I have never been to Hawaii.
My parents went there many years ago, and they had a great time there.
They spoke about Hawaii’s beauty, the warm weather and the beaches.
I don’t know if my family and I will ever go there, but you never know (remember South Korea).
Anyway, this past weekend, myself and many other viewers visited our 50th state, in a weird, retro sort of way, via the Decades TV channel.
This past weekend,, we were taken to Hawaii when it was a brand new state, and so unknown to most of us, via their binge of the “Hawaiian Eye” TV series, which ran on ABC from 1959 to 1963,an odd show which tried to mix the then new interest in our 50th state with a standard late 1950s-early 1960s crime show format.
I used to watch reruns of the show as a kid, and when I discovered that the station was going to be having a binge weekend of the show, the first thing that came to my mind was “Poncie Ponce,” but more about that later.
Also, the show was not only the first network television series to focus on our newest state, but it opened the door for many other such shows—“Hawaii 5-0” among others—and the show was also the pathway for some of the biggest TV stars of the 1960s to get their feet wet.
The hour-long show revolved around a hotel detective service run by Anthony Eisley—who looked like a 1960s mix of Cary Grant and Clark Gable in the show—and Robert Conrad, the future star of a number of popular TV shows, including “Wild Wild West.”
Somehow, their agency gets involved in detective work both inside the hotel they are in and outside the hotel, and that is pretty much the premise of the entire show.
The two detectives are helped in their efforts by photographer/singer/woman about town Connie Stevens—who is as cute as can be in this show, more about that later—and the aforementioned Poncie Ponce, who plays a cab driver and street confidant of the two detectives.
I just found it so interesting how the show handled Hawaii, our newest state and one that most Americans really didn’t know much about way back when.
The black and white show—if ever a show should have been shot in color, this was it—looks at Hawaii through the lens of a typical American at the time, who knew little about this part of the world.
The show portrays Hawaii as sort of a foreign country, almost like Hong Kong or China, with the women all wearing Chinese-like outfits—whether they are Asian or Caucasian—and the men often bare-chested.
This plays on the popularity of Conrad and Stevens on the show. Conrad often does his best work in the hotel pool, swimming around like a fish while he helps solve crimes.
I mean, his character is supposedly “half-Hawaiian,” so what did you expect?
As for Stevens, she made the name “Cricket” the catch-name of the era, but in an early episode, she explains—in a weird, ditzy sort of way that the actress made famous on every talk show of the era—that the name actually came from Greek mythology—don’t ask.
Anyway, Stevens does her thing in often vary Asian-like costumes, as if here character was actually Hawaiian—a great leap as the actress' real birthplace was Brooklyn—but the censors seemed to give her a bit of leeway when she sang as a nightclub performer on the show, as she wore many low-cut and tight outfits that showed off her curvy figure at least once on each episode—I guess the tropical setting gave censors reason to give her a pass.
And that setting is supposed to be Hawaii, but much of it was filmed on the Warner Brothers lot in Hollywood, some of it was actually filmed in Hawaii, and some of the sequences use the characters performing in front of filmed backdrops to make them look like they are at the beach or riding in a car, and these are shot pretty badly.
And yes, since I knew you were wondering, every stereotype of Asians and Hawaiians are played up here, with broken English, pats on the head … you name it, you can find it here.
But there are strong Asian/Hawaiian characters on the show, primarily those playing the police, and much of the cast of each show is Asian/Hawaiian/Polynesian, whether the bad guys or the good guys.
And then we have Poncie Ponce …
Playing Kim the cabbie, Ponce was comedic diversion on each show, playing a character that helped out the two main characters much like Huggie Bear helped out the two main characters on “Starsky and Hutch” a decade later.
My parents went there many years ago, and they had a great time there.
They spoke about Hawaii’s beauty, the warm weather and the beaches.
I don’t know if my family and I will ever go there, but you never know (remember South Korea).
Anyway, this past weekend, myself and many other viewers visited our 50th state, in a weird, retro sort of way, via the Decades TV channel.
This past weekend,, we were taken to Hawaii when it was a brand new state, and so unknown to most of us, via their binge of the “Hawaiian Eye” TV series, which ran on ABC from 1959 to 1963,an odd show which tried to mix the then new interest in our 50th state with a standard late 1950s-early 1960s crime show format.
I used to watch reruns of the show as a kid, and when I discovered that the station was going to be having a binge weekend of the show, the first thing that came to my mind was “Poncie Ponce,” but more about that later.
Also, the show was not only the first network television series to focus on our newest state, but it opened the door for many other such shows—“Hawaii 5-0” among others—and the show was also the pathway for some of the biggest TV stars of the 1960s to get their feet wet.
The hour-long show revolved around a hotel detective service run by Anthony Eisley—who looked like a 1960s mix of Cary Grant and Clark Gable in the show—and Robert Conrad, the future star of a number of popular TV shows, including “Wild Wild West.”
Somehow, their agency gets involved in detective work both inside the hotel they are in and outside the hotel, and that is pretty much the premise of the entire show.
The two detectives are helped in their efforts by photographer/singer/woman about town Connie Stevens—who is as cute as can be in this show, more about that later—and the aforementioned Poncie Ponce, who plays a cab driver and street confidant of the two detectives.
I just found it so interesting how the show handled Hawaii, our newest state and one that most Americans really didn’t know much about way back when.
The black and white show—if ever a show should have been shot in color, this was it—looks at Hawaii through the lens of a typical American at the time, who knew little about this part of the world.
The show portrays Hawaii as sort of a foreign country, almost like Hong Kong or China, with the women all wearing Chinese-like outfits—whether they are Asian or Caucasian—and the men often bare-chested.
This plays on the popularity of Conrad and Stevens on the show. Conrad often does his best work in the hotel pool, swimming around like a fish while he helps solve crimes.
I mean, his character is supposedly “half-Hawaiian,” so what did you expect?
As for Stevens, she made the name “Cricket” the catch-name of the era, but in an early episode, she explains—in a weird, ditzy sort of way that the actress made famous on every talk show of the era—that the name actually came from Greek mythology—don’t ask.
Anyway, Stevens does her thing in often vary Asian-like costumes, as if here character was actually Hawaiian—a great leap as the actress' real birthplace was Brooklyn—but the censors seemed to give her a bit of leeway when she sang as a nightclub performer on the show, as she wore many low-cut and tight outfits that showed off her curvy figure at least once on each episode—I guess the tropical setting gave censors reason to give her a pass.
And that setting is supposed to be Hawaii, but much of it was filmed on the Warner Brothers lot in Hollywood, some of it was actually filmed in Hawaii, and some of the sequences use the characters performing in front of filmed backdrops to make them look like they are at the beach or riding in a car, and these are shot pretty badly.
And yes, since I knew you were wondering, every stereotype of Asians and Hawaiians are played up here, with broken English, pats on the head … you name it, you can find it here.
But there are strong Asian/Hawaiian characters on the show, primarily those playing the police, and much of the cast of each show is Asian/Hawaiian/Polynesian, whether the bad guys or the good guys.
And then we have Poncie Ponce …
Playing Kim the cabbie, Ponce was comedic diversion on each show, playing a character that helped out the two main characters much like Huggie Bear helped out the two main characters on “Starsky and Hutch” a decade later.
And in real life, Ponce played off that character for 50 years, becoming a global ambassador for Hawaii, traveling the world to tout its virtues, and actually giving Don Ho his start as the state's biggest star.
As for other characters, later episodes including additions to the cast as Eisley left the show and Stevens had a contractual disagreement, and those additions were noteworthy.
Tina Cole replaced Stevens, and she later went on to bigger and better things as Katy Douglas on “My Three Sons," and one of the great screen names, Troy Donahue, also joined the cast..
As for other characters, later episodes including additions to the cast as Eisley left the show and Stevens had a contractual disagreement, and those additions were noteworthy.
Tina Cole replaced Stevens, and she later went on to bigger and better things as Katy Douglas on “My Three Sons," and one of the great screen names, Troy Donahue, also joined the cast..
I watched a few episodes of the show, and while I know that even way back when this was the Hawaii that Hollywood wanted viewers to see, it still made an enticing argument to one day visit there and see what the state is really all about.
No volcanoes, but Poncie Ponce?
You can’t get any better than that.
Lei me up, Scotty!
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