...in "Mean Streets and Pastel Houses", [Depp's] hair, pallor, and black leather punk jacket foreshadow his look as Edward Scissorhands.
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Fox was once a struggling little network that wanted to show the Big Three of ABC, CBS, and NBC that they didn´t own the place. One way Fox did this was to go to successful television producers like Stephen J. Cannell and offer him 13 episodes, guaranteed – just pretty please produce something for our fledgling network, and by the way you have to shoot in Vancouver (where only one or two series had been filmed up to that point) on a shoestring budget.
Cannell had various ideas, but one day his music editor Patrick Hasburgh told him about a trip to the police station to report a burglary and running into a teenager who turned out to be an undercover detective. He discovered that this kid, who was more youthful-looking than youthful, was part of the "buy squad" – undercover cops who sniffed out drug dealers in the high schools. Cannell investigated and discovered that because the LAPD was tight on space, the Buy Squad was housed in a converted chapel. Thus, "21 Jump Street" (Cannell originally wanted to call it "Jump Street Chapel") was born, and it aired for 103 episodes from 1987 to 1991. The first two seasons are probably the best, as Patrick Hasburgh, who ended up on writing duty, left the show after the second season.
Today the show is remembered as being the most serious that Fox would produce during its early years (it was also the first show they aired on the first night of their existence) and for launching Johnny Depp (Officer Hanson) to stardom. It seems incredible with our hindsight, but Depp was not the first choice for Hanson. Jeff Yeager was, and about halfway through the first episode, the producers realized that Yeager was not the type for what the show needed. They went back through their notes and decided to go with Depp, who blew everybody away and was soon the cornerstone of the show. If you want to see a really young Depp, a Depp with big eighties hair, this is the place to go, although neither Depp nor the other male characters had to suffer as much as Holly Robinson did with that hair.
Once you finish chuckling over the hairdos and Dustin Nguyen´s shiny shirts and suspenders, (Harry Truman Ioki, credited as being the first Asian-American idol on US television) this show really delivers. Everyone in the cast is pretty superior, though Peter Deluise (Dom´s son – his brother Michael would join the show later) (Doug Penhall) hams it up a bit and Holly Robinson usually isn´t given enough to do. Frederic Forrest was Captain Jenko for just a few episodes and really added some pizzazz to everything, but Forrest decided to return to movies and he was replaced by Steven Williams, who plays Captain Fuller like an all-knowing parent. (Incidentally, Holly Robinson sang the theme song, and Deluise and Depp shouted "Jump!" for the song.)
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