THE single biggest impact of MV

[S.FL84]

In my not so humble opinion THE single biggest impact of Miami Vice was not the music (if something could be bigger?), not the clothes, the cars, the action, etc., etc., etc.,.  The single biggest factor  was how relevant it was & as such in tune it was w/ the audience and what was really happening.  For all it's flash and seemingly completely over the top storylines that truly was what was happening in Miami in early/mid 1980s and while it seemed totally fictitious it really what was happening and people knew it from the stories in news that were really happening in Miami and what was playing on the radio & MTV.  As superficial the ncredible 1980's were at least people were in touch with real life and real feelings unlike now which is totally fake and if someone has what you want or can't afford you can fake it or buy a chinese cheap copy of it off the internet.  Miami Vice was as real then as it still is now or we and a helluva lotta other people wouldn't be talking about it ......STILL!

[S.FL84]

The fact there were only (3) stations to choose from really magnified the relevance.

[Daytona74]

vor einer Stunde schrieb S.FL84:

 As superficial the ncredible 1980's were at least people were in touch with real life and real feelings unlike now which is totally fake and if someone has what you want or can't afford you can fake it or buy a chinese cheap copy of it off the internet. 

Consumer credit made that happen. In times of zero percent financing, it's all too easy to surround yourself with consumer goods that you really wouldn't have any realistic way of affording under normal circumstances.

So what is the biggest impact Miami Vice has had? Well, ask anybody today what they think of when you say 80s fashion

It's kind of ironic though that people these days think all we wore in the 80s from January 1980 to December 1989 was outrageous pastel suits and sockless slippers... I went to an 80s themed costume party a few years ago where the best 80s outfits were going to win a prize. I actually put on my 1989 beige linen blazer, a 1988 broad striped shirt and a black suede Castillo tie, together with equally inconspicuous circa 1987 beige pleated pants. Oh, and naturally, a pair of tortoise shell Wayfarers. So I was actually wearing 80s clothing in the true sense of that word, and it wasn't even that far removed from the Miami Vice fashion cliché. I was really thinking "I've got this!"... but then I still just barely came in third by one vote. First prize went to a girl who looked like Cyndi Lauper had crashed her car into Crockett's season two wardrobe...

Edited May 17, 2019 by Daytona74

[Vincent Hanna]

I think the most important aspect of the show was them going "We ain't doing TV, we're making 45 minute movies". They combined the gritty realism of The French Connection and Thief, The use of Rock/Pop music from Mean Streets and made a badass cop show that still looks and sounds unlike anything else on TV today.

MV and Crime Story paved with the way for shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones that aspire to be as great as what movies can be instead of being the poor man's cinema.

[mjcmmv]

3 hours ago, Vincent Hanna said:

I think the most important aspect of the show was them going "We ain't doing TV, we're making 45 minute movies". They combined the gritty realism of The French Connection and Thief, The use of Rock/Pop music from Mean Streets and made a badass cop show that still looks and sounds unlike anything else on TV today.

MV and Crime Story paved with the way for shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones that aspire to be as great as what movies can be instead of being the poor man's cinema.

It was definitely groundbreaking! Thanks for saying it so well. 

 

[S.FL84]

Its just so odd to me how good MV was in 1984 is directly proportionate to how few shows there were which came close to it VS how many shows there are today and how utterly bad they are.  Its like Little Ceasar's pizza...its by far THE worst pizza there is and they give you sooo much of it VS your local favorite pizza place (one location) and how good it is.

Despite the incredible advances in technology which would have vastly improved the productions values of 1984 Miami Vice the shows of today are utter crap and there's a new one being made every damn day.  The fact they futilely reboot Magnum, p.i. and had the stupidity to renew it for another season really shows how bad television is today the producers of today have use a 1980's hit show because they can't come up w/ any new ideas which would compare.  < Thats saying alot IMO!!!

[Robbie C.]

It's called dilution. Too many networks. You can also toss in the rise of franchises (thanks, Dick Wolf) and a lack of respect for writers in general. Miami Vice had, on the whole, average writing. Some episodes were spectacular, but there wasn't any consistency. The shows I talk about (The Shield, Justified, NCIS LA) all had (have in the case of NCIS) pretty consistent writing (very consistent in the case of both Justified and The Shield). They also have very stable production teams and actors who care about their product. Supernatural isn't one of my favorites, but I know people who have watched it for years and the writing is consistently good if you're into that kind of thing.

There's good TV to be had, and some of it is (or was) better than Vice in terms of writing. Vice set the bar for production, visuals, and style, but it really didn't in other areas. Watching what Frank Military has done with NCIS LA is impressive, and you can see he learned both what to do and possibly what not to do when he was on Vice.

[S.FL84]

No tv show before or since had it's own line of clothes, cars, boats, numerous music sountracks,etc, etc., nor changed the architectural face of an entire freakin' town.  50yrs from now people will still remember MV...not so for many if any other shows you mentioned.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/77272/20-fashionable-facts-about-miami-vice

https://www.apnews.com/07291432f2628365c1626e89835e0cb4

Lori Wynman termed it best "a magical time that will never be repeated". 

Edited May 18, 2019 by S.FL84

[Robbie C.]

Glad you enjoy it so much. I'll leave you to it.

[S.FL84]

ARROW

 

POP CULTURE

20 Fashionable Facts About Miami Vice

BY JENNIFER M WOOD

 

JUNE 13, 2017

 

NBC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

00:18

00:55

 

 

 

 

Though its extra-large “car phones” and pastel-hued costuming decisions might seem laughable to some today, Miami Vice’s impact went far beyond the small screen. From music to travel to fashion to facial hair, no corner of American culture was left untouched by the huge presence of officers Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas). Throw an Armani jacket over that pink T-shirt and let’s revisit one of TV’s most groundbreaking crime series.

1. “MTV COPS” WAS THE MAIN CONCEIT OF THE SERIES.

There have been differing opinions as to who came up with the idea of “MTV Cops” as a summary for what Miami Vice should be. While many sources claim that it was Brandon Tartikoff who scribbled down the two-word idea as a brainstorming memo, show creator Anthony Yerkovich has maintained that he spent years developing the idea that would become Miami Vice. “I thought of [Miami] as a sort of a modern-day American Casablanca,” Yerkovich told TIME in 1985. “It seemed to be an interesting socioeconomic tide pool: the incredible number of refugees from Central America and Cuba, the already extensive Cuban-American community, and on top of all that the drug trade.”

Regardless of whether you believe the story about the Tartikoff memo, there’s no denying that Miami Vice did become a cop show for the MTV generation. “The show is written for an MTV audience, which is more interested in images, emotions, and energy than plot and character and words,” said Lee Katzin, who directed two episodes of the show’s first season.

2. SONNY CROCKETT WASN'T THE FIRST SONNY CROCKETT.

Prior to Miami Vice, Yerkovich was a writer and producer on Hill Street Blues. In 1983, a year before Miami Vice’s premiere, actor Dennis Burkleyappeared in four episodes of Hill Street Blues, playing a racist biker named “Sonny Crockett.”

3. NICK NOLTE AND JEFF BRIDGES WERE APPROACHED TO PLAY CROCKETT.

Producers showed interest in both Jeff Bridges and Nick Nolte for the role of Crockett; both passed, reportedly to focus on their film careers. Gary Cole—who played a smuggler in season two’s “Trust Fund Pirates”—also auditioned for the role of Crockett.

4. THE NETWORK DIDN’T WANT DON JOHNSON.

Though the casting conversation kept coming back to Don Johnson for the role of Sonny Crockett, the network was against casting him, deeming him pilot poison. “I had made five pilots for Brandon Tartikoff back then, and none of them were picked up,” Johnson told Rolling Stone.

5. CHIPS’ LARRY WILCOX WAS JOHNSON’S BIGGEST COMPETITION.

Ultimately, the Crockett role came down to two actors: Don Johnson and Larry Wilcox, who played “Jon” on CHiPs for five years. In 2011, on his official fan site, Wilcox recounted how it all went down:

“Michael Mann asked me to read for this series called Miami Vice. He asked if I would grease my hair back and have stubble and moustache and be a hard ass. I said sure ... My agent told me they had read tons of actors and could not find the right guy. They had read even Don Johnson originally according to my sources.

When Universal saw my screen test they went crazy, saying that I was one of the finest and most intense actors they had ever seen in a screen test and told my agent, David Shapira, that I should have been a screen star with that intensity. I wallowed in the ego of those statements and of course … agreed.

Then they said that, ‘We need you to read with other actors to see if we can find someone that will be good with you.’ I read with many actors and did stunts and fight scenes and all kinds of crap for Michael Mann and the writer. Later I found out that the writer of the original series pilot did not want me and was perhaps just using me to read other actors. I went and read for NBC for the final decision and Brandon Tartikoff, the esteemed president of NBC, said in his book, that ‘Larry Wilcox was the choice for Miami Vice.’

On the day before Christmas, after helping them (Universal and Michael Mann) to find an actor, taking hits to my face in fight scenes, and all of the other such tests … I was informed that it was all bullsh*t and they were not going to use me and in fact were going to use Don Johnson. It was a cold blow and a manipulative blow the day before Christmas and I was upset and dejected. I wondered about all the compliments and all the hoopla and the lies or truth of it all. I still do not know what happened but it could have been the writer, it could have been an agent pulling a move with other actors in some other production if they would take Don Johnson on Miami Vice, or it could have been Don was just great. In retrospect, I think they made the right choice!”

6. CROCKETT’S BELOVED FERRARI WAS ACTUALLY A CORVETTE.

By DougW at English Wikipedia - Transferred fromen.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain

Like his cutting-edge fashion choices, Crockett was immediately associated with his beloved Ferrari. In the series’ earliest episodes, he drives a Ferrari Daytona; in actuality, his Ferrari was a custom-built 1980 Corvette. Unhappy that the series was using an imposter, Ferrari filed a lawsuit against the show’s creators. Ultimately, both parties came to an agreement whereby the car-maker would supply the series with two brand-new Ferrari Testarossas—but only if the old “Ferrari” was destroyed on the show. (It was.)

7. IT WAS ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE SHOWS ON TELEVISION AT THE TIME.

Given the show’s commitment to authenticity, by shooting in Miami—not to mention its music licensing rights—Miami Vice was one of the most expensive shows of its decade, with an average cost of about $1.3 million per episode.

8. A TRIP TO A PAINT STORE INSPIRED THE SHOW’S PASTEL COLORS.

In discussing the genesis of Miami Vice’s pastel-heavy costuming and production design, executive producer Michael Mann explained that it was the result of two things: a vacation he had taken to South Beach several years before the show’s debut, and a couple of color chips he found at the paint store. "I was playing around with them and I realized: three colors become thematic, two colors don't," Mann told the Los Angeles Times in 1987. "Three colors, you can actually start telling a chromatic story. You can create a mood with three colors."

9. JAN HAMMER’S THEME SONG SET A RECORD.

Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme” became a huge radio hit, going all the way to number one on the Billboard chart, and remaining there for 12 weeks—a record for a television theme song.

 

 

MIAMI VICE HELPED TO QUADRUPLE SALES OF RAY-BAN WAYFARERS.

By 1983, Ray-Ban was on the brink of collapse, until Tom Cruise donned a pair of their Wayfarers in Risky Business, making them the shades to own in the '80s. While Risky Business helped the brand sell 360,000 pairs of the sunglasses in 1983, Miami Vice—and Johnson in particular—helped to push that total up to 1.5 million by 1986.

Edited May 18, 2019 by S.FL84

[Daytona74]

vor 19 Stunden schrieb Robbie C.:

Miami Vice had, on the whole, average writing. Some episodes were spectacular, but there wasn't any consistency.

But I think that's only the case when you average out the quality of writing over all the five seasons. There isn't a single S1 or S2 episode that is as underwhelming as your typical S4 or S5 episode. Even when they were veering off a bit in S2 with episodes like Tale Of The Goat or Junk Love, you never felt at the end like that was an hour of your time that you would never get back.

I think Miami Vice still serves as a cautionary tale about changing things around too much, and that you should go out on a high note. The show's premise was pretty much exhausted by the end of season 3, and they were just running out of ideas, as you do on a show like that after more than 60 episodes. Seasons 4 and 5 mainly consisted of the show dying a slow and painful death. And the fact that the S4 opener "Contempt of Court" was one of the weakest episodes of the entire season (besides being a rehashed S1 storyline) gave you an idea where things were headed. If this was the best they could come up with to get people's attention for season 4, it was only going to get much worse. Even if you factor in the famous TV writers strike of 1987.

Thankfully, with the distance of 30 years now (pretty exactly actually, as the last scene was filmed in early May of 1989), the public has largely forgotten about S4 and S5, and the collective memory that people have nowadays of Miami Vice rarely includes the last two seasons, or even season 3 for what they were.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Daytona74

[S.FL84]

^ Thats accurate and I totally agree. Season 3 was the last of good stuff in MV.  Dj & PMT admitted this in a 1989 interview w/ Bryant Gumbel.  As I posted elsewhere I can STILL get that electricity in the air feeling watching Brother's Keeper 2-3x+ per year.  MV was & still is as gritty and real as it gets on television.  Sure it was a glammed but it wasn't a documentary.

[S.FL84]

MV was just so r-e-a-l.  No other show felt as connected to what was really happening on the street and on the radio as MV, then or now. 

[Daytona74]

vor 19 Minuten schrieb S.FL84:

MV was just so r-e-a-l.  No other show felt as connected to what was really happening on the street and on the radio as MV, then or now. 

But then cut to season 5, where they actually centered a whole episode around a secret stolen laser (?) weapon... with the guy who later played that subway hobo in the movie "Ghost"...

[S.FL84]

I probably should've qualified my statement w/the admonition Seasons 1-3....were so connected w/ what was happening on the street.  As much as a 1984 television show could have been.  Its oddly metaphoric how putridly bad  both music AND television is today and how damn good they were in 1984.  < That couldn't have happened in any other era but the fabulous 1980's.  Jeez I'm glad to have been born on 1968!

[Daytona74]

I just find today's media world to be too fast lived and too multi dimensional to keep up as a guy my age.

When I was in my formative years in the mid to late 80s and early 90s, you barely had two dozen different music acts that would take  turns topping the charts, you had a handful of TV channels, and even fewer if you didn't have cable, and there were only about half a dozen contemporary TV shows that people actually watched.

It's all just so spread out these days. And especially if you're no longer a part of youth culture as you age, you kind of just don't know where to begin.

 

To quote Grandpa Simpson:

[RedDragon86]

On 5/17/2019 at 6:37 PM, Vincent Hanna said:

I think the most important aspect of the show was them going "We ain't doing TV, we're making 45 minute movies". They combined the gritty realism of The French Connection and Thief, The use of Rock/Pop music from Mean Streets and made a badass cop show that still looks and sounds unlike anything else on TV today.

MV and Crime Story paved with the way for shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones that aspire to be as great as what movies can be instead of being the poor man's cinema.

Brilliant post!

[S.FL84]

Attn. Daytona74

Thats just it.  MV was not about "youth culture" at all. One THE biggest artists used for the soundtrack (Tina Turner) was 47 and she perfectly personified 1980's popular culture.  MV was about the violence, the glitz and glamour of the drug world.  It was about Ferrari's and Rolex watches and multi-million dollar mansions.  Today's popular culure is about pretending to be (definitely not wanting to actually be) from the "hood" and to be some gangsta.  MV's culture was about class and style but the toughness to kill to get the money to live in millionaire style.  Today's culture is about killing someone who "disses" you over nothing.  Its not an age issue because if I had been 50 in 1984 instead of 16 I'd be the same person I am today wearing the same clothes I do today (wishing I could afford a Hugo Boss suit).  MV and the world it explored is STILL the world I dream of being a small part of.  If I won the lottery I'd be living the SAME kinda life I wished I could have lived in 1984.  MV is not about "youth culture".  Its about adult culture. 

[S.FL84]

Again, I think THE biggest impact of MV was its realism and how in touch it was w/ what was really going on and how people felt which was voiced through it's use of popular music (not kiddie music), true artistry which transcends confinement to an age bracket.  Everyone related to the cars, the clothes, the boats, the mansions, etc.. Nowadays things are sooo divisive.  Not so in 1985.  Everyone wanted drive a Ferrari.  Everyone wanted to wear cool clothes, and a Rolex watch and Ray Ban sunglasses.  Not so now.

[Rattlehead]

When it comes to how real this show was, have a look at a former cop's analysis down below! In short, it was fairly real. 

Real vs Reel

[miamijimf]

Thanks, good info. 

[Mvice8489]

5 hours ago, S.FL84 said:

Again, I think THE biggest impact of MV was its realism and how in touch it was w/ w11hat was really going on and how people felt which was voiced through it's use of popular music (not kiddie music), true artistry which transcends confinement to an age bracket.  Everyone related to the cars, the clothes, the boats, the mansions, etc.. Nowadays things are sooo divisive.  Not so in 1985.  Everyone wanted drive a Ferrari.  Everyone wanted to wear cool clothes, and a Rolex watch and Ray Ban sunglasses.  Not so now.

It's the year 2019 but I still love wearing my Rolex, cool clothes, Ray Bans and driving my Ferrari !!   

And I ALWAYS will!

[S.FL84]

Mvice8489 - You nailed it!  Everyone loved MV.  From a rural 16yr old in northeast Louisiana to 50yr old professionals actually living in Miami and sometimes on the very street if not the very house that was used in the freakin' show.  Nowadays there is no culturally unifying show (like cool clothes, cars, music, etc.) for everyone to idealize.

[Robbie C.]

Funny...I graduated from high school in the mid-1980s and still feel that MV always missed significant segments of popular culture. Most of my friends looked more like the kids from Nobody Lives Forever. We listened to metal (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Venom, and so on), wore jeans and patch jackets, and quite a few of us rebuilt '60s muscle cars. Don't forget that gangster rap got its start in 1985 with Ice T being the most prominent on the West Coast and then NWA hit big in 1988. Metal was HUGE in the 1980s, yet never showed its head on MV. Not even the 'softer' versions like Van Halen (technically hard rock these days, but back then Eddie was God on the guitar) or the Scorpions. Heck, even tame rap (the Fat Boys) got a guest bid. And sorry, I don't count Gene Simmons. He's an interesting character, but it was his character that was featured, not KISS itself. There was quite a bit more to the '80s music scene than what showed up on Miami Vice. WAY more.

Vice showed, and glamorized, a particular segment of popular culture in a specific time and place. And it did that pretty well. But it's also noteworthy for what it missed or left out. Saying it somehow summarizes the '80s really misses the mark. It had a significant impact in the commercial market because it was easy to commodify, and obviously it had an impact on Miami. It was also relatively easy to migrate its production values and standards to other shows (whether the migration was successful or not is another question, of course). But Vice was never as connected to the streets as The Shield or The Wire (or even Hill Street Blues) because it wasn't intended to be that way and it does the show a disservice to claim it was. Vice, especially after the first few episodes, was more about the mythology of the drug trade than the trade itself. It was about the light and shadow of Miami, not the reality of the place. It did those things very well. It's the episodes when it tries to get gritty and real (things like The Maze and God's Work, among others) that people often complain about, even though they are some of the better-written episodes and often show significant character development or action.

Miami Vice is a great show. But it's really not a magical window back to the 1980s. It's a nice glimpse at one segment of it, one little corner of what made the '80s a fascinating decade. But having lived through it, I can say it didn't capture much of the side of the decade I experienced. Where Vice truly shins in its best moments is when you look beyond the pastels and Ferraris and let the characters actually speak. Or not, as in the case of the scene where Esai Morales is shown by the bedside of his dying lover in God's Work. Those moments, or when Crockett looks in the mirror as Burnett and seems puzzled by his reflection, are what makes Vice special to me.

[S.FL84]

The fact we're STILL discussing the show  on a forum w/ over 50,000 posts says all that needs to be said as to just how incredible of a tv show it was.  If I'm wrong show me another TV show, hell even a freakin' movie for that matter, thats STILL being discussed as much as MV.  There are very, very few.  It touched a nerve like few, if any television shows ever have or will.

Edited May 20, 2019 by S.FL84