Unforgettable! (Top Ten TV Characters)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Top Ten TV Characters
Date:	09/08/02 (679 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: All cool

Disadvantages: Some irritating features!

OK, I'm tired of writing proper opinions. I now fancy trying something a bit more light-hearted again. This means I've once again browsed the Top Ten categories, and lo and behold, a fun category! Woohoo! Most of the following appear from my childhood because I was definitely more impressionable then, and certainly I can't say that anything recent on the telly has provided anything anywhere near these characters of old.

So, as with the rest of my Top Ten opinions, these are not in any sort of order. They are listed in the order which I happen to remember them, so happy reading!

10. Starsky and Hutch's Ford Gran Torino.
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From the pilot episode to the very last episode, Starsky and Hutch was one of the best T.V. shows ever. It also laid down the gauntlet for any show that was going to have buddy cops, with two of the best supporting characters ever in Dobey (Bernie Hamilton) and Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas). However, the real star of the show was Starsky's red and white Ford Grand Torino with the famous white, pointed stripe down the side.

Special Features: Ability to go down narrow alleyways at high speeds.

9. KITT from Knight Rider.
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Nice, black Trans Am Pontic Firebird with flashy red thing on the front. Comes complete with the headmaster from 'Boy Meets World' who will tell you off for drink driving, playing 'rawk' music, and not doing your homework. KITT can be indestructible, or simply hard to destroy based on the needs of the scriptwriters for a particular episode. Certainly a far better, better celebrity than that Hasslehoff fella and to my knowledge has no aspirations of being a 'rawk' star.

Special features: Capable of talking in a camp manner, indestructible, ability to hold tongue and not take the mick out of Hasslehoff's open shirts.

8. B.A. Baracus' GMC van from The A-Team
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When you're busy ferrying around 4 other Vietnam vet's and their gun / cigar collection, a mere car will be of no use. This is why B. A. has this nice GMC van in black and silver, complete with red stripe. (Obviously, Starsky told him that stripes made your vehicle go faster!) Travel in comfort with nice big comfy chairs to sit in as B. A. slides the van around corners whilst being pursued by Col. Decker, or the weekly bad guys.

Special features: Ability not to get hit by bullets, despite the fact the bad guys fire about a million bullets at it.

7. Airwolf from erm... Airwolf.
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Sleek Bell Helicopters 222 in nice black and white paint job, souped up so that it is capable of flying at about 5 times the speed of light or something. This is always handy for responding to emergencies quickly or getting to the pub for last orders. However, it's stored in a secret hiding place in the middle of nowhere, and probably takes about 3 hours to get to it which defeats the purpose somewhat! Still, it has lots of nice buttons to push and screens which look all techy and fun. Can be prone to weird time shifts where one second the helicopter is flying about 30 feet off sea level with no land to be seen, only for the next camera angle to show it at 30,000 feet over a mountain range. Freaky!

Special features: Makes nice humming noise. Pressurized. Fires big rockets at baddies.

6. Street Hawk.
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I think I've said somewhere else that the programmes that were on telly in this genre (i.e. everyday machine given 'special powers') had to have a hero with a ridiculous name (Stringfellow Hawke), and this is no more apparent than in Street Hawk. Jesse Mach (how did he ever make it out of school without being bullied to death?) rides a special government project which is a small motor bike souped up to go 300 mph or something.
However, was it a big sports bike, or even a nice Harley? No. It looked like a 50cc Yamaha (or similar, before I get beaten to death by bikes fans).

Special features: Goes like the clappers despite looking like a 50cc lawnmower.

5. Automan's Lamborghini Countach.
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Blimey, I barely remember the programme, never mind the individual characters in it. However, I do remember this little ball thing (I think it was called 'Cursor') which was able to transform into a car and a helicopter, all in this nice black/neon blue colour scheme. Nice. Not exactly the world?s greatest programme, but my first ever glimpse of a Lambo in action made this programme a must at 6pm on a Saturday night.

Special features: Nice black and neon colour scheme. Ability to take corners at 90 degrees without slowdown. Obviously a Tron fan.

4. Adam West's Batmobile.
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Good old Adam. Nice car as well. OK, so he was a bit paunchy, and the show was as camp as a row of tents, but that never stopped it from being bloody good fun. Anyway, how could you fail in the Batmobile? Pulling the girls, catching super villains or even dropping the Batsuit off at the dry cleaners, the Batmobile is the choice for the multi-millionaire-turned-crime fighter around town. Out of all of these machines in my top ten, this probably made the second biggest impression on me - it was certainly the biggest until I watched S&H and decided there and then that I wanted to be Starsky when I grew up.

Special features: Good for pulling feline female baddies. Has spiffing missile launcher, and nice bat wing effect spoilers.

3. The Professionals Capri 2.8i.
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OK, some might say that the best thing out of The Professionals was George Cowley shouting at the lads about town Bodie and Doyle, but they are wrong. It was in fact the nice silver Capri one of them h
ad (how come no-one remembers the groovy TR-7 one of them owned?) Of course the Capri was quite good because, despite being a great performance car, it wasn't actually flash enough to blow their undercover work unlike, say, Starsky's car or KITT.

Special features: Makes Bodie and Doyle look better than they really are.

2. Magnum's red Ferrari 308 GTS.
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Oh, drooltastic. A bright red Ferrari 308, was there a finer automobile in the 1980's? I think not! I still remember the pilot episode of Magnum P.I. where he broke into Robin what's his face's estate to test the security, and then 'stole' the Ferrari before doing his wiggly eye thing and zooming off into the distance with a satisfying roar of the engines. Lovely. A bloke up the road from me had a metallic blue version which I thought was strange because at the time I thought Ferraris came in any colour you liked, as long as it was bright red. Anyway, the blue one looked crap compared to Magnum's, and when I buy my first Ferrari, it'll be bright red.

Special features: Can annoy Higgins simply by being taken out on the road by Magnum.

1. The Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee.
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OK, it was bright orange, you couldn't open the doors, and as a car for two good ol' boys who were never meanin' no harm, but still got in trouble with the law, it was pretty damn conspicuous for a getaway vehicle. On the other hand, it was the vehicular equivalent of superman in that it could leap tall buildings in a single bound. Well, perhaps not buildings as such, but certainly road works, creeks and single vehicles. Although, should really lose marks for making boy racers up and down the country get air horns in which also played the first 12 bars of Dixie and annoy the hell out of ordinary people, but gets redeemed by having to enter and exit the vehicle through the wind
ows. Nice.

Special features: Orange. Has flag on top. Can't open doors, must use windows for exit and entry. Nice shiny bonnet due to boys sliding over it.

Yeah, yeah. So they're all machines, and not actually people, so bite my shiny metal ass, but they're still characters in their own right. So, there you go, my Top Ten TV Characters. Different, eh? I thought so! Hope you enjoyed.

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