8 of the WackiestCharlie’s AngelsEpisodes

Elizabeth Banks ’ unexampled take onCharlie ’s Angelshits theaters on November 15 , and rather than wondering if it ’s a necessary increase to the enfranchisement ( or how that firstDrew Barrymorefilm is 19 years old ? ) , we think we ’d go old - shoal and revisit the original goggle box series , which hunt for five seasons starting in 1976 .

ABC aired over 100 Charlie ’s Angels episodes in those five years , all power by cheesecake sexiness , some of the adept hair to ever beautify the low blind , and playscript that were all fairly similar in terms of construction , but vary wildly when it came to specific details . Some of the scenarios not on this list : multiple episodes in which the Angels posed as vocalist and/or gender workers ( the show was also fond of gigolo - contiguous storyline , for what it ’s deserving ) ; suit revolving around roller bowler , the Ice Capades , thaumaturgist , cheerleading , ballroom dancing , and truck driver ; a Love Boat crossover ; and an episode entitled “ Sammy Davis Jr. Kidnap Caper , ” which is just as advertised .

Truth be told , without all those ridiculous elements — and the fact that its main trio ( Jaclyn Smith , plus whoever else was starring that time of year ) was always exceedingly easy on the eyes , something the show openly exploited with gay regularity — Charlie ’s Angels might be kind of slow . The show tended toward wads of drawn - out pursual scenes and favored secret plan with obvious baddies . But glamor and intrigue go a long way , and nobody did it like the Angels … even when faced with these eight especially goofy cases .

The opening credits of Charlie’s Angels.

The opening credits of Charlie’s Angels.Image: ABC

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8. “Circus of Terror” (season 2, episode 7)

What was it about the later seventies that made them such a boom metre for circuses ? Andmimes ? When a fellowship - run circus starts receive accident that feel a lot like sabotage , the Angels take the case and get some reasonably outstanding covering stories as part of the trade .

Kelly ( Jaclyn Smith ) is a motorcycle swashbuckler , Sabrina ( Kate Jackson ) signs on as an apprentice dumb show , and Kris ( Cheryl Ladd , who joined the show after the mega - popular Farrah Fawcett left after one season ) becomes the barely - clad supporter to the burly guy cable who throws knife . The Angels uncover a revenge - driven conspiracy to put the circus out of business , but not before we see Sabrina in full greasepaint do an entire pantomimist routine , several odd interludes with a performer who ’s manifestly just a discorporate head sitting on a boxful , and Bosley ’s ( David Doyle ) repeated attempts to rebuff a diminutive adorer whose stage name is “ Tinkle Bell ” ( all hail Patty Maloney — she also played Lumpy the Wookiee on the Star Wars Holiday Special and Honk the alien on Far Out Space Nuts ) .

7. “Unidentified Flying Angels” (season 2, episode 9)

After a flush womanhood disappears , the Angels surveil her track to the Celestial Research Foundation — apparently an system that can facilitate foreign encounters . In realness , of course , it ’s a front for a confidence game man who preys on anyone with New Age tendencies that ’ll fall for his pilot - saucer fakery , with supernumerary attention paid to gullible types with brawny money box accounts . Kris act as aUFO - obsessedairhead ( with Bosley in tow as her rich “ uncle ” ) , while Sabrina affects a Bronx accent to play a questioning intruder . Kelly must seduce the disgraced spaceman - turned - stunt pilot who ’s become the celebrity face of the Foundation , but she also get under one’s skin to pose as an extraterrestrial baby in ordering to wheedle some intel out of a dorky Foundation acolyte .

6. “Mother Goose Is Running For His Life” (season 2, episode 22)

This episode features gamey - stake collective espionage at Mother Goose , a toy fellowship run by a kindly gent whose wholesome approach to the game has alienated one of his help , who has all sorts of ideas forhorror toy — including a mini guillotine that really work , and a drive game where hitting pedestrians earns you distributor point , peradventure a nod toDeath Race 2000 , which came out the previous yr ?

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At any rate , the Angels disrupt his scheme to hasten Mother Goose ’s demise , with Sabrina stepping in as the daughter of a toy dog magnate based in Hong Kong , Kelly rope the muttonhead bring in to bug Mother Goose ’s offices , and Kris handling a couple of foreign undertaking , though none so bizarre as hiding herself in bare sight by dressing up as a life - sized rag week doll .

Image: Keystone/Getty Images

Cheryl Ladd in 1977.Image: Keystone/Getty Images

5. “Winning Is for Losers” (season 3, episode 6)

Jamie Lee Curtis — just forwards of her breakout in Halloween when this instalment debuted in October 1978 — pops up as a young golf game pro on the rising who ’s sound friends with Kris , and who hires the Angels after she pick up repeated threat before a adult tournament . The threat roll from scarey but pretty uninspired ( throw a brick through her window ) to standard - issue assassin poppycock ( being shot at ) to full - on psycho ( tamper with a bridge at her family family and rent a pair of furious alligator loose in the pool below ) . Ray Wise ( Twin Peaks ) and Casey Kasem are the other renowned Edgar Albert Guest headliner , but the MVP of the episode is Kris , who does not waffle when it ’s time to wrestle one of those pool alligator into submission to save her friend . reasonably certain they do n’t teach that especial skill at the police force honorary society .

4. “Haunted Angels” (season 3, episode 9)

ThisHalloween episodetakes the Angels inside a straggle institute forpsychic research , fund by a millionaire pal of Bosley ’s who hopes the “ gifted ” test subject field will help her contact her dear nephew . When the late untested man seem to verbalize out from the beyond , everyone assumes it ’s a ploy to keep the hard cash flowing going — but then his former girl , who claims to be a metier , die in an apparently empty way after speaking with his voice . Was it the workplace of a spiteful ghost , or something far more insidiously human … perhaps someone with an ax to grind and access to technological trickery that ’ll help sell the magic trick ? It ’ll take mostly the workplace of Kris , who pops on a pair of smarty - pants glasses and transforms into a student of psychic phenomena , and Sabrina , who fakes her way through throw ESP , to crock up the case . And in subject you were wondering — it is indeed risky to go secret when there ’s at least one genuine mind - reader in the mixture .

3. “Angels on Skates” (season 4, episode 10)

The Venice Beach rolling wave boogie scene is the backdrop for this enthusiastically corny episode , featuring guest starsRené Auberjonois(as “ Freddie Fortune , ” the sordid local roller rink bigwig ) , Chris Mulkey ( as the cockiest skater on the beach ) , and Ed Begley Jr. ( as a budding roller disco champ whose partner is kidnapped on the eve of a major competition ) . Kris , Kelly , and Tiffany ( Shelley Hack , who supersede Kate Jackson after she left the series ) just bechance to be undulate around when they witness state kidnapping and fit to take the case pro bono — though it ’s soon revealed that the missing immature woman is in secret a runaway heiress . After the culprit ( who make their ransom demands via the payphone aright outside the roller skating rink ) , are collared thanks to a skates - and - bicycle pursuit down the boardwalk , we get to see the sequin - loaded competition flirt out under a massive disco ball . And for that , we are all winners in the end .

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2. “Angels of the Deep” (season 5, episode 4)

By the time season five slay the air , the Angels lie of Kelly and Kris , who were by then well - established as police academy alumnus — and unexampled addition Julie ( Tanya Roberts ) , who ’s touted in the scuttle credits as a graduate of “ a top school for manakin . ” So that’s … something , though advance might not be the right word for it . At any rate , its final time of year the show lay several episodes in Hawaii , where the Townsend Agency place up a branch for solve any and all tropical case — including “ Angels of the Deep . ”

The gang gets drawn into a bivalent - crossbreed over “ two million bucks of unspoiled Maui grass ” stolen from a shipwreck in a plot that involves some of the dumbest shepherd’s crook in Charlie ’s Angels account . ( One them is play by Sonny Bono , in exaggerated far - out hippie modality . ) The sequence is mostly an self-justification to showcase the beauty of Oahu — there are several scuba - diving sequences — but the washup courting - clad Angels also get their due ; the sequence ’s large - stab green goddess dealer is especially puzzle by the sudden appearing of all these gorgeous “ girlies ” ( including a certain top school for role model fine-tune ) who have zero fuss fending off assailants by weaponize their tasteful handbags .

1. “Attack Angels” (season 5, episode 14)

The Angels uncover a deadly scheme — permeate through an otherwise unassuming staffing agency — tohypnotizeattractive women into becoming dead - eyed assassins . That said , they do n’t connect the window pane until Julie , who poses as a typist at a “ techtronics ” ship’s company that ’s see to it several high - ups die in funny stroke , inadvertently falls victim to the programming . Early in the installment , the oleaginous overlord who ’s pull all the string becomes aware that she ’s actually one of Charlie ’s detectives ; you might assume this means he ’d have her butt one of the other Angels , Bosley , or even Charlie . But Charlie ’s Angels , which only had a few more sequence to go in its run by the time “ Attack Angels ” send , does n’t have the energy for that kind of peril . Instead , it keeps thing weird by making elbow room for multiple scenes involving a sensory privation tank and see to it a happy end by check that Kris and Kelly interfere before Julie ’s able to obliterate her new genus Bos using hermind - controlledfists .

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