Graphic done by me, with Photoshop. Don't steal, please.
And he was very, very new with enormous talents. And '21 Jump Street' was Johnny Depp's garage band. That was the band he played with before he started playing with the Beatles, y'know? And he really really had an opportunity to hone his skills and his talent every single day, and it was remarkable to watch this young actor get better by the minute.
-- Patrick Hasburgh, executive producer 21 Jump Street.
21 Jump Street: inside out -- Johnny Depp, from the foreword of Burton on Burton, September 1994.
Say what?
21 Jump Street was an hour-long action/drama series that ran officially from 1987 'til 1991. In total, five seasons were made, and the show was cancelled in 1991 due to low ratings. Most of the original cast (Hanson, Ioki and Penhall) had already left by then, leaving behind only Hoffs and Fuller, alongside a few new faces. The show is most famous for rocketing actor Johnny Depp to fame.
Jump Street was FOX's first most serious drama and also its first hit series. It strove to be a better show than average. Looking at it now, in 2002, it still strikes me as one of the best-written and best-acted shows of... well, ever. Especially in the first two seasons, the plots were very tightly written and the internal continuity puts a whole lot of today's shows to shame. It dipped a bit after the departure of Patrick Hasburgh at the end of the 2nd season and became somewhat of a showcase to show pretty faces (shirtless Richard Grieco, anyone?).
The show, although sometimes a little corny, touched upon a lot of issues still in the taboo sphere today. AIDS, (statutory) rape, teenage pregnancy, race riots, gay-bashing, suicide, abortion and (sexual) child abuse. It was moralistic, but not exactly preachy, and it's somewhat scary to see how some of the '88 episodes could be aired today and still be relevant (in other words, nothing much has changed).
21 Jump Street got one spin-off, entitled "Booker", for the character of Dennis Booker (Richard Grieco). It ran only a season, parallel to Jump Street's season 4. Some of the Jump Street regulars had brief guest spots on this show (not Johnny Depp). I can't comment on "Booker", because I've never seen it (it's never been aired here, by my knowledge), but as I'm not a fan of Grieco's, I probably wouldn't like it.
What was it about?
About a group of underage-looking cops who went undercover on high schools to catch youg criminals before they become older, more dangerous criminals. In later seasons, the team went less and less undercover on high schools, and the plots focused more on the cops' personal lives.
In the pilot episode, officer Tom Hanson is offered a position on the Jump Street unit because his youthful looking face causes him to be ridiculed and not taken seriously by criminals and colleagues alike. Very reluctantly, he takes the job. The Jump Street unit is led by Captain Richard Jenko, a laid-back hippie with a love for Jimi Hendrix. He gets killed by a drunk driver in #7 ("Gotta Finish the Riff") and Adam Fuller takes over the job. Hanson is partnered with Doug Penhall, a well-built young man with a gruff exterior and a heart of gold, and Hoffs and Ioki are typically also partnered together. Hanson also worked with Booker, briefly, in the beginning of season 3 when Penhall still worked at Intelligence.
At the end of season 4, Hanson and Ioki disappear without a trace. They didn't get a good-bye scenes and their names are never mentioned again (although Hanson's car is shown a few times -- which is just sloppy because there's no way in hell Hanson would've left it there). Penhall quits half-way through season 5 after getting shot and realizing his job is too dangerous for himself, especially now that he's got a kid to look after (Clavo, his murdered wife's Marta's nephew). I like to think that Hanson and Ioki both moved to Philadelphia (or something), where Hanson opened a bowling alley and Ioki a martial arts school. Penhall followed them there and became co-owner of Hanson's bowling alley. There. That's my version of Life After Jump Street.
21 Jump Street's cast:
Starring Johnny Depp as Thomas "Tom" Hanson (season 1-4)
Frederic Forrest as Captain Richard Jenko (episodes 1-7)
Holly Robinson as Judith "Judy" Hoffs (season 1-5)
Peter DeLuise as Douglas "Doug" Penhall (season 1-halfway 5)
Dustin Nguyen as Harry Truman Ioki/Vinh van Tran (season 1-4)
and Steven Williams as Captain Adam Fuller (episodes 7-series' final)
Other important characters:
Richard Grieco as Dennis Booker (season 3, #56 "Draw the Line")
Yvette Nipar as Jackie Garrett (episodes 36-51)
Gina Nemo as Dorothy Pezzino (episodes 26-45)
Sal Jenco as Sal "Blowfish" Banducci (season 1-4)
Dorothy Parke as Amy Pearson (season 2)
Angelo Tiffe as Russell Buckins ("Fear and Loathing with Russell Buckins"; "The Dreaded Return of Russell Buckins")
Famous Guest Stars
There were a number of now-familiar faces who appeared in 21 Jump Street before they turned famous (aside from Johnny Depp, that is, who was a regular and the main character at that).
Brad Pitt ("The Devil's Own", "Ocean's Eleven") played Peter Isley in "Best Years of your Life";
Shannen Doherty ("Beverly Hills 90210", "Charmed") appeared in "The Things we Said Today";
Christina Applegate ("Married... With Children", "Jesse") guest-starred in "I'm Okay, You Need Work";
Bruce A. Young ("The Sentinel", "Jurassic Park III") played James Adabo in "Besieged I & II";
Christine Elise ("ER") played out-of-whack teenager Quincy in "Out of Control";
Pauly Shore was in "Two For the Road";
as was Jason Priestley ("Beverly Hills 90210");
and Jada Pinkett ("Scream 2", "The Matrix") showed up in "Homegirls".
Johnny Depp hated the show, didn't he?
Well, let's hear it from the man himself:
In the winter of 1989 I was in Vancouver, British Columbia doing a television series. It was a very difficult situation: bound by a contract doing assembly line stuff that was, to me, borderline Fascist, (cops in school... Christ!). My fate, it seemed, lay somewhere between Chips and Joanie Loves Chachi. There were only a limited number of choices for me: (1)get through it as best I could with minimal abrasion; (2)get fired as fast as I could with slightly more abrasion; (3)quit and be sued for, not only any money I had, but also the money of my children and my children's children (which, I imagine, would have caused severe chafing and possible shingles for the rest of my natural days and on through the next few generations of Depps to come). Like I said, this was truly a dilemma. Choice (3) was out of the question, thanks to extremely sound advice from my attorney. As for (2), well, I tried, and they just wouldn't bite. Finally, I settled on (1): I would get by as best I could.
The minimal abrasions soon became self-destruction. I was not feeling good about myself or this self-induced/out-of-control jail term that an ex-agent had prescribed as good medicine for unemployment. I was stuck, filling up space between commercials. Babbling incoherently some writer's words that I couldn't bring myself to read (thus having no knowledge of what poison the scripts might have contained). Dumb-founded, lost, shoved down the gullets of America as a young Republican. TV boy, heart throb, teen idol, teen hunk. plastered, postered, postured, patented, painted, plastic!!! Stapled to a box of cereal with wheels, doing 200 mph on a one-way course bound for Thermos and lunch-box antiquity. Novelty boy, franchise boy. Fucked and plucked with no escape from this nightmare.
So that's pretty self-explanatory. He claims he's never seen more than six episodes of the show (my wild-ass guess is that these six episodes would be the ones with Frederic Forrest, as he was one of the reasons Johnny initially signed up. But I must also note that Johnny is somewhat notorious for not wanting to see himself act -- he hasn't seen most of his own movies and often, when attending premieres, sneaks back out again to avoid seeing them). I actually feel vaguely ashamed for liking "21 Jump Street", because Johnny hated it so much. I love his character; Johnny's said he could never be friends with a guy like Tom Hanson.
Johnny mostly signed on because hey, he was out of work and needed a pay-check. Plus, he'd been told most shows don't run that long -- one season, tops. He also wanted to work with Frederic Forrest, whose character (Captain Richard Jenko) was killed off in episode 7. The show would get him on the map, give him a little push in the right direction, how bad could it be? Johnny Depp signed a six-year-contract with TPTB.
Unexpectedly (the ratings weren't that good), the show became a hit and Johnny became America's favorite teen idol almost overnight. His face was plastered all over the teen rags, and he hated every minute of it. TPTB began featuring him more and more prominently in episodes, pushing the other characters in the background.
After two years, Patrick Hasburgh (one of the other reasons Johnny signed) on left the show and "21 Jump Street" went into its third season without him. Johnny refused to do a couple of episodes featuring storylines which went against everything he stood for; in his place, unknown actor Richard Grieco was brought in (and was given a spin-off for his trouble). Whether Johnny and Richard Grieco liked each other or not remains a mystery -- Johnny's said Peter DeLuise was his best friend on the set (as was pretty clear when watching their scenes together), and Grieco's mentioned he and Peter were friends as well. The "rivalry" between Depp and Grieco may only have existed on-screen.
At a certain point during shooting (my own personal guess is sometime between seasons 2 and 3, judging by the episodes and the way Johnny acts), Johnny realized he really, desperately wanted out. He offered TPTB to work a year for free if they would just let him go, but they refused. At that point, the craze around Johnny Depp was enormous and he was receiving 10,000 fan-letters a month.
During the fourth season, Johnny was openly trying to get fired. He showed up and knew his lines, but his heart wasn't in it ("Blackout" is the worst example. Johnny isn't even trying to act). The last episode he filmed was "How I Saved the Senator". Several other episodes filmed earlier were pushed back 'til later in the season to keep the viewers from stopping watching the series because Depp had left.
After "21 Jump Street", his first project was the cult-movie "Cry Baby", directed by John Waters, in which he spoofed his own pretty-boy image. Director Tim Burton proved to be a god-send and a way out: the "Batman" director chose Johnny over several other actors (including Tom Cruise, who wanted Edward to be pretty at the end) to portray a young man with scissors for hands in the beautiful "Edward Scissorhands". Then followed a series of films which were all good, but too "odd" and "weird" to be blockbusters (not counting "Sleepy Hollow" and "Chocolat", which are his only real "hit"-movies to date). Today, Johnny lives in the south of France with his girlfriend Vanessa Paradis and his two children, Lily-Rose and Jack.
Where are they now?
Johnny Depp is scheduled to appear in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Neverland" (as J.M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan) in 2003. He's got close to forty movies under his belt and is widely respected by film critics and audiences alike.
Holly Robinson has appeared in a few TV-series that weren't exactly great hits ("Hangin' with Mr Cooper" and "One on One"). She's also appeared as Diana Ross in the documentary "The Jacksons: An American Dream". She's expecting her third child in August of 2002.
Peter DeLuise acted in "SeaQuest" for two seasons and was director for several episodes in the series "V.I.P." (with Pamela Anderson and former Jumpstreet co-star Dustin Nguyen) and "Stargate SG-1", as well beint the as co-writer of several SG-1 episodes. He also directed the Jumpstreet episode "Back From the Future", a flashback episode.
Dustin Nguyen played Johnny Loh in the 1998 season of "V.I.P." alongside Pamela Anderson Lee, and did several TV-series and movies I've never heard of.
Steven Williams appeared as Mr X in several episodes of "The X-Files" (staring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson), acted in "L.A. Heat" and a whole lot of other stuff I've never heard of either.
Richard Grieco (Dennis Booker, 1988-1989) did a series of B-movies that sound either violent or like soft-porn movies. Angelo Tiffe (Russell Buckins) had guest parts in "Charmed", "Boston Public", "The West Wing", "Quantum Leap" and "ER". Yvette Nipar (Jackie Garrett, 1988-1989) acted in "The District", "Silk Stalkings" and "Profiler", and played Deborah Reeves in the TS episode "Light My Fire".
Do you have all episodes of 21JS?
Nope, I don't have all of them. I don't have any episodes of season 5, for example, simply because the team just isn't the team without Hanson, Ioki and Penhall. I did catch glimpses of it when it was broadcast on Dutch television two years ago, but I got so furious with an unfamiliar character driving a very familiar '68 blue metallic Mustang that I swore I'd never watch again. (For the uninitiated: the blue Mustang belongs to Hanson. It's a car he cares a helluva lot about since he got it from his father, who was murdered when he was sixteen. Showing someone who isn't Hanson driving that car (excepting Penhall in "Draw the Line") is the height of idiocy and showes volumes of disrespect toward a well-loved character.)
I also don't have any season 1-4 episode without Hanson. I'm sorry to say I didn't consider them worthy of valuable tape-space and I taped over them.
Aside from the abovementioned episodes/seasons, I've also lost two or three episodes because my mom accidentally taped over them ("Awomp..." and "2245", for example).
Do you like Grieco/Booker?
Short answer? No. Long answer: there are many different stories about how Grieco joined the 21JS cast in season 3. Some reports say he was brought in to do a few episodes Johnny Depp didn't want to do ("Nemesis" and "Next Victim". Haven't seen them, but other fans report it was obvious they were written with Hanson in mind); other sources mention TPTB wanted a little strife in the cast to get rid off that neat family-like feeling from season 2 (I loff season 2. Don't fuck with season 2). Whatever the reason... in a cast with talented folk like Depp, DeLuise and Williams, a non-acting "actor" like Grieco stands out like a sore thumb. He certainly isn't the worst actor I've ever seen, but everyone else on the cast was miles and miles above him in terms of acting quality.
As for his character... oooh, he was so cool, he was a loner and shit, and he hated authority, too! And then, in the end -- get this! He's learned how to work in a team! Imagine that! [/heavy sarcasm] Come.on! A cliché on feet, that's what he was. Watch "Woolly Bullies" and learn that Booker was the same at age eight as he was at age 23. Plus, the whole electric chair thing in "Fun With Animals"? So.not.funny. Putting Hanson in prison? Even less funnier. "Yeah, but he got him out! Don't forget that!" Of course he got him out! He better! If it weren't for him, it wouldn't have happened in the first place.
Although I mostly find him highly annoying, I learn to somewhat tolerate him in later episodes. For instance, I don't have the urge to throw my television out of the window while watching "High High" or "Hell Week". Back when Grieco joined the show, a lot of people thought this meant Johnny Depp's days were numbered -- they were a lot alike, except that Johnny tried his damnedest to get rid of his teen-idol status and Grieco did not. Oh, and Johnny is of course -- by far -- the superior actor.
I usually comfort myself with the thought that Johnny is a critically acclaimed character-actor and Grieco is not, and that the name "Richard Grieco" is likely to elicit a "who?"
Can you see slash in 21JS?
I, personally, don't see it. The characters don't strike me that way. But. I could certainly make a case for it. Take Hanson and Penhall, best friends and partners. From day one, they were a team, and a great one at that. The way they handle each other, bounce off ideas, tease each other and laugh & cry with each other is certainly very, very nice to see. Plus, they're physically affectionate with each other (hugging, high fives, steering each other, etc.) and they've even shared some kisses (on the cheek, people!) on-screen ("Fear and Loathing with Russell Buckins", "In the Custody of a Clown" and probably others). Girlfriends are far and few between (Penhall had, in four seasons, two serious girlfriends: Dorothy (with whom he was engaged) and Marta (his wife, who got murdered in El Salvador); Hanson dated Amy seriously and saw Jackie for a while) and slash would not, actually, be too much of a stretch.
Yet I don't see "it". To me, they're just close friends, and hell, I normally see slash in even the innocentest of situations.
As much as it pains me to say it, even Hanson/Booker would make sense, what, with that antagonism between them? They're like Mulder and Krycek, the Harry and Draco from Jump Street!
I even briefly entertained the thought of young!Hanson and young!Russell. You know, just two teenagers experimenting with their best friend. That could work. And hey, there's got to be a reason why Hanson (who was, mind you, a complete nerd in high school) and Russell (whom I picture as the cool guy everyone wants to be friends with) are such good friends. *eg*
Favorites and non-favorites
Favorite Season: the second season, hands down. The plots were, with few exceptions, all great, the acting was top-notch, the actors settled down in their parts and began getting to know them (Hanson calling Fuller "Coach" throughout the season, for example) and... the whole season just worked for me. The show was very ensemble-like at this point: lots of episodes that focused on all four cops, with Fuller as a sometimes father-ish character.
Least Favorite Season: the third one. Yes, mostly because of Booker. But also because Ioki was consistently pushed into the background, because the characters didn't seem to like each other as much and Booker's presence just really divided them up: Hoffs liked him, Ioki seemed to have no opinion either way, and Hanson and Penhall didn't like him very much. The sense of comradery from the previous season was just gone. Plus, the third season ended on a very depressing note (with Hanson in prison and Ioki in a coma); I was almost happy when it was over and the group could go back to how it used to be.
Favorite episode - Season 1: I'm torn between the pilot ("Jump Street Chapel") and "Blindsided". The pilot was very, very good, excellently written and well-executed. "Blindsided" dealt with a heavy topic (sexual child abuse by a high-ranked police officer) and was also extremely well-done. They both score points on the guest character front (Kenny Weckerle and Tyrell Thompson in the pilot; Diane Nelson in "Blindsided") and both mark important life-changes for Hanson (joining the program and shooting someone for the first time). I can't choose.
Least Favorite - Season 1: "Don't Pet the Teacher", because I have to choose one. It's not that I didn't enjoy this one, because I did, it's just that the rest of the first season is far superior to this one. The plot is rather shallow and it's just not that captivating.
Favorite episode - Season 2: so many good ones to choose from -- but "Orpheus 3.3." wins, hands down. There's nothing that's done badly in this episode -- plot, writing, acting, execution, characterization, everything amazes me in this episode. One moment, I'm near crying; the next, I'm laughing out loud at the psychiatrist scenes with Penhall, Hoffs and Ioki. It's dramatic, but not over the top melodrama and it's just... wow. They don't come better than this.
Least Favorite - Season 2: It's be easy to say "Cory and Dean Got Married" or "Raising Marijuana", but although those were boring as hell, I'm not counting them because Hanson wasn't in it. So I have to say that "Brother Hanson and the Miracle of Renner's Pond" isn't very engaging. I haven't seen it in a while, and for a good reason: the whole subject of "science vs non-science called creationism" riles me up and... well, it's just not a good episode, IMO.
Favorite Episode - Season 3: "The Dreaded Return of Russell Buckins" is my absolute favorite of this season. It's not the best-written one ("Swallowed Alive" is, despite my questions about it, pretty damn good), but it is the most fun one -- I'm currently working on a long-ish double review of both Russell Buckins episode. "The Dreaded Return..." is just a highly entertaining romp that never fails to cheer me up. Johnny Depp and Angelo Tiffe make a great comedic team and Jane Sibbett just rules as romantic-but-still-strong Louise Samperton.
Least Favorite - Season 3: (not counting non-Hanson episodes) I disliked "Loc'd Out I & II" because I hate to see my favorites in pain, mental or physical. I'm not a big fan of the hurt/comfort genre in fanfiction, and I can't stand to watch Hanson be miserable in prison. "A.W.O.L." was pretty uninteresting as well, though it has redeeming qualities in funny Hanson/Penhall moments. I'm not a fan of season 3 and I tend to not watch its episodes too much.
Favorite episode - Season 4: "Out of Control", although I wished they'd capitalized more on the similarities between Hanson and Quincy, especially regarding their fathers' deaths. "How I Saved the Senator" is also good comedy -- love each individual heroic tale. Much fun. The flashback episode, "Back From the Future" also wasn't bad; the make-up was amazing and the Hanson/Penhall friendship shone through.
Least Favorite - Season 4: (not counting non-Hanson episodes) "2254" is awful because I can't deal with the death penalty in any way, shape or form. "Mike's P.O.V." was lame as well, and concentrated way too much on the guest characters instead of the regulars. But the winner is "Blackout" because it's just wrong: the writing, the acting (especially Johnny Depp's non-acting) and the characterization of Hanson and Penhall. Awful, awful episode.
Favorite - Overall: "Orpheus 3.3."
Least Favorite - Overall: "Blackout"