The recent announcement that CBS is developing a remake of THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO made me wonder how the news was playing with the Ciscos, the diehard fans of the show who inundated ABC with packages of Rice-A-Roni a few years ago.
It isn't going over well. They have taken out a full-page ad in Daily Variety demanding the return of the show with the original cast, wardrobe, and automobiles.
"It's an outrage," said Kirby Sneed, spokesperson for the Save Our Streets Global Alliance. "Any version of STREETS without Karl Malden, Michael Douglas, and Darleen Carr would be an abomination."
His dream of a STREETS reunion nearly came true sixteen years ago when NBC mounted the TV movie/pilot BACK TO THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, which was written by William Robert Yates, one of the original producers. Malden returned, as did Carr, but he was teamed with two new partners and Michael Douglas' character was killed off. The fans felt betrayed.
"The fen have disowned the movie," he said. "We don't consider it canon."
Sneed says the "horrific creative choices" made in the movie have "been corrected in the subsequent fanfiction, but it took a lot of work."
He says that Ciscos realize that Malden, now in his 90s, might be too old to resume his part, but the fen would be willing to accept Paul Sorvino in his place, as long as he reprises his role as Inspector Bert D'Angelo, the lead of a short-lived STREETS spin-off called SUPERSTAR.
They also have "realistic expectations" as far as Douglas' participation is concerned, acknowledging that its unlikely that the feature film star would return for a TV movie. They are in serious discussions with Douglas' publicist's secretary about the possibility of him doing a cameo if a "true remake" is made.
They are confident, however, that Richard Hatch, who replaced Douglas in the series' final season, would be available to resume his role (he has already written his own screenplay for a STREET revival, which he is adapting into a comic book).
Sneed, who lives in San Francisco, has kept the series alive through fan fiction and a driving tour of STREETS locations that he offers to tourists in his1971 Ford Galaxie 500, the same model as the one Inspector Stone drove.
"It was more than TV show," he said. "It's as much a part of the city, and its history, as the Golden Gate Bridge."
To me, it doesn’t make sense that if you’re going to do the show again, why does it have to be about Stone and Keller? They weren’t exactly the iconic figures that Kirk and Spock or Bret Maverick were; you have to have those characters if you’re doing ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Maverick’ again.
Leave Stone and Keller in everybody’s memory as Malden and Douglas (even accepting that Keller is dead), and do this as a continuation, not a remake. Have your leads be entirely new characters following in the footsteps of Stone and Keller.
Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox now; I’m getting dizzy…..
“We don’t consider it canon.”
To use my kids’ lingo, these guys are chock full o’ fail.
As I read this and other related posts, the thought occurred that present-day TV has not done a good job maintaining what I always thought of as its Guest-Star Circuit. For as far back as I can recall, I would go through the listings in each week’s TV GUIDE to see which actors would be turning up in which shows. We all owe a particular debt to Quinn Martin for pioneering the vocal billboard, enabling us to learn to correctly pronounce the names of Alf Kjellin, Oscar Beregi, Rhys Williams, Ramon Bieri, and many others. Compare with the current practice of running the names under the opening scenes at near-subliminal speed. I still think it’s a bad idea to redo the old shows, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the old style make a comeback (of course, this means we’d all have to get used to slower pacing, but I think we could live with that).
These guys need to hang out with those old school BSG fans.
Wait…I get it. Very funny.
Thank you so much for the mention of my site Lee, it helps a ton in the search engines and i’m flattered you thought the site worthy of pointing to, thank you! I need to get a move on though and update it a bit, gah. Real life is a pain.
It’s so difficult to stay positive about remakes in the face of so many pig-eared attempts that have resulted in horrific parodies of things we love. Add to that the hard truth that so many decent shows get cancelled after their first year, and tv nowadays doesn’t lend me optimism! But they, they can never actually do anything to the original show, and now the DVDs are coming out we’ve got them to rewatch for always. Never know, the remake might actually *work*. (there’ll be a lot of folks eating their hats i reckon)