By Stu Robinson,

When I started blogging CBS’ new Hawaii Five-O back in September, I conceded that all I remembered about the original series – besides the boffo theme song – was Jack Lord’s hair, boxy cars and the signature tag line: “Book ’em Danno.”

Thanks to Netflix, I recently had the opportunity to watch the original series’ pilot and first two episodes to see how they stood up against the newer version. Short answer: Pretty well.

The original series ran from 1968 to 1980 and starred Lord as Steve McGarrett. Although most of Lord’s work had been on television, he probably was best known at the time for his big-screen role as Felix Leiter, James Bond’s CIA contact in 1962’s Dr. No.

By coincidence or not, the two-hour pilot resembles a Bond flick. The plot is ridiculous, featuring “Red Chinese” agents using an overly complicated torture contraption – a sensory-deprivation suit in a pool inside of an old freighter – in a bid to learn the identity of an individual code-named Control, the only person familiar with all U.S. intelligence activities in the Pacific Rim. McGarrett allows himself to be captured and tortured in order to leak false information – a human version of Jeff Goldblum’s computer virus in Independence Day.

The intelligence official who comes up with the plan is played by James Gregory (Inspector Luger from Barney Miller) Gregory’s acting credits over five decades include: Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Manchurian Candidate, Rawhide, Hogan’s Heroes, The Fugitive, Star Trek, My Three Sons, Gunsmoke, The Mod Squad, Bonanza, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Columbo, Ironside, Miracle on 34th Street, The Partridge Family, Sanford and Son, The Love Boat, Quincy M.E. and two additional appearances on Hawaii Five-O. Wow; just wow!

But what grabs you in the opening credits is the actor playing one of McGarrett’s antagonists.

Four words: DON’T CALL HIM SHIRLEY!

Yes, it’s Leslie Nielsen! Pre-Airplane Nielsen, that is – playing a humorless local intelligence chief who clashes with McGarrett.

The other surprise is that McGarrett’s sidekick, Danny, is played by somebody other than James MacArthur, the actor we all remember as Danno. In the pilot, a young actor named Tim O’Kelley acts the role as young officer looking to impress rather than an established sidekick. For Episode 1, he was replaced by MacArthur, who portrays a more-confident Danno – sort of an alter ego who challenges McGarrett to justify many of his toughest decisions.

Like on the contemporary show, characters named Chin Ho Kelly and Kono round out the original Five-O team. But in this case, they are played by middle-aged, Hawaiian-born males.

Surprisingly, McGarrett never utters the words “Book ’em, Danno” in the pilot or the initial two episodes.

What one does hear, though, is McGarrett’s description of the first victim, an intelligence agent named Hennessy: “He hated this island paradise he was assigned to,” McGarrett says, adding that he was the type who “got sunburned walking to the grocery store.” I wonder if this planted the seed in the 21st century writers’ heads  for Scott Caan’s anti-tropical Danno.

Unlike the pilot, the first two episodes offer plots that stand up today: “Full Fathom Five” involves the seduction, swindling and murder of wealthy widows visiting the islands; in “Strangers in Our Own Land,” the murder of the state land commissioner raises the issue of how Hawaii’s development as a tourist destination affected native Hawaiians and their culture.

Apropos of the latter, one change from the old to the new is that the old Five-O office was in Honolulu’s Iolani Palace, the official residence of Hawaii’s last two monarchs. The building actually housed government offices until 1969. After structural restoration, it reopened to the public as a museum in 1978.

I had the pleasure of visiting the palace in 1998 and urge anybody visiting the islands to stop by. In addition to the building itself and its historical  significance, the tone in which its story is told is striking in comparison with Pearl Harbor. The story of Dec. 7, 1941, is told in simple, declarative sentences: “The Japanese attacked without warning.” At the palace, the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, in which Americans arguably were the bad guys, is described in passive terms: “The monarchy was overthrown. The queen was imprisoned.”

But I digress.

The pilot and first two episodes of the original Hawaii Five-O don’t shy away from the cultural issues of their time. Various characters represent the 1960s counterculture, and even hard-nosed McGarrett appears open to that. In the pilot, he finds common ground with a flower-child college student, pointing out that hippies and cops both believe in doing the right thing. (Of course she’s a witness whom he ends up taking out on a date, which probably wouldn’t fly today.) In one of the episodes, he enjoys the discomfort of a greedy corporate lawyer whose wealthy client declares that she has enough money already.

It’s also interesting to see how working women are portrayed. McGarrett has a traditional, “long-suffering” secretary. When he chooses a female officer for a dangerous undercover assignment, Danno protests that he can’t do that – she has kids!

A savvy graduate student could probably get a thesis out of the sociological elements represented.

Unfortunately, the original Hawaii Five-O also doesn’t shy away from the clothing fashions of its time. ‘Nuff said.

Then, as now, the show was a platform to promote Hawaiian tourism.

“Two million guests pass through here a year. And we invite them,” the (male) governor tells McGarrett. “We’re responsible for their safety.”

The original series also is a time capsule of sorts. McGarrett and others drive big, boxy cars – some with tail fins. Though Hawaiian Airlines was around in the late 60s and 70s, airport shots include planes painted in the old PanAm and United liveries.

Since the original series ran for 12 years and Netflix serves up three or four episodes per disc, it would take quite a while to review the entire original series. I won’t promise to do that. But I do expect to continue sample the old episodes to see how the original series changed during the course of its run.

Whoa! The latest episode of the new Hawaii Five-O just started, and Kono (Grace Park) is in an orange bikini. Gotta go!

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Stu Robinson, a college friend of the TV Tyrant, is a writer, editor, media-relations practitioner and social-media guy based in Phoenix.