Forty years ago today, Miami Vice premiered on NBC. Born out of writer-producer Anthony Yerkovich growing awareness of the practice of asset forfeiture (and not a memo by Brandon Tartikoff that said “MTV cops”), and originally imagined as a movie, the five-season, 114-episode show would revolutionize television, with People magazine saying it was the “first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented.”

The show focuses on undercover Miami Dade Police Department detective James “Sonny” Crockett (played by Don Johnson) and his partner Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas). Edward James Olmos plays Marty Castillo, Saundra Santiago as Gina Calabrese, Olivia Brown as Trudy Joplin, Michael Talbot as Stan Switek, and John Diehl as Larry Zito. Elvis played Elvis (and so did Presley). Crockett and Tubbs lived life undercover, pretending to be wealthy drug runners, and looked the part. Tee-shirts under expensive European suits. Pastel colors. Shoes without socks. A calculator watch (just once). Ferrari Testarossa and Daytona. Living on one boat, and racing a bunch more. The look-and-feel was set by costume designers including Jodie Tillen, who shopped extensively in Europe to find the approximately 75 sets of clothing needed for each episode. In addition to the main cast, the show provided an opportunity for musicians and performers to try out their acting skills, and gave numerous future stars their first or one of their early acting credits, including Jimmy Smits in his (um, short-lived) acting debut. Ben Stiller (“I know what you’re thinking: Why do I need a glow-in-the-dark cross. I got a cross, right? Nighttime, pal. God can’t see in the dark."). Bruce Willis four months before the premier of Moonlighting. Steve Buscemi. Julia Roberts in her second acting role and five months before she became famous in Mystic Pizza. Chris Cooper. Dennis Farina who had recently quit the Chicago Police Department after serving 18 years to try out acting. Twenty-year old Kyra Sedgwick alongside Phil Collins. Another 20-year-old, Benicio Del Torro. Annette Bening, in one of her first non-stage roles. Liam Neeson, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Richards, Stanley Tucci, and Helena Bonham Carter. Founding member of The Eagles Glenn Frey, who also provided music to the series. Lawrence Larry Fishburne, John Turturro, The Fat Boys, and Ed O’Neill three years before he became Al Bundy. Bill Paxton, Wesley Snipes, Oliver Platt, Michael Madsen, magicians Penn and Teller (though not together), John Leguizamo, Ving Rhames, Frank Zappa, John Michael Higgins, James Brown and Chris Rock (together, in perhaps the worst episode of the series, Missing Hours), and countless others. In an age of stale made-for-TV music, Miami Vice’s production team broke from the norm and spent considerably to buy music rights from contemporary artists. Across the series, 369 songs were played, including: Andy Taylor - When the Rain Comes Down Autograph - Turn Up the Radio Chaka Khan - Own the Night Don Henley - Dirty Laundry Don Johnson - Heartbeat Foreigner - I Want to Know What Love Is George Thorogood and The Destroyers - Bad to the Bone Gladys Knight & the Pips - Send It to Me Glenn Frey - You Belong to the City Glenn Frey - Smuggler’s Blues Grandmaster Melle Mel - Vice Jackson Browne - Lives in the Balance James Brown - I Got You (I Feel Good) Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - Devil with a Blue Dress On / Good Golly Miss Molly Pat Benatar - Hit Me With Your Best Shot Patti LaBelle and Bill Champlin - The Last Unbroken Heart Phil Collins - I Don’t Care Anymore Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight Phil Collins - Take Me Home Roxy Music - Lover Sheena Easton - Follow my Rainbow Sheila E. - The Glamorous Life Steve Jones - Mercy Stray Cats - Looking for Someone to Love The Damned - In Dulce Decorum The Hooters - Satellite The Pointer Sisters - I’m So Excited Tina Turner - Better Be Good to Me Yello - Call It Love Yello - Moon on Ice Miami Vice premiered “at a time when Miami and Miami Beach looked more like Scarface” than a vibrant city. When the show launched in 1984, the city was the murder capital of the United States, Time Magazine had recently called the area “Paradise Lost”, and the average age of someone living in South Beach was so high the area was known as “God’s waiting room." The concept of painting Miami’s historical art deco buildings in pastel colors had emerged in the late 1970s, the idea of Leonard Horowitz and Barbara Capitman, founders of the Miami Design Preservation League. When Miami Vice’s producers made the fateful decision to film all around the city, they put the show’s production budget - a then virtually unheard of $2M per episode - to work supporting the city’s transformation, repainting and refurbishing buildings so as to be able to use them as backgrounds and sets. As the New York Times wrote in 1989, “That the show was shot in rock-video style, offering a rapid-fire series of vivid images, made the settings not just backdrops for the scenes, but key to them. It was as if the city itself were a character in the show.” City preservationists seized on the popularity of the show to help pass laws protecting the historic art deco buildings featured throughout the series from future demolition. According to Miami historian Paul George, “it took a show like that to … really appreciate the uniqueness and the unusual glamor of this place." Miami’s then-mayor Alex Daoud agreed, saying at the time that those pastel buildings had become “one of the greatest assets we have.” Miami Vice would ultimately garner 20 Emmy nominations (and four wins), seven Golden Globe Award nominations (and 2 wins), two Grammy awards, two People’s Choice Awards, and further nominations for the Directors Guild of America Awards and Edgar Awards. The show wrapped up its five-year run in June 1989, but Jan Hammer’s theme song - which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988 - lives on.

HT: Metafilter