GROOIIYhnd of

Go trippin' back in time' with those cool 'M0D SQUAD'cops

as they finally arrive on DVD

BY FRANK TOVECESpecial to Newsday

t was originally to be called"The Young Detectives."Maybe if it had beerl itwould have gone the wayof the shortlived "TheYoung Lawyers" and "TheYoung Rebels" that soon

I followed. But somewhereduringthe show's development, inthat halcyon year ofl968, the titlegot changed to the catchier, kitschi-er "The Mod Squad," a namepromising something other thanyoungversions ofoursame old elders. Itsfirst 13 episodes comeout on DVD Tuesday,givingnostalgicboomers achance toremember when theywereTheYoungWhippersnappers.

A cop show for thecounterculture, "TheMod Squad" starredMichael Cole, Clar-ence Williams III andPeggy Lipton as,respectively, ayoungwhite dude, a youngblack bro and a young

Cole, in a recentphoto, still looksa bit mod.

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says David Bushman, curator ofNew York's Paley Center forMedia (formerly the Museum ofTelevision and Radio). "It suc-cessfully drew in that youngaudience and made it feel itspoke to them - and did it with-out alienating older viewers,since it had the trappings ofapolice drama.'The Mod Squad'was remarkable for its time inwhat it addressed and . . . itdeserves credit for taking on the

issues it did.""We had shows

about topics nobodywas dealingwith at thetime," says co-starCole bytelephonefrom Los Angeles,where he continues toappear occasionally onseries including "ER"andinTVmovies.While the early 1960shad seen such hard-hit-ting, topical dramas as'iThe Defenders" and"East Side,/ WestSide" - what histori-ans call "Kennedy-era"

blond chick working as a youth-culture undercover team for theLos Angeles Police Department.Tige Andrews played their policesuperior, Capt. Adam Greer. Veryloosely based on a 1950s I-APDnarcotics squad headed by seriescreator Bud Ruskin, the showbecame a four-season hit on ABC.And for all its sanitized TV visionofhippies and Hell's Angels, pro-testers and "pigs," it broke groundin giving the screen its fust lastingcounterculture protagonists -something the oltensibly moresophisticated movies wouldn't dofor another year, with the break-through youth-culture film "EasyRider."

"It was one of the earliestattempts to deal with the counter-culture and the disillusioned-youth sensibility of the time,"

or "Ngw Frontier" dramas - theyhad la?gely been replaced in midldecade by escapist balm like "TheWild Wild West" and stAndardgenre shows like "The FBI." "Wedid an episode on abortion," Colesays. "Anothcr on anti-Semitism.And, of course,.lve also addressedthe Vietnam War and racism. Itwas pop culture-ish, but we weredealing with very serious situa-tions. And Aaron had to fight togei some of those shows on."

Producer power"Aaron" would be the late

Aaron Spelling, early ih his careerbefore becoming a megaproducerof hits iike "Charlie's Angels,""Starsky and Hutch," "BeverlyHills 902f0" and countless othershows. Parinered with comedian-producer Danny Thomas in

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I Y ciramas had t'ew young-I adult leads before "i-tre tvtodI' Squad" in 1968. But that show

sparked a quest for "relevant"(code word for hip, youth-orient-ed) shows, most of which hit the airin the fall ofl970. Dig these short-lived youth-culrure dramas, baby!HURRAH

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MichaelCole and Peggy Liptonwere cool with working for thepolice in "The Mod Squad,"which comes to DVD Tuesday.

Thomas-Spelling Productions,Spelling contributed his singularcombination of showmanship andsocioiogical sawy, traits thathelped him predict what peoplewould want to see - even ifpeople didn't always know itthemselves - and then sell it.

"\['hen Aaron started to sell theshorv," Cole recalis, "a lot ofPeo-ple thoughlit wouldn't get anaudience because lit teamed] awhite, a black and a girl." RobertCulp and Bill Cosby pioneeredintegrated series leads with "ISpy" in 1965, Greg Morris was Partof the "Mission: Impossiblc" teamfrom the start in'66 and DonMitchell aided "Ironside" tn'67.

But the first two were globetrot-ting secret-agent fantasies. "ModSquad," set here at home, was acop show in form but thematical-ly aspired to be a naturalisticdrama. That made it the target ofanti-integrationist ire. "We gothate mail," Cole says. "And themore we got, the more we knewwe were on the right path -thanks to Aaron. He really stuckto his guns."

Or didn't, in anothercontext: The show'sthree young cops -disgraced rich kid PeteCochran (Cole), ghettodenizen Linc Hayes(Williams) and prosti-tute's daughter julieBarnes (Lipton) -didn't carry fuearms.Cole says that was hisidea. "On the second orthird day [ofproduc-tionl, I went to Aaron'soffice. I told him we'reabout peace and love,so let's not have theMod Squad ever carry agun. And we didn't. Wemade a point of, whenthe bad guy dropped hisgul, to take that weapon4nd throw it away.Itwas symbolic, a wayofsaying,'We don't needthat.' " Cole and Lipton(who was also marriedto QuincyJones for 16

taking LSD, the plot could be that {of nearly any detective show. :

What gives it and subsequent iepiiodts their distinctive voice is itfie visible camaraderie of its three Iyoung stars, and something else - .,

a feeling that the actors believe I

what their characters believe, that :

they're making a difference during I

atumultuous time filled withpossibilities. 'l

"'The Mod Squad'was ground- .

breaking in the r-ealm of sociallYrelevant drama," says Bushman, p.

citing as an example a later season-. r

one episode, "Peace Now - ArlY tBlau,r' about the family dynamics :

of an Army general and his paci- \fist son, who's in prison for dodg- !ing the draft. One 1970 episode ,- involves the death of i

Far out, man! iDig this clip :from "The :

Mod Squad." I

an immigration officer lwho rnayhavebeentrafficking in illegal .l

aliens. How 2007 is lthat? i

Its cultural signifi- '1

cance aside, "TheMod Squad" really

'.

isn't a towering Pinna- '

cle of TV drama. Butit was a well-crafted iweekly show with ;

ambitious and laud- |

able ideas, and evenlanded a best-dramaEmmy nomination its ;

second year. The :

three stars were good 1

actors for the roles -particularly Broadwayveteran Williams, butit was Lipton who gotan Emmy nominationeach year.

"It was the first TVdrama to embrace thecounterculture," saysclassic-TV authority

"lhe New Peoph" (ABC,1969-70)

- Forty young Americans become"Lost" on a South Pacific island,and try to create a better societYthan their parents did. ProducerAaron Spelling teamed with wtiterRod Serling - in which "TwilightZone" was that?

'The Young Rebels" (ABC,1970-7l )

- The American Revolutiontelevised. Four youthfol colonists(including Lou Gossett |r.) fightthe power lr:.1777.'The Yorng lawyers" (ABC,L970-n) - From their storefrontoffice, idealistic Boston students

years) appear innewinterviews on the DVDs, as do"Mod Squad" guest stars Ed Asner,Tyne Daly, Lou Gossett |r. andLesley AnnWarren.

Belief systemThe premiere episode involves

some very ungroovy businessmenblackmailing a politician. Asidefrom the blackmailers havingphotos of the politician's daughter

Iay down the law to slumlords,head-busting cops and other ex-ploiters of the people.i'Storcftont larryerd'(cBS, l97o) -From their storefront office, idealis-tic L.A. associates lay down the lawto slumlt rds, head-busting coPsand other exploiters ofthe people.

Diane Albert, former editor andpublisher of "The TV Collector.""The three lead characters werethe vanguard of [drama-series]protagonists who weren't olderpeople; it didn't look like showshve years or even a year beforeit. But," she admits, "I thinkanybody up to about age 39 isgoing to find'The Mod Squad' a

bit corny."

"The lntems' (CBS,1970-n) -Three white guys, one black gttY,

one blond chick YoungPhYsiciansat New North Hospital oPerate ontough issues of the day. Before hewas B.J. Hunnicut on ((M*A*S*H,"

Mike Farreil played a doctorhere. - FRANK LOVECE

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