The Miami Vice Action Spectacular

When the A-Team television show was cancelled in 1987, Universal scrambled to develop a replacement stunt show. Not content to merely duplicate the earlier successful show, Universal choose to be ambitious in both scope and speed of implementation. The 15-minute Miami Vice Action Spectacular cost $5.4 million and was put together from start to finish in a remarkable six months. The massive set looked like a West Indies smugglers' hide-out. A lagoon large was built that was large enough to allow for a speedboat to race through a simulated mine field. The show began with a raid on the hide-out by Miami detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs (portrayed by stunt men look-alikes for actors Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas). The action sequence was stopped by an on-set director who explains what is going on and guides the six cast members through their paces. The show was loaded with over fifty high-tech special effects and plenty of pyrotechnics . To ensure the safety of the cast and audience, many of the effects were enabled by fail-safe triggers and computer backups. Phil Hettema, the show's producer said, "You don't need this advanced technology for film and television. In film you only do it once and use five cameras to make sure you get it."Highlights included Crockett and Tubbs bursting out of a building, guns blazing, riding a roller coaster dressed as a mine car and the use of a hovercraft. The climax included an aerial attack from a helicopter that rises from behind the set and is shot down by the detectives. The full-scale mock-up was mounted on a mechanical arm that gave the appearance of hovering in mid-air.