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Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and created by Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show aired for 12 seasons on CBS from Se…
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Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and created by Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show aired for 12 seasons on CBS from September 20, 1968, to April 5, 1980.
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and created by Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show aired for 12 seasons on CBS from September 20, 1968, to April 5, 1980. The show starred Jack Lord as Detective Captain Stephen "Steve" McGarrett, the head of a fictional state police task force in Hawaii. The theme music composed by Morton Stevens became especially popular. Many episodes in the series would end with McGarrett's catchphrase, "Book 'em, Danno!"
At the airing of its finale, it was the longest-running police drama in American television history, and the last scripted primetime show that debuted in the 1960s to leave the air.
The CBS television network produced Hawaii Five-O, which aired from September 20, 1968, to April 5, 1980. The program continues to be broadcast in syndication worldwide. Created by Leonard Freeman, Hawaii Five-O was shot on location in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and throughout the island of Oʻahu and elsewhere in the Hawaiian Islands with occasional filming in locales such as Los Angeles, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
The show centers on an elite fictional state police unit led by former U.S. Naval officer Steve McGarrett (played by Jack Lord), a detective captain, appointed by the Governor, Paul Jameson. In the show, McGarrett oversees state police officers — the young Danny "Danno" Williams, veteran Chin Ho Kelly (Kam Fong Chun), and streetwise Kono Kalakaua for seasons one through four. Honolulu Police Department Officer Duke Lukela joined the team as a regular, as did Ben Kokua, who replaced Kono beginning with season five. Occasionally, McGarrett's Five-O team is assisted by other officers as needed: Det. Frank Kamana (Douglas Mossman), P.O. Sandi Wells (Amanda McBroom), medical examiner Doc Bergman (Al Eben), forensic specialist Che Fong (Harry Endo), and a secretary.
The title of the show refers to Hawaiʻi's status as the fiftieth U.S. state. At the time of the show's premiere, Hawaiʻi had been a state for nine years. The Five-O team consists of three to five members (small for a real state police unit), and is depicted as occupying a suite of offices at the ʻIolani Palace. Five-O lacks its own radio network, necessitating frequent requests by McGarrett to the Honolulu Police Department dispatchers.
For 12 seasons, McGarrett and his team pursued international secret agents, criminals, and organized crime syndicates plaguing the Hawaiian Islands. With the aid of District Attorney and later Hawaii Attorney General John Manicote, McGarrett is successful in sending most of his enemies to prison. One such crime syndicate, introduced in the fifth season, was led by the Vashon family, portrayed by Luther Adler and Harold Gould. Other criminals and organized crime bosses on the islands were played by actors such as Ross Martin, Gavin MacLeod, and Ricardo Montalbán.
By the 12th and final season, series regular James MacArthur had left the show (in 1996, he admitted that he had become tired of the role and wanted to do other things), as had Kam Fong. Unlike other characters before him, Fong's character, Chin Ho Kelly, at Fong's request, was killed off, murdered while working undercover to expose a protection ring in Chinatown in the last episode of season 10. New characters Jim "Kimo" Carew (William Smith), Lori Wilson (Sharon Farrell), and Truck (Moe Keale) were introduced in season 12 alongside returning regular character Duke Lukela.
Sources differ on how the show came to be. Producer Leonard Freeman moved to Hawaiʻi to recuperate after suffering a heart attack. One source states the idea for the show may have come from a conversation Freeman had with Hawaiʻi's then-Governor John A. Burns.
Another source instead claims that Freeman wanted to set a
Source: Hawaii Five-O (1968 TV series) (CC BY-SA)
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Most episodes of Hawaii Five-O ended with the arrest of criminals and McGarrett snapping, "Book 'em." The offense occasionally was added after this phrase, for example, "Book 'em, murder one." In many episodes, this was directed to Danny "Danno" Williams and became McGarrett's catchphrase: "Book 'em, Danno." This catchphrase also expanded to sports in the mid-1970s with former Pittsburgh Penguins announcer Mike Lange, who would utter the line for some Penguins goals.
McGarrett's tousled yet immaculate hairstyle, as well as his proclivity for wearing a dark suit and tie on all possible occasions (uncommon in the islands), rapidly entered popular culture. While the other members of Five-O "dressed mainland" much of the time, they also often wore local styles, such as the ubiquitous aloha shirt.
In many episodes (including the pilot), McGarrett is drawn into the world of international espionage and national intelligence. McGarrett's nemesis is a rogue intelligence officer of the People's Republic of China named Wo Fat. The communist rogue agent was played by veteran actor Khigh Dhiegh. In the show's final episode in 1980, titled "Woe to Wo Fat", McGarrett finally sees his foe go to jail.
Unlike the reboot, the show's action and straightforward storytelling left little time for personal stories involving wives or girlfriends, though a two-part story in the first season dealt with the loss of McGarrett's sister's baby. Occasionally, a show would flash back to McGarrett's younger years or to a romantic figure.
In the episode "Number One with a Bullet, Part 2", McGarrett tells a criminal, "It was a bastard like you who killed my father." His 42-year-old father had been run down and killed by someone who had just held up a supermarket. Because Steve McGarrett is also a commander in the Naval Reserve, he sometimes uses their resources to help investigate and solve crimes. The United States Navy, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard, provided some locations and resources for filming, hence the closing credits of some episodes acknowledge the assistance of the United States Navy. A 1975 episode involving Danno's aunt, played by MacArthur's mother Helen Hayes, provided a bit of Williams' back story.
