10 Things You Didn't Kn-O About Hawaii Five-0
Back in the day, I was a big fan of private eye shows and secret agent/spy series...cop shows, not so much. But by the 1970s, "Hawaii Five-0" had grown on me, and I can honestly say I'd rather watch that show today than any other crime drama, bar none. Steve McGarrett is the quintessential no-nonsense, chisel-jawed good guy. Viewers agreed, as the show ran for 12 seasons, 1968-1980...but here are a few things you might not have known...
(1) So which is it, Five-Zero or Five-Oh?… "Five-0" refers to Hawaii being the 50th state, so the short answer is, it's a zero, since there's a zero in the numeral 50. But it's always pronounced "oh"…just as James Bond is called "double-Oh-7," not "double-Zero-7." To check this, I examined half a dozen magazines and both local and national newspapers from the 1960s, and with one exception, all used a type-face (the old-fashioned word for "font") that distinguished between a zero and a capital O...the the capitol O is fat and rounder, the zero skinny and oval-shaped. That one exception, oddly enough, was TV Guide, which used a skinny 0 for both.
And if you grant that the title graphic of the show's opening sequence ought to be definitive...from season 1 thru season 12, they used a skinny 0, not a fat O. True, the O cropped up occasionally in print, like in the liner notes on the cover of the soundtrack LP on Capitol Records. But typewriters in the 1960s were just making the transition from one key for both…to separate keys, one for each, so there could still have been confusion. This wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for that current "reboot" series on CBS. They've officially said several contradictory things on this subject...all I can do is look at their opening graphic...and I see a capital O, not a skinny zero. If this is indeed to distance it from the original series, so be it.
(2) But no, it's not real... Because Hawaii is the only state that has never had a state police force. This ironically was the inspiration for the series: producer Leonard Freeman was talking with then Hawaiian governor John Burns about his unsuccessful attempt to sell a state police force to the state legislature, and thought: great idea for a series!
(3) Was Wo Fat really Chinese?... The character yes, a Communist agent. The actor no, altho he's generally assumed to be. Kenneth Dickerson was born in Spring Lake, New Jersey, of British, Egyptian, and Sudanese stock. He changed his name for show business to Khigh Dhiegh when he found his career niche. By the way, it's pronounced to rhyme with Eye Dee...not Die or Day as you'll commonly hear.
(4) Tabac, anyone?... Well, just about everybody on TV smoked in those days, so the fact that Steve McGarrett did not, nor did he drink except for the occasional ceremonial sip of bubbly, further set him apart from the run-of-the-mill TV hero. For the record, on the show Danno occasionally enjoyed a cigarette, and of course Chin Ho had his pipe.
(5) Speaking of Danno, what's up with the pilot episode?... Titled "Cocoon," it was a 2-hour movie broadcast 6 days before the series premiered in September of 1968. A few things were changed from the pilot to the actual series...Steve got a bit less intense, Chin Ho less jovial, gone for the most part were the Hawaiian print shirts...and oh yeah, they got a new actor to play Danny Williams. Tim O'Kelley was Danno in the pilot, and his approach was a little too, shall we say, earnest? Test audiences didn't connect, like they would with the more laid back James MacArthur. In syndication, the pilot was shown as a 2-part episode, and apparently nobody cared if viewers noticed the Danno discrepancy...sort of like "the 2 Darrins" on "Bewitched."
(6) And speaking of syndication, isn't there a lost episode?... Indeed, the 16th episode of the 2nd season, called "Bored, She Hung Herself," shown once then never again...not as a repeat, not in syndication, not even on the 2nd season DVD box set. It concerned a group of hippies who practiced an esoteric meditation technique involving simulated hanging...and sure enough, one ends up hung for real, and dead. Altho hushed up at the time, apparently someone who saw the show tried it, and died...hence the the episode's disappearance.
Copies do circulate among collectors, so you could probably see it if you wanted to bad enough...but the consensus is it's not that great an episode...just lost. Interestingly, this episode was directed by John Newland, the host of "One Step Beyond." But it does remind us that "Hawaii Five-0" did occasionally dabble in the "weird" or "kinky" plot elements that would become so popular decades later.
(7) Where'd Zulu go?… Born Gilbert Lani Kauhi, Zulu (a high school football nickname) was the ultimate Waikiki beach boy...a surfer, singer, comedian, disc jockey, even served a tour in the Coast Guard. He was hired for the show because of his burly native looks and became famous for bursting thru the door during the opening sequence. But he was frustrated by having nothing to do but say "Yes, Steve, no, Steve" week in and week out for 4 seasons. Long story short, a series of unfortunate circumstances resulted in his losing his temper during a taping, and saying some things that he shouldn't have. Exit "Zulu as Kono." He remained a popular Hawaiian celebrity and night club entertainer until his death in 2004...and indeed had a part in the 1997 revival attempt.
(8) What revival attempt?… It was a TV movie by Stephen J. Cannell, but the brass at CBS didn't like it and it never aired. Gary Bussey was the new lead cop with Russell Wong as his right-hand man…and Danny Williams was now the governor! The roles of Kono, Duke, Truck, Che Fong and even Chin Ho were reprised by the original actors…this despite the fact that Chin Ho Kelly had been killed in the final episode of season 10. Apparently Cannell wasn't aware of this, and nobody, least of all actor Kam Fong, bothered to mention it until the movie was completed. Maybe he needed the work…
(9) The Magnum Connection…"Hawaii Five-0" ended its long run in the spring of 1980, and Tom Selleck's "Magnum P.I." premiered that fall…a coincidence? Think again, my friend. CBS had a lot of money invested in the extensive Hawaiian sets and production facilities, and wasn't about to let it go to waste. What's more, there were even hopes of getting Jack Lord to do a few cameo appearances as Steve McGarrett, which is why there are Hawaii Five-0 references during the first season…like when Magnum says of of an old Navy buddy: "Putting Dan on this stuff was like making McGarrett the meter maid." But Lord couldn't be coaxed out of retirement, and that was that.
(10) But in the beginning… It's always interesting to find out what might have been. Leonard Freeman's original name for the series was "The Man"…kind of bland, altho perhaps not so much back then, when "the man" was synonymous with "the fuzz." Richard Boone was his first choice to play McGarrett, and that made sense since at the time he was actually living in Hawaii, but he turned it down…as did, of all people, Gregory Peck! Fortuitous, I'd say, given who they eventually got.
Don't forget the weekly blogs at stolf.wordpress.com and deepfriedhoodsiecups.wordpress.com…plus "car tunes" weekdays starting at 3pm on 1340 WMSA in Massena…and as was told to me along the coconut telegraph: rock on!
