Welcome to aka KikiWrites

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I am one of those people who likes to watch, write about, and talk about old TV shows. So much so that I had to create an entire site just to contain that aspect of my existence.

aka KikiWrites is the official home of my podcast, Book ’em, Danno: An Old Hawaii Five-O podcast, which covers the 1968 Hawaii Five-O series. You’ll also find my guest spots on other podcasts, usually talking about old TV shows, but sometimes I do actually talk about other things, too. Rarely, but it’s been known to happen.

Since I’m a writer by nature, it’s only natural that I’d spare a few hundred thousand words on reruns. My Rerun Junkie posts cover shows, guest stars, characters, episodes, and context.

And if you happen to like the content, feel free to buy me a cup of coffee or two over on Ko-Fi.

So, settle in, find a channel, and enjoy.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 60

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Book 'em Danno Podcast

Season 5 begins to wind down with a couple of big plot episodes. Five-O has to untangle an impossible murder in “Here Today…Gone Tonight” and unknot a stock exchange heist in “The Odd Lot Caper”.

One thing I should have pointed out when discussing “Here Today…Gone Tonight” is that the number of people required to make this particular plot work was a lot and I don’t know how you’d keep them all quiet to ensure success. But that’s okay! This is fun and we’re having a good time. Not everything needs pedantic logic.

“The Odd Lot Caper”, on the other hand, does accurately reflect the absolute bullshit of a group project.

Listen on Soundcloud, Apples Podcasts, and Spotify.

Two men, two suits, two dynamite fashion choices. Steve was dressed to party, but Beaufort was not thinking he was going to be robbed when he picked that suit jacket that morning.

steve in party yellowcasino carpet print

Five Favorite Villains

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I’ve made no secret that I love a good bad guy, someone to really make our good guys work with their nefarious, sometimes elaborate, plots. I make a distinction between villains and antagonists. Antagonists are the every day assholes that make a protagonist’s life more difficult. Villains do that, too, but typically less often and with a lot more razzle dazzle.

Here are five of my favorite villains in no particular order. Yes, I realize there are no women on this list. Maybe next time. Like I said, I do enjoy my villains.

Wo Fat (Hawaii Five-O)- I think it’s no surprise that this Chinese operative makes the list. He vexed Steve McGarrett for 12 seasons, always managing to elude justice until the very last episode of the series. Khigh Dhiegh plays the character with a sophistication and refined ruthlessness that plays well with Jack Lord’s upright lawman in the scenes they share, but makes for a believable, formidable foe even when they don’t cross paths. Wo Fat is a smart, cultured man with high expectations who isn’t afraid to make long-term plans, like investing YEARS into a plot to frame Steve. That’s the kind of job dedication you don’t get from your average criminal. He’s got an endless supply of henchmen, his own little submarine, and at least two doubles that we know about. He’s also got that drama kid drive for the theatrical. His plans never fail to be grand, even when they don’t need to be. He’s willing to go that extra mile to make it worth all of our whiles.

Dr. Miguelito Loveless (The Wild Wild West)- My favorite 19th century evil genius. I’ve written about Dr. Loveless in the past, so of course he’s going to end up on my list. Michael Dunn brought a charm to the character that elevated him to arch rival status. He took a certain joy and pride in pursuing his goals, and of course his goals involved becoming ruler of his own kingdom. Whether he was after California, the United States, or the world, Dr. Loveless’s scheme was sure to be as diabolical as it was eccentric. And he’s not going to spare any expense when trying to get rid of Jim West and Artemus Gordon. Hell, he tried to give West a premature burial at sea once. He also faked his own death. Dr. Loveless had a flair for the dramatic that even the biggest men couldn’t best.

Memmo Fierro (CSI: Miami)- A show as bonkers as CSI: Miami could get needed a recurring villain with some pizzazz. Enter Memmo Fierro. A member of the Mala Noche gang, he was first introduced in the fourth season as Marisol Delko Caine’s killer. He could have easily been a one-off character, but Memmo had style. And a lot of tattoos. He’s inked from the chin down and I’m sure that he somehow had more every time he appeared onscreen. Anyway, despite being put in prison, Memmo continued to be a thorn in Horatio Caine’s side thanks to his ability to escape prison for reasons ranging from finding out his daughter was being mistreated in foster care to exacting some Mala Noche revenge. And if that meant disguising himself as an old white man, then baby, he was all in. The interesting thing about Memmo is that he started as a ruthless killer, but every subsequent appearance reveals him to be more than that. Robert LaSardo gave dimension to what could have been a one-dimensional character, a bit of humanity to the cold blood killer. He’s never really redeemed, but when Horatio declines to take the opportunity to get rid of him once in for all, you understand why. And just because there’s a sort of…truce?…between the two men, doesn’t diminish Memmo in the least. He’s still bad ass. And probably scheming.

Michael (Stargate: Atlantis)- One of my favorite things about Stargate: Atlantis is how often the peril our heroes face is their own damned fault. The living embodiment of just because you can doesn’t mean you should is Michael, a Wraith the Atlantis crew captured and then turned into a human. It probably would have worked out fine if they could have kept up the “Oh, you’re just a soldier with amnesia” routine, except Michael found out who he really was and saw footage of his torture and transformation. It should come as no surprise that he didn’t take it well. Connor Trineer does an amazing job at portraying the pain of the betrayal that pushed Michael over the edge. Michael’s escape led to him reverting to something of a Wraith/Human hybrid that wasn’t accepted by anyone, so he decided to just fuck shit up. His grandest plan was to create his own race of Wraith/Human hybrids, but he did also manage to take over Atlantis once. Then again, who didn’t? We might not agree with what Michael does, but we all understand exactly why he’s doing it. And even though he was presumed dead before the series came to an end, you have to think that maybe…just maybe…we’d see him again.

King Tut (Batman)- Like I could make this list without naming a Batman villain. It might not be the popular choice with Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and Riddler around, but King Tut is my guy. First of all, he’s not actually a villain. He’s an Egyptology professor who gets hit on the head and becomes one of Batman’s most theatrical foes, which given the Gotham City bad guys, is no easy feat. It’s Batman, so of course the plots have to be over the top, bordering on ridiculous, but when executed by a big man who thinks he’s a long dead Egyptian ruler with a penchant for one-liners and tantrums, well, they’re just that much more over the top. In the hands of Victor Buono, this baddie chewed scenery like he was at an all you can eat buffet and the dining was too good. King Tut could never best the Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder, but he will always be the royal ruler of camp.

As always, if you don’t like my list, feel free to make your own.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 59

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Book 'em Danno Podcast

Season 5 rolls on with two more episodes that are slightly different from the usual Hawaii Five-O format.

First, Five-O is charged with providing a couple of witnesses with a wedding and a honeymoon while protecting them from a mob boss in “Thanks for the Honeymoon”. Slight trigger warning for animal death in the episode. It’s brief in both the episode and in the discussion.

Then Five-O must track down a malicious stalker in “The Listener”. Full blown trigger warning for suicide in “The Listener.” It’s a major scene in the episode, so I talk about it for a bit.

Listen on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Get your good clothes on. We’re going to a wedding. Just look at this bridal party.

bridal party

Where Do Your Sympathies Lie?

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Minor trigger warning for mentions of sexual assault.

Something I frequently encounter while watching my cop shows are the grey moral areas that our heroes wander into. Specifically -at least for this post- I’m thinking of the victims and culprits and the audience’s perception of them.

For example, in the Hawaii Five-O episode “Little Girl Blue”, the two men who kidnap the little girl of the title aren’t your typical hardened criminals. Luther -played by Ron Feinberg- is a 6ft 7in beast of a man who has the mental equivalency of a child thanks to a brain injury incurred during his service in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Frank -played by Jackie Coogan- is a former orderly with a bad heart and considered the brains of the operation only because he’s at least functioning at an adult level. It’s not quite a Lenny and George scenario from Of Mice and Men, but it has that flavor.

We know from the initial kidnapping that these aren’t your ordinary criminals. The two men take the time to wrap the little girl up in a blanket and put her slippers on her. In fact, if their getaway hadn’t been interrupted, little Debbie would have been treated to a picnic while waiting for the ransom to be paid and everything to work out. None of the violence we saw would have happened if that cop hadn’t pulled Luther and Frank over. And really, the only reason Luther panicked in the first place was because the cop asked him for his license and he didn’t have one. It’s just an unfortunate series of events that land these two guys in hotter water than they’d intended to boil.

You just kinda feel bad for these guys. Obviously, Luther’s diminished capacity and Frank’s bad heart and bad choices don’t absolve them of their behavior, but you’re not exactly rooting for Five-O to come down hard on them.

Or maybe the audience was back when this episode aired in 1973. Maybe the deaths of two cops was enough to erase any shred of sympathy the viewer might feel for Luther and Frank. Or maybe when the kidnapping went sideways and Debbie was crying for her mom, maybe that was enough to alienate the viewers and have them rooting for Luther and Frank to get what was coming to them.

Or maybe they felt just as torn about it then as we do now. Or at least I do.

Then there’s the flip side. When the victim isn’t that great and you’re kind of not sorry they’re dead.

In the CSI: Miami episode “Forced Entry” a burglar/rapist gets what he gives in the exact fashion that he gave it. Only, he didn’t kill his victims. Instead, one of them kills herself and it looks very much like the grieving husband might have exacted revenge. Who else would know how the victims were bound, gagged, and assaulted so that they could recreate it with such detail?

The husband in question points out how cruel it is that the police are more concerned with finding the killer of his wife’s rapist than they are with his wife’s assault, which led to her suicide. And it is a cruel. Even Speed says that killing this piece of shit should earn the husband a medal if he did it. I’m on Speed’s side here. My guy played around and lost big. Oh well.

But that’s not how these sorts of episodes work. We might be on the side of the killer, but as it’s pointed out, it’s not the killer’s job to dispense justice. I don’t know about that. I think they didn’t a pretty good job here.

Okay, yes, there’s the whole concept that nobody deserves to die, and maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean we have to feel bad when some vile garbage gets their comeuppance. We’re not in the wrong to save our sympathy for the killer when justice is served because it feels like it’s being served to the wrong person.

These sort of muddy moral waters are interesting because of how they age. Some are timeless. Some switches the sympathies, swinging them around from the original, intended person to someone else. Just look at hippies. They were the villains in many cop shows back in the day, particularly Dragnet. Nowadays, though, you’d probably find more people on their side than on Joe Friday’s. Especially when it comes to marijuana.

I love exploring these moral grey episodes. They make me angry and they make me uncomfortable and they make me think and it’s fascinating to see how that shade of grey can turn black or white over time.

In the end, I find it quite colorful.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 58

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Book 'em Danno Podcast

It’s time for my favorite episode of Season 5, which means the illustrious Dan Budnik of Eventually Supertrain fame is back to talk criminal couples with me for the episodes “I’m a Family Crook -Don’t Shoot!” and “The Child Stealers”.

I’m pleased to report that this time I didn’t have to do any heavy editing. You will get all of our thoughts on both episodes as well as bonus thoughts on child stealing, con artistry, and Cohen Brothers movies. Does that make for an extra long episode? Absolutely! But every single second is magical. You won’t be disappointed.

And if you are, I don’t want to hear about it.

Listen on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Spoiler Warning! Dan and I talk episode endings from about 51:39 to 1:08:18 and 1:48:22 to 1:58:48.

Please enjoy the Lovejoys and Nina and Gar. Yes, his name is Gar. Dan and I discuss that at length.

the lovejoys

Five More Favorite Couples

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I pinky swore before that I would come up with five more favorite couples and here I am, still needing to put couples in quotes because this list doesn’t have a single romantic pairing on it. It is bromance heavy, though. I’d apologize for that, but I’m not sorry.

Once again, these couples are listed in no particular order; I’m not saying they’re objectively the best couples ever, they’re just my favorites; and if you wanna argue, make your own damn list.

Jim West and Artemus Gordon, The Wild Wild West– It could be argued that I should have included this pair in my first list, but let’s not argue. My brain works in mysterious ways. Anyway! Jim and Artie are secret service agents in the steampunk wild west and that sort of situation creates a bond. These are dangerous assignments and Jim West frequently found himself in trouble. When that happens, your only hope is a guy willing to put on a dress or a fake mustache and a wig. Fun, smart, and witty, these are the guys you want to go on an adventure with. You know they’re going to save the day…and each other. There is something magical about these two together. I love their chemistry and their banter. Jim West is a suave, masculine hero and Artemus Gordon is a suave, charming master of disguise. They are a dynamic duo of heart eyes. Okay, maybe that’s just me.

Lenny and Squiggy, Laverne & Shirley– Hello! As much as I love Laverne and Shirley, Lenny and Squiggy are my bromance goals. Two compatible weirdos coming together to make a life. It’s a beautiful thing. Sure their behavior towards women can sometimes be problematic, but their behavior towards each other is pure. Mostly. These two have their arguments (Squiggy did kind of push Lenny out of a window during one), but they are better together and everyone knows it. These two men go to extremes to protect and uplift each other, like Lenny playing into Squiggy’s sleepwalking behavior to keep him safe. Like Laverne and Shirley, there’s no doubt that Lenny and Squiggy love each other even while getting on each other’s nerves. Not to mention that Lenny and the Squiggtones is one of the greatest bands ever.

Ryan and Natalia, CSI: Miami– I said before that I have several favorite couples from this show, but I’m once again picking another couple featuring Ryan. He makes a good partner. What I really like about Ryan and Natalia is that they have a beautifully platonic relationship. It starts off with Ryan having a thing for Natalia and they go on at least one date, but after that, it’s bestie city, population two. The best part is that removing the romantic element (while leaving the occasionally flirty banter) doesn’t diminish the relationship. These two people care about each other and they’re not afraid to tell each other the hard truth, like Ryan confronting Natalia about denying her hearing loss or Natalia telling Ryan he needs to step away from the camera to get his life together. Considering that Ryan at one time didn’t like Natalia due to a betrayal, the friendship coming back from that makes it even more solid and real.

Blanche and Rose, The Golden Girls– I could honestly put any combination of these four women together -Dorothy and Sophia, Blanche and Dorothy, Dorothy and Rose, Rose and Sophia, Sophia and Blanche- but there’s just something about Blanche and Rose that makes my day. Sweet Rose and sexy Blanche couldn’t be more different, yet they compliment each other so well. Blanche bringing Rose to her senses while waiting for the results of her AIDS test with her own experience and education is one of my favorite scenes with the two of them. It takes a lot of love to straighten your friend out during a dark moment. Even when they find themselves at odds, like when Rose thought Blanche had slept with her husband, you know the make-up is going to be hilariously sweet. Whether they’re cutting a rug doing a tap routine or dirty dancing in the living room, these two have all the right moves.

Roy DeSoto and Johnny Gage, Emergency!– I’ve got a lot of bromances on my list this time around, but this one is probably one of my favorite ones when it comes to coworkers. You know how it is with your work bestie. You might not hang with them outside of your place of employment, but on the job, you’re thick as thieves. That’s like Roy and Johnny, only they do hang out away from the firehouse. The practical married man and the slightly impractical bachelor, these two opposites probably wouldn’t have become friends if they hadn’t worked together, and I think that’s what makes their friendship so great. These two men will butt heads over where Roy should take the family on vacation or how Johnny should fix a paycheck mishap, but there always on the same page when it comes to a rescue or a patient. They’re a solid team, even when Johnny should keep his spaghetti recipes to himself.

Will I come up with five more favorite couples at a later date? Maybe.

Okay, yeah probably. There are so many great duos that I love.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 57

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Book 'em Danno Podcast

We are officially half-way through Season 5 with the episode “The Clock Struck Twelve”. I’m giving a mild trigger warning to both the episode and the discussion for brief mentions of sexual assault.

I also go on a bit of a rant about the demonization of hippies and land back movements, but that’s less of a trigger warning and more of a “She’s back on her bullshit” warning.

The half-way point also seemed like an ideal time to cover an episode from Season 5 of the 2010 reboot. I went with the Halloween episode “Ho’oma’ike”. I’ve been dying to cover one of the Halloween episodes and this one is a good time.

Listen on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Have an explosive situation on your hands? Call Danny Williams to diffuse it.

danno diffusing a bomb

“What Do You Recommend?”

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As a day job, I work as a clerk at the local library. We have something called Reader’s Advisory, which is one of the stats we keep to show our usefulness to the community and therefore justify our existence and budget and financial requests. Specifically, Reader’s Advisory is when we recommend books or movies or TV shows or other items in our collection to our patrons. This sometimes comes from us knowing our regular patrons and their reading/viewing habits well enough that when we see a new item come in, we automatically recommend it to them. Or in the case of certain patrons (or former coworkers) we just put it on hold for them.

Most often a Reader’s Advisory comes from patrons asking us to recommend something. They’re looking for cozy mysteries or beach reads or werewolf fiction or ’80s comedies or sci-fi shows or whatever. It’s our job to recommend specifics. This is part of my job that I’ve struggled with because rarely do people ask me to recommend stuff I regularly indulge in, like queer romances or books on decomposition. I’ve made great strides in the past couple of years, but it’s still something that gives me split-second brain freeze when people ask me to recommend something.

I said all of this just to point to the subject line and say that I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to recommend reruns to people, at least not that I can remember and not in the context I described above in which I’m asked to recommend specific types of reruns like cop shows or sitcoms or cozy mysteries featuring a priest. I tend to force those recommendations onto unsuspecting people who wander into my sphere and dare to broach the subject (like my coworker April mentioning that she didn’t like CSI: Miami when it first aired and me championing it to the extent that she said she’d give it another try just so I would shut up). But nobody has specifically asked me to recommend a certain kind of show for them to watch.

Honestly, it’s probably for the best. I’m not sure how I would respond to having that much influence. My brain would probably fritz with the possibility of turning people on to David Cassidy: Man Undercover or Tales of the Gold Monkey or Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Also, even though I’ve not seen all of the reruns in the world, I still have strong opinions. Very strong opinions. There are some shows I’d be more likely to push and some I’d be reluctant to promote due to my own preferences. Not very objective of me.

However, I do believe that my library clerk training has prepared me for the unlikely occurrence that someone might come to me for a recommendation. Even if I haven’t seen every rerun in the world, I do know a great deal about many of them. So, I have the knowledge necessary to make informed recommendations. But working in the library has taught me the neutrality required to make good recommendations. I have to recommend what the patron is looking for, not what I think they should read or watch or what I like or prefer.

Will I be able to utilize this training when I’m not getting paid to be neutral?

Well, I suppose someone will have to ask me what I recommend so we can find out.

Book ’em, Danno–Episode 56

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Book 'em Danno Podcast

Season 5 gifts us a three-parter. Five-O finds themselves up against a formidable crime family in “V for Vashon: The Son”, “V for Vashon: The Father”, and “V for Vashon: The Patriarch”.

Instead of mashing the discussion of the episodes together like I would a two-parter, I chose to treat them like separate episodes, but obviously talked about the endings of the first two episodes.

Heads up if you’re watching the episodes…The ending of “V for Vashon: The Patriarch” could be upsetting for some viewers.

Listen on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

The Vashon men may have been dastardly, but they did give us one great gift…

A Steve McGarrett outfit.

steve bail wear

Rerun Junkie Episode–“The Christmas Story”

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I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas (though I do love a holiday with a theme), but I do have my favorite Christmas episodes of shows, which I’ve listed before. On that list is the Season 2 episode of Dragnet called “The Christmas Story”.

The plot is pretty simple. Friday and Gannon are working right before Christmas when they get a call about a theft at a church. The baby Jesus (Friday keeps calling the child Jesus and for some reason that makes my eye twitch) has been stolen from the nativity scene. The nativity scene was bought by the parishioners years ago and the baby Jesus doesn’t have much in the way of monetary value, but it’s important to the congregation. For some who’ve been coming to that church since they were children, this is the only Jesus they’ve ever known. And for some children who’ve passed away, this was the only Jesus they ever knew.

Do I instantly tear up at that line? Yes. Yes, I do. My Grinchy heart isn’t entirely made of stone. But the takeaway from this is that it’s really important to have that statue back for Christmas mass.

If you’re at all familiar with Dragnet, then you know how serious business and methodical Friday and Gannon are when it comes to investigating a crime. Even though they’re just looking for a baby Jesus statue, the men, knowing how important it is to the church, take the investigation very seriously.

They start by questioning the altar boys and checking in with religious art shops to see if the statue might have been sold. This is Dragnet, so the shop owner we see them converse with is an absolute trip. One altar boy saw nothing, but the other altar boy, who’s played by a pre-Brady Bunch Barry Williams, saw a man leaving the church with a bundle that could have contained the baby Jesus.

They follow this lead to where the man works as the altar boy didn’t know his name, and this leads them to a name and an address at men’s hotel. The man they’re looking for, Claude –played by Jack Webb regular Bobby Troup- is out, but the front desk man expects him back since they can’t do their annual Christmas show without him.

While they wait for the call from the front desk man that Claude has returned, Friday and Gannon continue to check pawn shops in the hopes of finding the baby Jesus.

The Bah Humbug of this episode comes in the form of their captain. Friday and Gannon have been waiting to hear about a suspect in another case and when he’s pinched, the captain orders Friday and Gannon to run up and fetch him, which will take several hours. They plead their case –or rather Father Rojas’s case- about the missing baby Jesus, but the captain feels that’s something the Foothills Division can do. Friday then whips out a manipulation Uno reverse by asking the captain to call Father Rojas and explain to him that they won’t be able to look for the baby Jesus statue until after Christmas. The captain wisely relents rather than risk the disappointment of a priest.

Friday and Gannon finally get their opportunity to interrogate Claude in sort of a sad scene. Claude thinks they’re questioning him about a car he was allowed to borrow, but this time he didn’t ask first. When questioned about the bundle he was taking out of the church, he explains that it was his other pair of pants that he had fixed for the Christmas show at the men’s hotel. It’s established early on that Claude has a rap sheet, but it’s made pretty clear that this guy has given up his criminal ways (minus taking a car without explicit permission) and has fallen into what Friday and Gannon might consider a pathetic life, though there’s something sweet about how much the Christmas show means to him and the other men at the hotel.

Out of leads, out of luck, and out of time, Friday and Gannon have no choice but to go to Father Rojas and say they won’t be able to get the baby Jesus back in time for Christmas mass. Father Rojas is understanding, but disappointed.

But since this is a Christmas episode, it’s only right to have a miracle. Or in this case, a Paco.

As the men are standing there feeling sad about the lack of baby Jesus in the manager, a little boy by the name of Paco comes up the aisle pulling the missing statue in his red wagon. It seems that Paco has been asking for a red wagon from Santa for years, but this year he prayed to the baby Jesus for one and promised that if he got a red wagon, baby Jesus would get the first ride. Thanks to the local fireman who collect and refurbish old toys, Paco got his red wagon and kept his promise.

christmas story paco

Do I cry at this ending scene every time I watch it? Yes, I do. Did I tear up while writing about it? I absolutely did.

As someone who isn’t religious, this Christmas episode about a missing statue of baby Jesus might be considered an odd choice as a favorite for me. I do tend to avoid the overly religious aspect of the holiday season as Christianity has effectively alienated me, particularly in recent years. But this one is just too good for me to dislike. It’s a wonderfully weird melding on the “just the facts, ma’am” Dragnet episode and a sweet story about a little boy getting his Christmas wish and keeping his promise.

This episode carries the innocent spirit of the holiday season, stripped of tinsel and preachiness. The baby Jesus at the heart of the story is so much more than some religious symbol. The sentimental value attached to it is so much deeper not because of the religion, but because of the community surrounding it. And it’s a member of that community that ends up honoring his faith in such a sweet and unique way.

Merry Christmas, Paco.