‘CHiPs’ Retro Recap: ‘Trick or Trick’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

If there’s one specific type of television episode that I’m often wary of, it’s the holiday themed episode. Because these particular tales tend to go to some weird places when it comes to shows grounded in reality, wherein something supernatural or magical has to happen around Christmas time or Halloween, in an attempt to capture the spirit of the holiday and wow the audience and it’s often lame and it just takes myself and others out of the experience when all is said and done. And that’s on my mind today, simply because of the fact that I was tad nervous to start the next episode of CHiPs, largely due to the fact that ‘Trick or Trick’ was a Halloween themed tale and with this being filmed in the 1970s, when going goofy with a show was still a thing, I was worried this one might go off the rails and give us a strange experience.
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But thankfully, the powers that be, felt that there was no need to slip Ponch and Jon into the world of the supernatural. Instead, the series found a way to integrate the mythos of Halloween seamlessly into this tale and it accomplished that particular feat simply by throwing some of the stuff we tend to pay more attention to when Halloween rolls around, into the storyline, since Ponch did a fine job of finding himself surrounded by every spooky superstition there is out there since he walked under a ladder, broke a mirror and came near thirteen black cats and to top it off, the show found a way to even sneak a ‘haunted’ house into the mix. Because Ponch and Jon did have to go inside a creepy old house that was on their patrol route to find a missing child, and it was just neat to see the series toy with elements of horror and pay respect to the holiday and the genre with the musical stings and genuinely eerie moments present in that sequence.

However, while it was fun to pay tribute to ol’ Sam Hain and the horror genre as a whole, this is a police series with criminals that need to be dealt with, and there was plenty of interesting thievery happening for Ponch and Jon to contend with. For instance, there was the older woman who was stealing candy bags from little skeletons in the hopes of getting back the engagement ring she thought she’d lost, and she genuinely believed that losing that ring had screwed up her last chance at love. But thankfully, she found the sucker with an assist from our duo. Yet while that was unique in its own right, this story also found a way to integrate a couple of Creeps of the Week into this episode, by way of a man and woman named Eddie and Susan, who were down on their luck thanks to Eddie’s gambling habits. And in order to be free of Eddie’s debts, Susan dressed up like a magnificent and flowing ghost, in order to blend in and surprise the liquor store owners she decided to rob and well, this was the perfect costume for this crime since she was able to soar into the night, that is until our favorite patrolmen got a solid lead on their trail and busted them before the evening came to a close.

But truly, the highlight of this episode, was the mysterious Hobgoblin that haunted Sergeant Getrear on this holiday. Because every single year, someone hopped on the radio to express a spooky message to all of the officers out on patrol and the Sarge was done with it, because he’s the boss and it’s against policy, and he vowed to figure out who the Hobgoblin was this year and put an end to this silly tradition once and for all and well, what made this such a treat was that the show was happy to reveal early on that Grossman was the mysterious Hobgoblin after all, and we also came to learn exactly how he pulled off this lovely little prank. For he gave his fellow patrolmen assigned times to broadcast their spooky messages and if they forgot, he filled in and it was just fun to see this little prank unfold over the course of the night and see the Sarge track down every lead in the matter before finally exposing Grossie in epic fashion and he even informed Artie exactly how he caught him and I suppose the lesson here kids, is that if you’re going to pull some awesome pranks at work, don’t get sloppy. Plain and simple.

If anything, I’m so glad that this particular episode bucked the television mold when it comes to holiday episodes by finding a way to have some serious fun with Halloween and not let it overshadow the fantastic writing that’s already present in season two, and I won’t lie. I’m now quite curious to see if the show is going to tackle other holidays down the line such as Christmas or Thanksgiving or New Year’s in this manner since clearly, this episode laid out the blueprint for giving the audience a top-notch holiday story that’s grounded in the day to day obstacles police officers face. But while that’s down the line, in the meantime I can simply bask in the wonder of another quality episode and honestly, I’m super impressed with season two thus far because it just keeps knocking it out of the park storytelling wise, and I am definitely ready for more. So, on that note, I’m code seven friends, because it’s time to hit the highways once again. Until next time. 

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