Monday, March 11, 2013

Important "Miami Vice" Update: Now with more Shabba-Doo


The fellas share a laugh after wisecracking bartender Flo asks them if there is enough room on the dance floor for all three of their outfits in a scene from the sitcom Two Men, Shabba-Doo, and a Blazer

I left two important guest stars out of my Season 1 recap, and I've been meaning to rectify this oversight for some time. As an apology to my readers for this careless mistake, I have included the steamy reggae-soul slow jam title track from Philip Michael Thomas's blockbuster smash hit album Living the Book of My Life below.
I can't believe I forgot to mention Sam McMurray, character actor most beloved around my household for his appearances in Raising Arizona and Freaks and Geeks, in my writeup of "Calderone's Return: Part II." McMurray is Jimmy "Jimbo" Walters, employee at the hotel in St. Andrew's Island where Crockett and Tubbs have gone undercover to find notorious drug kingpin Calderone. Jimbo went to St. Andrew's for spring break seven years ago, missed his flight, and never left. When he's not working at the hotel, he's writing a novel ("a cross between Mutiny on the Bounty and The Road Warrior") or supplying his special brand of pot ("stuff'll tie dye your frontal lobe in Technicolor") to American hotel guests. Bonus out-of-context quote: "Sharks and weirdness."
I spent a lot of time talking about the fake Jamaican accents in Season 1 episode "The Maze," but I can't believe I spaced on mentioning a very important guest cameo from the first half of the episode. Adolfo Shabba-Doo Quinones, dancer and star of Breakin', Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Lambada, is Pepe, an informant who Crockett and Tubbs have to drag off a nightclub dance floor and into a toilet stall to get some information about a gang. I wish someone would put this scene on YouTube or Vimeo because Shabba-Doo makes you forget everything you thought you knew about dancing, human behavior, facial expressions, pink outfits, and chest hair. He's something else, that Shabba-Doo. At no point does he seem like he's dancing to the music actually playing in the club. He's also the only one on the dance floor without a partner because Shabba-Doo contains multitudes. Shabba-Doo is all. All is Shabba-Doo. Shabba-Doo.