Trust me. I know what I am doing.
It was indeed a wonderful and well done parody.
rouge-good-guy-cop
Does he wear eyeliner as well?
I couldn’t put it into words at the time but even while laughing my ass off at Sledge Hammer! as a kid I always felt a strange ambivalence. On the one hand I wanted there to be cops who were that dedicated to truth and justice and protecting the innocent, but I also knew nothing was that simple.
I think that’s why then and now my favorite episode is “Witless”. A spot-on parody of Witness what’s striking is that Sledge’s very existence is a threat to the community he’s supposed to protect.
Oh, and the crime boss throwing his cats out the window is a hilarious running gag.
Sampled by Jesus Jones:
This was a great 80s show. I loved it back in the day. I rewatched a few episodes not that long ago and it is horribly cheesy, but still captures that Police Academy/Naked Gun/Police Squad! vibe with a lovable over the top moron who is just trying to save the world. And he talks to his gun.
Fun Facts - his pistol is a S&W 629 .44 Magnum. Similar to the Dirty Harry’s S&W 29 - the main difference being it is in stainless steel vs blued steel. While technically not the most powerful handgun in the world (even during Dirty Harry’s time) it still spits out a 240gr bullet at 1,180 Ft/s (1,005 joules). (IIRC one of the show guns was at auction a few years ago.)
I happen to have one very similar to it, only I have the Classic version, which means that metal under the barrel that stops halfway on the traditional 629 (called the underlug) continues all the way to the end, adding rigidity to the barrel as well as recoil absorbing weight. Mine also has a small gas port near the tip that is supposed to reduce recoil, but I dunno if it does or not. Pics below - sorry I took it with a potato.
Great show. Very different take on cop shows, compared to “Police Squad”
But do you talk to it?
Not since we found the right medication.
I do sometimes polish it. This was recommend by a car buff, Simichrome. Really popular with the vintage VW community, evidently (it’s German, so you know it’s good.) Really polishes stuff up. And on this gun there are a few areas that will get stained from the powder, especially the front of the cylinder, and this actually removes its better than the solvent I use.
My dad used to love this show. One of the few things we watched together.
the highfalutin’, “thinkin’ fellers” bicycle store I sometimes shop at recommends and sells it, so I used it on my steed. pretty impressive results. oughta be right up your alley for all your vintage BMW stuff, @jlw
I was thinking the very same thing.
I thought I recalled you were a vintage car buff (er motorcycles?). Yes this stuff is supposed to be great for car chrome. It is what it was developed for. I haven’t spent THAT long on mine, and I haven’t tried like a dremel to speed things up or get in the hard to reach places, but wow did it clean it up fast.
I saw a guy trying to sell a nickle plated one that looked like heck and suggested he try it. It looked 90% better.
Also, per their site - it is used to test of something is real bakalite.
Related:
For the past two months I have been working through the entire back catalog of 2000AD Judge Dredd comics (yay big fat downloads). There are so many of them.
Anyway, reading with an older eye, I slowly came to realise that while as a boy
“Judge Dredd is so bad-ass! And he’s a ridiculous parody”
… has become a lot more disconcerting, and some of the “Instant Justice” over-reactions are now a lot more
OMG, Police states can be scary y’all.
I’m still not sure if the kids magazine writers were doing prescient social satire all along, or if it’s just a case of Poe’s law coming to life.
There is some really good stuff in there, so I’m giving them credit for the former.
I have been going through them as the library gets them. They are so much a product of the 80’ they are both a satire of society and just fun bizzaro adventure stores as well.
I hadn’t read much Dredd and got a Best of graphic novel recently. I liked it. If I could find used TPB I will pick them up.
Years ago I bought a big box of 2000AD comics in a jumble sale. I keep meaning to go back and read some collected editions. Is the library stuff all 2000AD, or just Dredd? (I enjoyed the Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog stuff too)
Well I have just been getting the Judge Dredd collections. I am not sure I have seen others but SPL search comes up with nothing. I would love a D.R. And Quinch omnibus to read through.
The collections are so much better to consume. As a kid I was lucky to get hold of 2 random issues a year, so the episodic stuff really didn’t do itself justice for me.
Re-reading it with the story arcs back in place has made it high literature.
And hell yeah on the Quinch!
I never liked Rogue trooper enough, and Strontium Dog was a bit too uneven for me. Both probably would stand up better if they were collected, as their story arcs seemed much longer or denser than the JD ones)
The thing with Dredd is that the Judges’ approach to law enforcement, while superficially effective (no pesky red tape or lengthy appeals or technicalities!) utterly fails at improving the lot of Mega-City One citizens. The place remains an enormous cesspool of violence and degradation no matter how draconian and heavy-handed law enforcement gets. “This doesn’t seem to be working… let’s try doing more of it.”
To top it off, most of the supervillains are other, more insane Judges!
True dat.
Which is why (I think) Judge Death is a logical extension/parody of the trope itself.
The most effective way to stamp out crime is to execute everyone.
Mega-City only wanted to incarcerate everyone.
I like to think that these writers were deliberately self-aware of the continuum they were on.
