Later tonight, the first trailer for the forthcoming film adaptation of the beloved TV action-comedy Chips will be released during an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live.
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In all likelihood, longtime fans of the series — and original series star Erik Estrada — will be shaking their heads.
Based on the brief teaser uploaded to Twitter last night (on a still-unverified page that has only tweeted twice), it looks like the Dax Sheppard/Michael Pena reboot of the property is emblematic of what Estrada once told ComicBook.com he thought Hollywood might get wrong about a return to the world of Chips.
“It would be kind of difficult to do that show today without having all this visual sensationalism that we’ve all become accustomed to now because of TV and so many channels and the way the movies are going,” Estrada told us while promoting Planes: Fire & Rescue, in which he voiced a police helicopter that bore a remarkable resemblance to Frank “Ponch” Poncharello, his character from the show. “I’m sure there would be a tremendous amount of special effects if they do a CHiPs movie. And the truth is, they’d probably have to go out of the box and they’d probably have to do things that the California Highway Patrol themselves would not endorse because they won’t tolerate anything improper, inappropriate behavior by their officers. So it would be tough to make. You’d have to make it super visually enjoyable because it would be very difficult. I don’t know how they would do that, especially compared to that time in America in TV and now. It would be tough.”
The trailer shows a bit of “locker room humor,” and quite a bit of bumbling and pratfalls, but as Estrada suggested, the movie poster shows a city literally on fire behind the seemingly-unaware CHiPs.
In both the teaser trailer (embedded below) and the first poster for the film (seen in the attached image gallery), the promotional campaign also features not-entirely-family-friendly taglines like “Bros before popos” and “Chip happens.”
“It’s just that whole time in America was a wonderful time. It was post-Vietnam, the music was fun, the show was fun. It was exciting to see motorcycles ripping through the streets, car wrecks, crashes and chases. And the fact that it was a show for which most parents could just park their kids in front of the TV to watch it and not really worry about what they’re going to hear, what they’re going to see,” Estrada said. “We never even drew our guns, you know what I mean? And it had a tremendous impact on people’s lives. A lot of people got into law enforcement or they became firemen or first responders, paramedics; they were inspired into service because of the show. It also created a relationship between children and law enforcement. They weren’t afraid to say hi to the cop on the beat. It had a lot of impact and people just loved a good time. Most of the people watched the show with their siblings at 8 o’clock Sunday night, prime time, family hour, so it gives them warm, fuzzy feelings of good times watching the show.”
Jimmy Kimmel Live debuts at 11:35 ET tonight, and the Chips trailer will air during the episode. New-look Chips will be in theaters on March 24.
