Return Of The Black Shadow......

When I sit down to take my lunch break, I used to watch re-runs of Emergency! and The Rockford Files. They've taken off Emergency!, but I can still catch ol' Jim Rockford (played by James Garner) on the tube. The Rockford Files used to be one of my favorite Friday night TV shows in the '70's, and it lasted for 6 seasons. Today, I saw an episode from '79 that I'd never seen before........

Today's episode was called Return Of The Black Shadow. The basic story line is Jim Rockford takes his buddy's (John Cooper, or "Coop", played by Bo Hopkins) sister Gail out for a date, only to encounter a pack of 1%ers at a gas station. The name of the club is The Rattlers (funny, because the real club The L.A. Rattlers was a very well-known black MC). As per Hollywood, the Rattlers stomp the stuffings out of Rockford, and "pull a train" on poor Gail. As a result, Gail winds up in the Mental Ward of L.A. General, and Rockford is laid up in the hospital with cuts, contusions, and broken ribs.

So, Coop decides to avenge not only his sister's honor, but also to get in a few licks for Rockford as well. See, Coop has a "club" past himself, with a club that was called The Black Shadows, so he gets his old chopper out, and sets out to infiltrate the Rattlers.

Now, as Coop rolls his bike out, I immediately recognize the bike - it's Micah McCloskey's Indian Chief! Turns out that Micah acted as a technical advisor and mechanic for this episode, and his bike was used as Coop's old ride. Now, you never clearly see Bo Hopkins riding the Chief, he evidently rode another bike in the pack riding shots. But, there are some nice, clear shots of the bike with Hopkins on/around it throughout the episode.

Also included in the cast as members of the Rattlers are perennial biker bit part players Mickey Jones (also one-time drummer for the New Christy Minstrels, Trini Lopez, Bob Dylan, and Kenny Rogers and The 1st Edition, and a spokesman for Panzer Motorcycles later on), and Dennis Burkley, best known for his role as Dozer, in Mask. I'm surprised Dan Haggardy wasn't in there someplace! And, I swear that I saw Rip Rose as part of the Rattlers, I'm gonna have to ask Kristina if she remembers her dad doing anything like that.
Photo courtesy of MotoZania

Micah McCloskey's iconic and well-ridden Indian Chief, the one that appeared in The Rockford Files episode. Micah has owned, ridden, and raced this Chief since the early '70's. This photo was taken at Wink Eller's benefit, in Orange, CA on June 26th of this year - the day after Born Free. I had an extremely cool talk with Micah at the event, as well as Joe Hurst. This bike has had numerous features over the years in magazines like the old Bob Bitchin's Biker, Choppers, Supercycle, and even Hardcore Choppers Japan in '06.

I couldn't find an online source for the Return Of The Black Shadow, but I see it's available on Netflix. It's Season 5, Episode #18 - originally aired on 2/17/79. Also, while you're at it, stop by Micah's website, and you can read his whole biography on there. I think you'll appreciate the young Micah's encounter with Von Dutch, during the time when Dutch was up in Calabasas:
http://www.micahscustomcycles.com/