Jay has since remarried Jeanie Buss controlling owner and president of the L.A. In today’s video, we take a look back at classic television shows of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, … Molly Ringwald, Tom Cruise and more ’80s stars are still relevant, while others have slipped out of the spotlight — see the photos.
In July 2015, Vegas began airing on the Decades network. On August 30, 2022, Vegas began airing on Heroes & Icons as part of the Day Shift programming block.
‘Slick’ Roth made 17 episode appearances throughout the three-year prime-time run of Vegas. Roth relies on Tanna to help him in a wide variety of criminal and civil cases involving his businesses. Nor was it really brief enough to be a binge-worthy curiosity. Its colors and style, most especially the earth tones that make up the wardrobe of Dan Tanna and the splashes of green that appear in the Wimbledon Suites addition to the Desert Inn, evoke a very specific time that was here and then gone in a literal flash. So, in retrospect, Vega$ ends up existing as a moving snapshot of a less heralded time .
Dan races against time when a hypnotist programs Binzer into a human bomb set to explode at the final buzzer of a basketball game in a crowded arena. With Robert Reed , Sherry Jackson , Rosemary Forsyth , Norman Alden , Hedley Mattingly , Scatman Crothers , Dean Martin, Minnesota Fats. Dan Tanna falls celebrities with ceiling eyes in love with the Mid-Eastern princess he was hired to protect. A young woman enlists Dan’s aid when her husband disappears as a result of his involvement with illegal biological warfare. Dan goes after a crime ring which uses extortion and violence to force young girls into illicit activities.
She was written off the show because her character was superfluous by the time it found its legs. Phyllis Davis filled the Girl Friday role and Bart Braverman did comic relief from time to time. Two snow day events, pretty rare in Las Vegas, were worked into the plots of separate episodes. Tanna lives on the Las Vegas Strip next to the Circus Circus hotel/casino, in the theatrical showroom props warehouse owned by the Desert Inn.
Vega$ exists in a netherworld between Michael Mann’s penchant for realistic detail and Aaron Spelling’s jet-puffed, blow-dried nothingness that was baked into most of television ventures, which also means it’s also a show that is mostly at odds with itself. One can imagine some great material coming from the central idea of a Vegas private eye who is on retainer for a Sheldon Adelson-type who mixes with the seedy world that lives under the glitz and glamor of the Vegas strip. Yes, this is definitely a Michael Mann movie for 2021 or beyond. But for 1978, hookers have perfectly feathered hair and roller rink lip gloss, drug deals happen in broad daylight in the parking lot of the Desert Inn, and sex trafficking is conducted by Cesar Romero with Moses Gunn as his backup.
Vegas stars Robert Urich as private detective Dan Tanna, who drives to his detective assignments around the streets of Las Vegas in a red 1957 Ford Thunderbird convertible. Dan Tanna makes a point of not accepting divorce cases, or working as a bodyguard. Being in Las Vegas, Tanna also gets to work for a variety of celebrity clients who have issues regarding their personal safety, and need help solving them. And Las Vegas, stabilizes the show a bit by cementing its episodic structure and streamlining its cast. Angie disappears without a whisper, Beatrice becomes Tanna’s only Girl Friday, and Binzer emerges as his lovable, and primary, second banana. Greg Morris’s Lt. David Nelson materializes as Tanna’s sole connection inside the police department as Sgt. Archer vanishes without comment.