it, and like it.”
Joseph, you crack me up….
I watched this show but never really paid much attention to the cars. You could have told me they were all AMCs and I would have believed it.
I never paid much attention to Pintos when they were still freely roaming the streets, but I am starting to like them quite a bit more after seeing some very nice examples hitting the auction block over the last few years. I think some of it’s to do with the fact that they are so far removed from modern cars with their bright interiors, bold exterior colors, and of course the synthetic wood on the Squires. I know much of this has more to do with the era they came from than the actual car itself, but a Pinto Cruising Wagon packs an extra wallop of 1970’s camp even over most other 1970’s cars.
Like some others, I think I like the 1977-78 facelift the best. Unfortunately, the featured car isn’t a very exciting shade, though the color of the one in Charlie’s Angels looks better- odd to see a Subaru Crosstrek in the background of one of Joseph’s photos sporting a similar color to that of the Charlie’s Angels Pinto; colors like that aren’t common enough today! Also, that’s quite the front bumper overrider on the white Pinto. It also appears to be sporting what looks like turn signal indicators on the front fenders almost like the ones Mopar used, but not quite. Maybe a JC Whitney knockoff of the Mopar item?
And yeah. AMC’s woulda been cooler than FoMoCo stuff. That 1977 Gremmie X with plaid interior in the alternate universe post is awesome! The Gremlin’s seat-of-pants interior was a winner too. Pacers rock, and I am a fan of the Matador coupe- I do prefer earlier ones, though.
Charlie’s Angels is the best cotton candy confection TV show out there. My wife and I were
born in the mid seventies, so we were aware of it, but had never really watched it until
a few years ago when we went through the whole series over the course of 6 months or so.
Sabrina’s Pinto always seemed horribly inappropriate to me, just too cheap and garish for
an upscale PI. If I were casting the cars for the show, without regards for brand, it would
be this:
Jill: Porsche 911 in red. Fits well with her image and professional racing “retirement.”
Kris: Cute, feisty, little sister of Jill, a powder blue Karmann Ghia Convertible.
Kelly: She had the most interesting back story in the show, having been raised in an
orphanage, their is a melancholy that subtly pervades her character, Chrysler Cordoba
with T-Tops, black with burgundy interior.
Sabrina: No nonsense and less glamourous that the others, a Ford LTD coupe in beige.
Tiffany: A mixture of Model and goofball, a Fiat X-19 in harvest gold.
Julie: The most difficult to pin down, given her combination of exotic looks and up from
the street origins, Firebird Formula in gold.
Bosley: The green Thunderbird and various wagons are perfect!
Jaclyn Smith was my all-time favorite; but then again, I’m partial to brunettes. Just a beautiful, beautiful woman.
As for the cars, this was a time when the pickin’s were quite slim, especially from FoMoCo. They did the best they could. I also remember that Ford supplied the cars for at least a couple of James Bond Movies, the choices for which during this era were also quite cringe-worthy, especially for Diamonds Are Forever.
As some have already said, the Pinto was a VERY old car by the late ’70s, and with its almost comically rounded egg-like shape, looked even more ridiculous when compared to the many other crisp, angular, cleanly designed economy cars it had to compete with by the end of its overly long run. What was perhaps the most out-of-style element of the car, in my opinion, is that it took “fuselage” styling to the absolute extreme—I drove a friend’s Pinto just once in the ’70s, and being very tall, my head hit the SIDE window of the vehicle, the curvature of the bodysides being so pronounced. Great article, and I love the Charlie’s Angels tie-in… but oh how I hate this car.
Pinto/Vega/Gremlin were the cheap new cars options. Japanese cars were more expensive and less available. And they didn’t have the quality that came in the 80’s. VW’s had no power or heat. Gas prices rose significantly in 1973. The late 60’s and early 70’s cars got terrible gas mileage. You could finance a car, but you still had to pay the gas out of pocket. I was a poor college student paying my own way with no help from family. I had to get from hone to school to work and trains would have taken forever. You do what you had to do. So a Pinto it was. I would be curious to drive one now. We didn’t have any point of comparison then. A HP of 100 was considered FAST.
Having never seen more than a few random snippets accidentally, I’m not qualified to comment. But I think the car casting was rather brilliant.
Jill was the fun one.
Kate was the smart one.
Kelly was the Angel-ist of them all.
Jill was on my wall. but Kelly was in my dreams. Who’s Kate?
The cars were chick Fords. Smart marketing for Ford, all around. If you wanted a man-car from Ford, Quinn Martin was selling you those on the television shows, Cannon, Streets of San Francisco, and Hawaii-50.
Young ladies wanted those little Ford cars the Angels were driving and young men wanted the Angels.
Farrah Fawcett had the hair style every girl wanted and seeing her in that awesome wardrobe driving around in little sporty Fords was amazing eye candy advertising for Ford. Farrah sold cars, as did the other angels. Kate sold Mercury as well as Farrah. Someone want a Cougar?
The look.
The logo.
The hair.
Yeah – they were the most watchable crime fighters and it was damn fun. Any guy with a pulse could stare at each episode and not hear a thing.
Three living versions of Malibu Barbie – what’s not to like?
Indeed (re. Quinn Martin). I was a huge fan of the Streets of San Francisco and The F.B.I. and to this day I can’t see a 70s Galaxie 500 and not think of those shows.
4th picture down.
If you noticed the Pinto first, I have bad news for you.
What’s the bad news?
LOL. ‘zackly.
100% this.
Yeah, but I wanna hear Phil say it. I wonder (to some nonzero degree) whether he will.
Sheesh, what an ungodly stupid show, even for the seventies. I thought it was unwatchable, even back then. But as a malaise-era time capsule, it fits. The wooden, untalented Shelley Hack had one somewhat memorable role after she left the show, and that was a small role as a television producer in the truly oddball Scorsese/Deniro/Jerry Lewis dark comedy The King of Comedy. Aside from that, well, pretty much nothing that I can think of.
As to the cars, there wasn’t really any other car company to use. E-bodies (and anything sporty) were gone from Chrysler after 1974, not to mention that Chrysler products were primarily the domain of Desilu/Bruce Geller productions like Mission: Impossible and Mannix. I suppose they could have went with Chevrolet, but GM seemed to be content with supplying Jim Rockford with Firebird Espirits, so Pontiac was out. As someone else mentioned, AMC might have been a slightly better fit than Ford but having the posh Angels driving around in Ramblers would be a real stretch.
OTOH, instead of the Kate Jackson character getting the most spiffy Pinto available, how about a Maverick Grabber with the LDO option? I would imagine they could have gotten one in a bright color like the orange Pinto. Unfortunately, when the show went on the air, the Maverick was on its deathbed, and the replacement, brougham-tastic Granada, well, there’s absolutely nothing sporty or hip about that one. The Granada’s target demographic was most definitely ‘not’ the type of young, single female portrayed in the show. So, a bright colored Pinto it was for the sensible Angel.
Frankly, they all should have just gotten a Mustang II, and it would have been possible if there was a Mustang II convertible. Although you couldn’t get one from the factory, I have no doubt they could have easily gotten some Hollywood customizer to create one just for the show. That way, Kate could have gotten a Ghia with no overlap of the other two. Hell, given the popularity of the show (at least in the first years with the original cast), it likely would have convinced Ford to get a third-party company to offer a convertible conversion to be sold at dealerships. And it would have avoided the odd, downmarket appearance of an Angel tooling around in a lowly Ford Pinto.
Ford didn’t care about finding a sporty car for Kate. They wanted women coming into the dealerships and saying “I want to drive the cars the angels drive”. So it had to be a car readily available for sale in every Ford dealer. The Maverick was on its way out. The other option would have been a non-Cobra Mustang hatchback for Kate. But then it would have been all Mustangs. And they wanted to drive Pinto sales. It was all marketing. And Kate was the sensible one. Not flashy like Farrah and not glamorous like Jaclyn. So Pinto was all there was. And it worked.
Seems like the understated, European elegance of the Granada would have made more sense from a marketing viewpoint than the aged Pinto, primarily since the profit margin would surely have been greater for the gussied-up Falcon. The bottom line would have been greater for Ford to push the Granada instead of a Pinto. And there was a ‘sporty’ Granada, too (Sports Coupe, later followed by the ESS or European Sports Sedan).
Of course, I can sure see Ford execs figuring that young women wouldn’t be able to afford a higher-trim Granada rather than a Pinto, so the latter got the nod as the third Angel’s car.
Hee! Ow, my sides…
Yeah, that was pushing it a bit. Maybe ‘quasi’ European…well, something…
You pick…
Gremlin – a front-heavy stripper that handled like a snow plow without back end traction.
Vega – a good looking piece of rusting crap that was built with a can opener and an axe.
Chevette – GM’s life preserver after Vega fiasco with the appeal of an updated Crosley.
Pinto – a mediocre coupe that you could get as a wagon.
Beetle – what Dad drove.
Cricket – an imported HIllman, sold by Plymouth, with the quality of a Hillman.
Colt – a Mitsubishi that Dodge sold.
Winner – Colt.
Second Place – Pinto
Third Place – Beetle
Loser – you.
I understand why the Gremlins shouldn’t handle, but they were pretty successful road racing against BMW 2002s and Mazda RX2s in IMSA RS.
I don’t recall watching Charlie’s Angels all that much in my youth, but I thought they all drove Mustang IIs. Guess not.
My Mom engrained in me Aaron Spelling productions ruined television, and between what I’ve seen of Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, and 90210 I tend to agree, insipid schlock. I can’t comment on the car casting to this depth but the Pinto did always seem like the angel who had it drew the shortest straw when they were delivered the first day, it’s easy to laugh at the Mustang Ghia and Cobra II from today’s perspective but they probably worked fine in the context of the times, but the Pinto? They can dress it up to look like a delicious creamsicle all they want but there’s no way I imagine anyone in 1977 thought that thing was a stylish fit for any one of the angels.
Aaron Spelling productions did not ruin television, good sir. The fact that millions watched it, hell even made sure to tune in, shows that he was only giving the masses the crap they wanted to watch.
One can always blame the company for making crap, but really, one has to blame the consumers who keep purchasing the crap, even after they are aware that it is nothing but crap. Without the buyer, it’s just crap sitting in a warehouse, unused, unloved, and unwanted.
Very well put. You have to look at 1960’s and early 70’s TV to see what lead to Charlie’s Angels. Women were housewives, teachers, nurses or hookers. And now they ran the show. Women could be sexy AND strong. Yes, the plots were simple. It was like bubble gum TV. But it opened the doors for the future. It was a product of its time. Comedy had Three’s Company at the same time. Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers walked away from their shows and tried for more. Both struggled. But I don’t think that some of the women led shows that came later would have happened without the Angels. Aaron Spelling didn’t create the times. He just recognized it and ran with it.
*Sexy* and strong, not just average and strong or ugly and strong to be noted like many male led shows, and underlings of male’s Charlie and Bosley. And wasn’t there a show called Mary Tyler Moore several years before this? Men watched Charlie’s Angels and Threes Company for the T&A, not the stellar writing or acting.
No argument that this is what the masses willfully consume, but I never found the masses to a particularly good judge of quality. You can have clever cinema quality writing that appeals to the masses too, we’ve recently lived through what many consider the “golden age of television”, Aaron spelling was just exploitative, the reason “TV star” and “film star” were on different levels of career status for decades.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m jot judging anyone for enjoying this, I love car chases and all sorts of low brow entertainment, but I’m not going to elevate Smokey and The Bandit to some cinematic masterpiece empowering blue collar truckers.
Oh come on, the other side of the aisle wasn’t any different, you seem to be singling out the women being objectified. Magnum P.I., Simon&Simon etc, even Remington Steele and Moonlighting for reversals of the male/female boss dynamic, Male beefcake right? Same audience for the most part.
Charlie’s Angels’ talent was physically attractive (as in all of the shows except maybe Archie Bunker but that show itself would never fly today…), but Farrah didn’t pose in her bikini for it. Usually all of them were dressed like the average secretary on-screen, downright dowdy when watched nowadays. It was escapism from people’s normal lives, there wasn’t streaming, most people didn’t have cable, you had a dozen channels with not much on any of them. What older shows did your mother that you mentioned bemoan these shows having replaced? I can’t personally imagine (from today’s perspective) anyone ever thinking a Pinto was fit for their own driveway, yet here we are and it sold quite well and a lot of people had good experiences with them. So of course it could fit in with the show on the whole.
Three’s Company was comedy, more a precursor to Friends than anything else except in Friends more than half of them actually got together. Somers was on it for one season and wasn’t even in the majority of it, she didn’t need to be, Ritter had the show well handled from a comedy perspective and the producers rightly figured the show would be fine without acceding to her demands. The rest of the cast more or less rotated to some extent.
TV and Film for the most part have evolved significantly as far as production values go but are still both fairly exploitative, and almost always in hindsight. But realistically EVERY producer exploits what they have to work with, that’s the whole point of the medium, the shows nobody watches don’t bring in the money. The music industry is much the same way. Talent only gets you in the door after being heard on a tape.
All of the shows are products of their times and all suffer when watched years later and critiqued with hindsight. Movies are much the same, at least ones that are set in whatever present day they were filmed in as opposed to ones that specifically try to summon a different era.
Spelling offered what the market was buying. He’s far less harmful than lots of highly rated industry personas that personally exploited their on-screen talent for their own fetishes off-screen, even some of the most highly noted movie and TV on-screen talent had trouble in that regard, all taking advantage of their power positions (not unlike in any other industries).
The best part of it all though? Nobody is forcing anyone to watch any of it.
You have to judge Charlie’s Angels and the Pinto in relation to ONLY what came before it. Those who were not alive then can’t “unsee” what came after. Regarding male beefcake in shows, yes it existed in many shows. But Charlie’s Angels was the first show to really turn it upside down. Bosley and Charlie were the minor characters. And the Pinto has to be compared with only the cars produced up to that point. Add in the 1973 gas crises, and people wanted small small small cars. And there was not much to choose from.
All in the family was one of them and despite being un PC (because even parodying bigotry doesn’t fly today) it was levels above these Spelling shows in terms of writing and timelessness, bringing levity to many issues still present today. Mary Tyler Moore show, The Bob Newhart show were among other comedy’s, as well as Columbo and a few I’m forgetting among more serious shows. Many of them happened to come to an end around the time the Aaron Spelling shows (and clones) became dominant hits on those few channels. That’s her perspective.
My perspective as someone who only knew TV from the beginning in the 50s through the early 90s through Nick at nite, TV land and now METV type networks, many shows I like, many I don’t like, and I seem to be a chip off the old block when it comes to my entertainment tastes. I don’t think Aaron Spelling is a bad person for making shows like this but I’m not going to go with the idea that he opened doors for a more open inclusive industry to women as was suggested above(If anything it opened the doors for those nefarious types casting an angels type show or movie to “find the right talent” in their offices).
I guess, but the 1980s also spawned shows such as MASH, Family Ties, Growing Pains, The Facts Of Life, Hill Street Blues, One Day At A Time, even 21 Jump Street and Cheers and countless more, every single one of which featured women specifically in either a starring or fairly equal role that were employed or the primary breadwinners in their families/situations with zero gratuitous “T&A” and many (not all) of them actually bringing attention to thematic issues of the day. So it wasn’t all bad, there was plenty of choice beyond Spelling and the like. And the “Jenny, Eat Something” themes weren’t just in the afternoon specials any more either.
All of those shows you mentioned (and they were good, no argument) were on the air between six and ten years, the fact is that they had run their course and in many case the actors and everyone else involved felt it was simply time to try something else. Heck, as I recall Gavin MacLeod went directly from the Mary Tyler Moore Show to the bridge of The Love Boat as Captain Stubing! He got lucky with that, many of the others ended up seriously typecast for their long stints on one show (although he did as well after TLB but the resulting gig in Princess Cruise ads earned him a pretty good life until he passed a few weeks back).
That orange Pinto always irked me, even as a 10 year old watching these episodes on their original air dates. I always thought all 3 Angels should have had Mustang IIs. Why couldn’t they just have given Kelly a well optioned notchback without the Ghia gingerbread? The assignment of the Pinto to poor Kelly always made me think she’d obviously drawn the short straw at some pre-Angel meeting.
Echoing others, I do think the car casting was exceptional. These cars, along with Monzas, Sunbirds, etc. etc. etc. were what attractive young women seemed to drive in those days. It just made sense. Except for that damned orange Pinto.
Kelly got the Mustang Coupe. It was Sabrina that got the Pinto
The reason the ratings dropped was because of the departure of Farrah Fawcett. People a few years younger than me didn’t know how or remember much she defined pop and culture in the last half of the 70s.
As for the cars, Farrah did get the Cobra Mustang with the screaming chicken, but Kate should have been driving a Granada. Jaclyn would have looked great in anything but a 77 T-Bird is what I’d have picked.
There actually was one version of a Ford Granada that might have worked for Kate Jackson, and that was the Sports Coupe (later replaced by the European Sports Sedan or ESS). That one had enough flair that it might have been more appropriate than a bright-color Pinto for a young, upscale, single woman.
But, then, the whole thing seemed slanted against the ‘smart’ Angel. Giving her something on par with the other two, more attractive Angels wouldn’t exactly have fit in with the show’s premise. That, more than anything else, was likely why Jackson drew the short end of the stick when it came to cars. IOW, it was actually by design she got a bottom-feeder car so as to not overshadow either of the more attractive girls.
I think giving Kate a larger Granada would have given the symbol that she was the senior Angel. Larger car means higher status. That’s why Bosley drove the T-Bird. And you couldn’t put Jacklyn in a T-Bird and stick Kate in a Pinto. I think all the angels cars had to be somewhat similar in status. But Kate got the short straw. I read that Kate thought that Aaron Spelling was designing the show as a starting vehicle for her after her years on The Rookies. So it must have been a double punch to get the Pinto. Then Farrah became the sensation and Kate was considered the “smart one” and not considered pretty. But Kate was always my favorite in anything she did.
There was one other possibility, and that was to give Kate a base Mustang II hatchback with a bland color. But I guess that still would have been too sporty and close to Farrah’s flashy Cobra II.
That was my thought as well. The Mustang hatch and the Cobra were very different. But they probably wanted to boost Pinto sales. They got 5 more years out of it for a model run of 10 years. Not bad for a car that supposedly exploded on impact. But I don’t think the others were any better in that regard.
Why weren’t Mercurys used? Instead of a dolled up Pinto, How about a Capri II. Add a little Euro panache to the Angels. Perhaps a Cougar in place of the Thunderbird. still FMC products.
If I had to guess it’s probably because Farrah was an actively endorsing Mercury at the time and the product placement would have been extra obvious.
Ford and Mercury frequently used different advertising agencies back then. Perhaps that is the reason. But Kate Jackson would’ve looked good in the Capri
If Ford had been truly hip, they’d have ditched the Pinto in the show’s third season for a Fiesta ‘S’. Now ‘that’ would have been an inspired choice for the smart Angel. And there was even a removable sunroof option where they could have left it off all of the time in sunny southern California.
Of course, a big issue could have been the fact that the Fiesta only came with a 4-speed. Hopefully, whomever was the smart Angel at the time could drive a manual (but I wouldn’t bet on it).
I always thought it, not an LTD II, should’ve replaced the “Striped Tomato” Torino in Starsky and Hutch. One of the early CC posts was of a US-spec MkI Fiesta in red with that white stripe and it carries off the look much better than the ’74-6 Gran Torino (a poor misshapen lump of a car at best compared to earlier and late iterations or most of its’ GM Colonnade competition) by forcing the stripe all the way to the back of the car and constraining its’ width to the slim C-pillar.
Of course, Starsky would’ve had to learn a whole new driving style, and appreciate driving a slow car fast and drama-free cornering.
The LTD 2 with the stripe looks pretty good
I love that seeing a dressed-up Pinto would make you think of this show. While I was certainly a fan of Charlie’s Angels when it was first on (being in the adolescent-boy demographic at the time), I haven’t thought about it in decades. Last week I happened on an episode on a channel I’d never looked at before; it had to be from early on in the run, because it featured all three original Angels. But I found it to be horrendous and borderline unwatchable, so I commend you for finding it worthy of a rewatch.
I’m not sure the car casting in Angels made sense for Ford or the show.
Were they fleet cars? Owned by the Angels? Sort of sadistic choices as fleet cars – cheap, cramped and slow. If privately owned, they don’t reflect much in the way of current style for ladies that seem to have wealth in their backstories.
Farrah Fawcett obviously pitched Mercury Cougar at one point and Cheryl Ladd pitched the new 1977 Thunderbird. A lot of tie in potential with Ford’s newest cars for 1977.
Give Bosley a Mark V. A fleet of Ford’s newest PLCs would have been a better choice for the Angels……
It seemed as though the headlights and the front grille of the 1977-78 Ford Pinto looks almost like an “identical” twin to the ones used by the 1974-77 Chevrolet Camaro. Check the grille between the two otherwise different cars from two unrelated car companies. Almost same can be said between the 1978 Ford Fairmont and 1975 Chevrolet Nova grilles as well. Any coincidence?
My brother’s first car was a new 71 Pinto Runabout with 4 speed behind the high compression 2.0L engine. He was a budding mechanic by then and turned the engine into pretty much a race engine which was not uncommon in those days with that engine. More than a few powerful cars that ran into his car and ended up seeing the tail end of that Pinto. I was somewhat uncomfortable in the car since while he improved the engine the suspension was a skill he wasn’t into yet. The inside was very plasticky and the high back seats really thin. Once he joined the Navy in 1975 I have no idea what happened to the car.
As for the show I didn’t watch it after the first episode. If the girls were to be the draw they failed to draw me as I was already on to a much different look in women and never looked at their type from 1976 (22 at the time) onward. Besides the show was too damn corny. I was much more of a M.A.S.H. type of viewer.
You guys. You guys. I had no idea when I had scheduled this post weeks ago that July 6th is actually Shelley Hack’s birthday.
I’m late to comments on this as I was traveling yesterday, but there’s some good stuff in this thread, some of which I’m going to get to.
(Happy belated birthday, Ms. Hack!)
I guess I’m a little late to the party, but I wanted to add what I can to the chat. My wife’s best car ever was the ’77 Pinto glass back. White with a red wraparound racing stripe, sunroof, red and white leather seats, four on the floor, drove like a charm around town or on the road. The glass hatch and sunroof worked together to flood the interior with light. I would buy one today if I could find one. We had to part with it because a clown with no insurance and no brakes sailed through a stop sign and clipped the Pinto at the front of the driver’s door, injuring my wife’s knee, so she couldn’t work the clutch pedal any more.
After Nader did the hit job on the Pinto, it was noted in the press that NHTSB stats showed that the Pinto, firewise, was safer than every Toyota on the road. Oh, well.