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This was taken from the novelisation of the Pilot Episode entitled Miami Vice: Florida Burn’ written by Stephen Grave.. I always joked that Miami Vice and Scarface were in the same universe, or if it ever gets rebooted, make it a same universe thing and call it the CCU (Cocaine Cinematic Universe) but it looks like it was all well and official even back then.. nice to have it confirmed.

Rare photo. Olivia Brown on the set of "Evan," I think.

I'm 99% sure this is a bottle of Wild Turkey. Look at the font and location of the description on the label

Found this interesting blog by Marty Fleischman, that gives insights to how the episode "Killshot" was created. http://pelotapress.com/miami-vice-meets-miami-jai-alai-part-1/ http://pelotapress.com/miami-vice-meets-miami-jai-alai-conclusion/

Smuggler´s blues

Prodigal son

I doubt even Izzy would wear that crazy outfit!

The Maze

They filmed this car drive where Crockett and Tubbs listen to the tape at the same stretch like in the pilot, the NCR sign is clearly seen in the background and NCR was at 2915 Biscayne Bvd (building still stands but NCR has moved out). Watching the drive they started around 3300 block of Biscayne driving southbound (there were some blocks with hardly any buildings) and crossed the NCR sign at one point. The arches we seen briefly AFTER the U-turn at 1751 Biscayne (Les Violins Club) were NOT the same as in the pilot. I am searching for the unsolved Rockhouse Club (Meeting with Desmond) site and they could have filmed it near the drive location, as this was filmed the same evening after the dive bar and the rockhouse club scenes.

4994 Hammock Lake Dr in Hammock Lakes, Gables Estates \ South Miami featured in the teaser “ Deliver Us From Evil “ - I visited this gated community last week just south from Coconut Grove, Coral Gables and off the Old Cutler Highway. Miami Vice shot around this area a number of times in Season 4 and 5. Enjoy the snaps I took to mirror and more what we see in this fine episode which aired in the Spring of 1988.

This wasn’t product placement at all for all the reasons you mention, plus another. Product placement was very uncommon at the time when the three networks dominated and mass audience appeal was king. Showing a particular product reduced advertising revenue opportunities. Why would Coke pay for an ad slot on a show that featured Pepsi placement. I think this wasn’t relevant in this particular instance because advertising of liquor on TV was not legal, so there could be no competitors. They simply used an existing bottle rather than going to the trouble of creating a false label. It was also not particularly featured in the scene as you explained. Beer, on the other hand, was a different story and labels were created. I recall seeing on the Carol Burnett Show many years ago, skits where the characters held cans with the label reading Beer! This added to the humor. Another example is Magnum pi, from the same era. It frequently referenced a fictitious beer called Old Düsseldorf and another called Coops that looked strikingly like a Coors labels in its design.

In the 80s they couldn’t show as much with sex scenes on TV. But, it was definitely implied that Crockett and Gina had a sexual relationship. I don’t think their races had anything to do with that (whether the characters or the actors in real life). Perhaps if they had tried to get Crockett and Trudy together it would have had a different impact…but, MV crossed a lot of barriers & pushed the proverbial envelope with lots of things at the time. One was they included a lot of races, ethnic backgrounds, and cultures in different episodes. And no, it wasn’t specifically Crockett…but the show did have or portray some interracial relationships. Castillo had May Ying (who was Asian), Noogie had a white wife, and Tubbs’ former partner Clarence Batisse (from the episode “Better Living Through Chemistry”) had a white girlfriend and/or wife, just to name a few off the top of my head. I think that for the time, MV was awesome with again…trying to include many different ethnic backgrounds, cultures, races, etc…

Somebody said on Twitter/X, eloquent and on point:

Bad Day At Black Rock

After the Santa Monica location seen in “ Free Verse “ and “ Asian Cut “ — I went to the Los Angeles neighborhood area of Burbank on Friday and to 2901 West Alameda Avenue. Did the best I could inside the small studio complex. We see this set up shot in Season 3s “ Stone’ s War “. This came from another 1980s show and I think was used in “ Dynasty “ and “ Murder She Wrote”. from “ Stone’s War “ —- My shots 19th April, 2024– Burbank

Add to this the fact Vice was really conceived by Mann as primarily a visual vehicle and it makes the change even more significant. Vice is rather unique when compared to other shows in that way. You can see the changes during season one as the impact of Yerkovich and his more traditional character-driven plotting and focus recedes and Mann's more visual emphasis takes over. Then you take Mann away and there's really nothing left to fall back on.

Sorry that happened to your family! But unfortunately this and even worse was a frequent occurrence back in the late 80s. I personally remember from my time in Miami several fatal incidents with European tourists who received their rental cars at the airport and drove to Miami Beach, but took the wrong exit and ended in Overtown or other dangerous areas. There they mostly stopped, rolled down the windows and asked for directions. That was often enough to trigger a robbery, car theft or even worse. I remember that Miami reacted by removing rental tags on license plates, adding big „To Miami Beach“ signs and patrol cars on all crucial routes from the airport. That was big news on TV at that time. Luckily I never had any trouble. Maybe because I blended in with the neighborhood, spoke American accent and avoided bad areas. But being too fearful and deeming all others as potential risks can also create unjustified prejudice. I remember walking with a friend 2 miles to the Metrorail station in South Miami as no cabs there and we had not enough cab money to spend anyway. On our route a bunch of afroamerican guys played basketball in a front yard of a modest house and we started getting nervous walking by when they recognized us and started talking to us. But they only cordially invited us to join the game (we declined politely with a joke as they were all >6,5“ tall and we looked like hobbits against them). Later I was ashamed of my immediate preconditioned thought they would attack us, simply based on the initial vibe of the situation. But it was hard to tell at that time who had good intentions. In recent years most areas of Miami got much safer and overall crime rates plummeted. I spent lots of time there with my family in the last 20 years and we never had any nasty situations.

Izzy is Cuban, so no...they didn't leave them out. It's also implied that Castillo is of Cuban origin as well ("Charles Bronson by way of Havana") in the first episode he appears. So once again they weren't excluded.

I was disappointed in my recent trip to Miami Beach coming into town from California - it has become such a party town . No respect for the show that started the town again in the 1980s. What suprised me was the fighting on Ocean Drive — groups of girls fighting and cops everywhere, really rough. I love this city it’s in my heart but there should be more class like North Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Key Biscayne and Lauderdale by the Sea.

I have very broad shoulders myself. It proves problematic on airliners. I’m not only very tall, but the shoulder width requires me to literally lean in if I’m on the aisle for the drink cart to go by. As far as the jacket tailoring, I would then suggest that the armhole is higher than the one DJ wore or the shoulder of the body is shorter causing the sleeve to sit higher. My mother was quite the amateur tailor, having patterned and constructed suits for my father. I learned quite a bit by default. I’m no expert by any means though. She made me numerous custom fitted shirts when I was a young man. In my teens and 20’s she would ask what new shirts I would like for my birthday. She made me everything from alohas, to guayaberas to dress shirts and more. One year I remember her making me a banded collar dress shirt that was not terribly common, but had a bit of popularity in the 80’s. This was way before the internet where everything is available. I got more than one compliments wearing that one.

Miami most expensive house

Interestingly, this recent article from Architectural Digest just came into my newsfeed: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/most-expensive-zip-codes-in-the-united-states Miami Beach is number two, California has the most, then New York, and there are a couple of surprises.

Tamiani trail 1901

Gina was always named as "Gina Navarro Calabrese" in all promo material and was shown to speak fluent Spanish from the earliest episodes, so they weren't exactly hiding her Hispanic side. In the early 80's I think the Lucy/Desi paradigm of Latin-heritage people being seen as more "foreigners" rather than a different race additionally held sway. Furthermore, she and Crockett were never shown making love; they had a real kiss once and sat next to each other mostly naked, and they flirted a lot, in addition to clearly having strong feelings for each other (all of which would have probably outraged any supposed racists had Gina not been "white enough"). But his extended sex scenes were with other (white) women (and Gina's impactful ones were with other Caucasian-European men; the one episode of interaction she had with a guy who played a Hispanic character was stilted, to say the least). I don't think they were whitewashing Gina's character for public consumption simply because I don't think people would have cared. "Hispanic" has never really been the kind of interracial relationship trigger in the US that White + "Black" or "Asian" or even "Jewish" have been. And as others have said, it didn't really factor into the plot, wasn't treated like an interracial relationship, and basically no one noticed. If Crockett had tried to date Trudy or Gina had gone out with Tubbs, there probably would have been much more attention.

Whatever works

Miami Bayside 1985. If you watch closely you can see Crockett´s boat on the right side of the picture

Sorry if this has been posted before, but I had to add this memorable Red Tape soundtrack!

Miami Beach looking west in 1987

While I agree with you that Gina was undoubtedly presented as being of Hispanic/ Cuban origin (mainly because of her apparently fluent Spanish to my perception), and I recognized that Calabrese was an Italian-origin name, I also agree that the story of her mother Elena Obregon was tacked on with no prior reference. In fact, Gina told Sean Carroon that she had several brothers and sisters (without saying if they were older or younger, or really giving any info about her family). There was never any explanation of, or reference to, her ancestry/ heritage--just as all of the others were barely hinted at. Tubbs' brother was killed by the Calderone gang, Crockett was a football star at U of Florida and served in Vietnam; when the show starts his marriage is on the rocks and he has a 6-year-old son; Switek is an Elvis fan, Zito is from Staten Island, Trudy has an old boyfriend, Castillo did some top-secret work in SE Asia for "the agency" and had a Chinese wife who he thought was killed, but wasn't. He was also ambushed, attacked and left for dead--seemingly by men on his own team. When he recovered he left the agency and went into police work to continue to fight the drug traffic. The lack of background and detail made it easier for the show runners to add in details later that don't necessarily relate to past history, but also might have happened. For me, this family history for Gina made sense and was something that could have happened; however, I can see why some think it was a "mistake" or "debatable." I do think a lot of people seem to feel this was tacked on, and not necessarily gracefully. Virtually everyone's background was very lightly sketched. Castillo had the most background--but EJO was given control over his character to a degree that none of the other actors were. For me, Season 3 is not too late to add depth to a character's canon identity. The way I reconciled this story into canon was that after Gina's mother was killed, she was given to her aunt (mom's sister), who may or may not have been married. If she was married, her husband could have been killed during the revolution when Castro came to power. Aunt then refugeed to Miami with Gina and any other children she may have already had. In Miami she met Mr. Calabrese and married him. They may have had more children together and continued to raise Gina as their own daughter. Aunt may not have told Gina about her birth mother's story until Gina was an adult.

Grave's stuff should be taken with a grain of salt. "Bubba Switek"? Really? He might have assumed they were in the same universe (which is fine for his stuff), but that doesn't mean Yerkovitch and Mann saw things the same way.

With Kurt Russell, add Breakdown - another thriller I liked. And of course Overboard, an 80s comedy classic!

Yes, that must have been a set, as we have never encountered any such big structure anywhere at Jimbo´s from our previous location hunts for MV that only took place a few years before Wild Things was filmed. I even remember that one building there was a leftover from a legendary low budget alien movie in the 70s (I think @miamijimf provided that intel), so this place was known for some productions building sets there.

The West Coast one looks like Body Heat.

"Fruit of the Poison Tree", Part 2 aka, "the fifth Burnett episode" He doesn't even look at Gina in his dream. He never has a single flashback about her, over the course of months, not that we can tell. Ever wonder why? Sonny is obviously very isolated for the Burnett episodes, including in his own mind. Gina may be even more isolated for this one; even though she's supposedly in contact with OCB, she's still clearly living very much in her own world with her own fake identity, right up until Sonny and Rico arrive just late enough. (Sonny also has to wear a bunch of dark things in this episode because someone has made off with his pure-white shtick.) "Poison Tree" has an almost-identical opening to "Hostile Takeover" (you can guess which's which): Gina's dress actually shows up at Celeste's party, on a blonde woman with a face we don't see, before we even and right after we see Celeste: And now it's time for the person who set this up to pay. A little hard to know if that's a jacket and t-shirt or dark shirt and tie, at first glance. A little hard to tell which "pretty boy" she's pointing the gun at, for symbolic reasons... Forgiveness? Maybe. But whether there's one or two or however many Sonnys, you can't see his face. Celeste is blonde, but there are multiple occasions her hair is made to appear black, either by wearing something over or near it. See the white flowers on the bottle Sonny's drinking out of...? ("Who are you?", indeed...) So– he never calls Gina "baby", before "Poison Tree"... but he does call Celeste that, a couple of times. With all the references to the arc in the episode, Sonny may not be Burnett anymore, but it probably makes sense that some things from that period are carrying back over. Especially with his chain of calling Gina "Caroline" and calling Celeste "Caitie"... especially if it's heavily implied some part of him was always viewing Celeste as somebody other than that, too. Why is Gina absent from the Burnett episodes? She's not. She's present on a different level. (Then she gets one of her own.)

As to the very last location in the movei, unidentified, CGlide skipped it altogether, though it's after credits, so maybe he had a different version of the movie (in which the lawyer wouldn't be in on it). It's not the easiest one, because it must be again a Miami-Dade location pretending to be some island. With goats roaming the beach! A quick guess would be Crandon park again, but not sure.

Since we added 3 newly identified locations that weren't on CGlide's page (Sam's house, Cafe Under the Tree, and fake beach villa in Crandon park) I thought I'd go ahead and summarize the locations like I did in the Mean Season post. I omit locations that are unknown and "uninteresting" which we could never put on the map anyway, like airboating in the middle of nowhere in the Everglades or sailing somewhere in the ocean. Intro pan Coopertown, 22700 US-41, Miami Intro pan Tamiami Trail Shops, 13760 SW 8th St, Miami Intro pan, a neighborhood Unidentified Intro pan Old Cutler Bay Intro pan Downtown from Biscayne Blvd Intro pan Brickell near 8th St Intro pan Brickell Key towards the bay Intro pan Gables Estates Blue Bay high school Ransom Everglades High School, 3575 Main Hwy, Miami Van Ryan mansion Star Island, 40 W Star Island Dr, Miami Beach Sam's house Coconut Grove, 4156 Crawford Ave, Miami Police department Coral Gables city hall, 405 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables Lawyer's office Retail plaza in Opa-locka, 353 Opa-locka Blvd Blue Bay Yacht Club Coral Reef Yacht Club, 2484 S Bayshore Dr, Miami Smilin' Jack's Fish Camp bar Jimbo's Place, Virginia Key Car crash Unidentified Courthouse Miami-Dade County Courthouse, 73 W Flagler St, Miami Courthouse Dyer Federal Building And Courthouse, 300 NE 1st Ave, Miami Driving from the courthouse Rickenbacker Causeway Cafe Under the Tree Cafe Under the Tree, 103 Perviz Ave, Opa-locka Glades Motel Jimbo's Place, Virginia Key ??? SunTrust bank SunTrust bank, 501 E Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale Suzie murder Virginia Key Dumping the body Unidentified Island beach Crandon beach Lawyer scene Unidentified So as I was going through all that referencing CGlide's page, I just can't wrap my head around the Glades motel at Jimbo's. Maybe you guys can help me out as I suspect Jimbo's has been researched in and out before for MV. We first see Jimbo's used when Sam goes to this dive bar: He then walks out of that building and looks at a motel across the road - the Glades motel: In another scene the two are connected in one shot (the bar is in the compound on the right): Later we even get a view from inside the motel, showing the compound across: CGlide puts it all togeher on a relatively new satellite image with the white rectangle as the bar and the motel in blue (in pink is Suzie's trailer): With all of it being here on Virginia Key: What I can't understand though - was that motel built as a set?? Because I cannot identify it on historic aerials from the time. 1999: Jimbo's place moved from Miami to this location in 1954 (and closed in 2012), as per this video, which provides a nice overview of the compound. There is a sign in the video saying 'Rooms' pointing somewhere but I'm not sure if that lodging reference was to the motel. Here is a great article describing the place - no motel mention. Confusingly, this 2007 article places the whole Jimbo's compound into a different Virginia Key area, at the bridge to Key Biscayne. I would really appreciate if somebody has a view on how/where this hotel was over there.

Thank you for posting - great.

Thanks for the kind words Tom. but no one was hurt, and we weren't traumatized by it. my dad had a good situation back then, and the prejudice wasn't unbearable. on a side note i still remember the model of the rental car. it was a super, mega awesome Chevy Beretta. a really nice comfy american car @Paul Veresthe documentary about Anthon Samuel was really powerful. Thanks for sharing

The changes weren't just cosmetic, all of the writers left along with the executive producer and line producer. Season 3 was a brand new platform. Imagine David Chase, Terrence Winter and all of the writers leaving after season 2 of The Sopranos, the vision for the series would go down a different path.

Our city , 1982 — two years before Miami Vice started filming in March 1984. ( source - Miami Herald ).

I take my hat off to you--this bottle does look almost identical to the one shown on the show. I didn't find any with the UPC code or a lot of small print text in google Images. With improved lighting and resolution I think we could confirm it 100%.

Well actually, it is unconstructed, just like I asked ! Nothing in there but light linen Maybe I just have square shoulders ? In which case, I take the compliment

This is very much the case. Vice had an unusual amount of fluidity in show runners/producers/whatever, even for the time. And don't forget the main focus of Vice was usually visual. Characters were at times an afterthought. Castillo is an exception, but that has more to do with EJO and his conditions for working on the show.

Yeah but that was in a brand new season with new writers. Season 3 is basically a different show. She wasn't specifically mentioned as Spanish during 1-2.

If this is the case though, then I can't imagine this was a sponsored placement, as if it were, the full label would be prominently displayed and better lit. The bottle was darker before I edited it in Photoshop. If it is the real thing, maybe the production crew just had a bottle lying around.

Judging from what we can see of the side of the front label in this image, I'd guess it's actually Wild Turkey. Back then you didn't see near as many varieties of stuff. It also wasn't considered especially high-end at the time, either.

I'll hazard a guess that this is a fake Hollywood label. I googled "Wild Turkey Bourbon" images and studied the logos of the various bottles (Wild Turkey makes a number of different age/ proof bourbons). The font and label don't really look like anything I was able to pull up, although I don't know whether their logo and labels was formatted differently 40 years ago (I mean the other day!).

Horrible indeed....

I now have a big question - how many bedrooms does this house really have? Because if it had only one, then it's maybe just some 50 houses we need to look at in the filtered county data map in target areas. So I reconstructed the floorplan... I am 99% confident in my reconstruction outside of the yellow cloud in the diagram below. Yellow cloud is where some incosistencies lie: I'm pretty sure that the bedroom has only two windows (at its head and next to the porch door). But the exterior shot clearly shows two windows close to each other on the right side (top in the diagram) of the house. So there must be another room, but I can't figure out the access to it unless it's a really odd floorplan with the master bedroom being a go-through zone leading to more of the house! The bathroom door and stuff on the wall to the left of it don't match. In bedroom scenes what I assume is the bathroom door is dark, in the bathroom scene it's light color with a whale figure on it. A strong assumption we can make is that they filmed the bathroom scene in another place. Is that unusual for production or is that plausible? The brown door must be the bathroom, it just makes sense for the master bedroom to have access to the only bathroom. The living room has some weird space - a closet with a window to outside. It's not good for my overall floorplan guesstimate If there are two bedrooms, why does Malcolm sleep on the couch after their argument whereas he could sleep more comfortably on the other bed? Granted, the second bedroom is not always set up as an actual bedroom. What's also interesting is that Malcolm invariably enters the home through the side door behind the car port. What's up with the front door? In fact they don't seem to have a proper front door, only the porch, which has a door on its side anyway (though the porch might have another door on the opposite side we can't see). What's up with the other side door they barricaded by a tripod? If you have time to follow my reconstruction, here are all the Malcolm house scenes in the movie, with my notes. 13:23 - 14:20 (love making scene) good view of the bedroom and the porch through the open door 15:52 - 17:44 (the shower scene) the key exterior shot of the full house plus the shower scene where we catch outside of the bathroom's window, and see another window through the bathroom door 30:06 - 32:01 (coming from the bar) nighttime car approach scene, a clear bedroom shot with a view into the living room and a window reflection in the mirror 36:01 - 40:26 (villain calling Malcolm), some living room shots including both their desks and the sliding doors behind Malcolm 45:53 - 47:41 (villain calling Malcolm), great living room shots, with the blocked door, and tying a lot together. Note that when Malcolm is coming from the shower, he's walking from the bedroom (a clue that the brown door is the bathroom) 50:49 - 51:45 (villain calling Malcolm) good bedroom and living room shots 53:23 - 56:31 (mailman attack) car port shots, the house across the road, great living room and kitchen shots tying a lot of dimensions together 74:11 - 75:02 (with the detective waiting for a call) great living room shots 91:40 - 98:44 (fight with villain) additional night road shot, a porch shot, a lot of living room, most importantly the view of the weird closet space with a window in it!

Steve Jones. the guy is an abused child. He was a complete garbbage person in his youth. not bad minded, but the kind that would steal compulsory, or have sex with his friends girlfriends without remorse. he felt really deep into alcoholism, and drug addiction. to a point he was what we commonly call a junkie. But the man stood up. and decided to walk down the redemption path. it was a difficult path, but he hung up. even sometimes going as far as calling the people he stole decades ago, and ask them how he could fix the prejudice. Mercy (which is one of my series fav) was his first album after having started his redemption curve. it was an unusual style from a sex pistols founder. but he shows in that track all his musician talents. He also used to animate a very popular radio show in California (not sure if it's still the case..)