LITTLE BIG SCREEN: "SHAFT"

Not every movie that will be covered this year will get as expansive a treatment as "Casablanca" did last month.  The February selection is a good example.

"Shaft" rode the "Blacksploitation" wave of the early 70's to be a box office hit which spawned two sequels - "Shaft's Big Score!" and "Shaft In Africa".  And then the TV series came out which kind of fizzled out the sizzle for the franchise.

I don't remember it well enough as to whether or not it watered down from the energy of the movies, or if the audience was tired of the concept after three years, but 'Shaft' only lasted about seven episodes.  At the IMDb, they make a good point about the show alternating with Jimmy Stewart's series 'Hawkins'.....  You couldn't get two more different series sharing the same time slot!

I certanly can't say with any certainty if the two sequels can be absorbed into Earth Prime-Time, but I see no problem with "Shaft" being a part of Toobworld.  The only character to translate over from the Cineverse to the Toobworld Dynamic was John Shaft himself.  His police contact was Lt. Vic Androzzi, as played by Charles Cioffi, but in Toobworld he dealt with Lt. Al Rossi played by Eddie Barth.  (Even the names of the cops seemed to get watered down for the televersion.)

But at least Earth Prime-Time has its own version of John Shaft, that bad mutha-# (Hey, I'm just talking about Shaft!)  And I use "has" because I see no reason to think Shaft is dead in Toobworld, especially since Richard Roundtree is very much alive.

And having the TV series version means I can probably put the John Shaft of the malt liquor ads into some other TV dimension.....

BCnU!