Sidekicks

This show was the shiznit.i always watched it Ernie Reyes was the reason i started taking martial arts at th age of 8 he's was a miniature Bruce lee at that age.Loved him in TMNT as Donatello and in the last dragon among others. Saw him at a martial arts demo once can u say BADASS!!!! his moves were so precise and dead on lightning fast, well guys i guess we were just lucky to have been 80's babies with all the great TV shows and cartoons back then i've searched hi and low for this on DVD with no luck this show was classic the shows of today are crap compared to stuff like this and classics like voltron,silver hawks,go bots those were cartoons and this was a great TV show lets not forget what it was like to live in a time of great shows like these.

This is one of those shows back in the 80's era that really quite literally flew under the radar. The show stars Gil Gerard and Earnie Reyes Jr. Girard plays a wise cracking Detective that comes across Ernie's character who so happens to be a martial arts master at a very young age and together they fight crime. Now this series started off as a television movie for ABC, and since it got huge ratings the network immediately green lit for a weekly syndicated series. The series was quicky but very fun and entertaining to watch. Sadly I think the series to a lesser degree did not spark the same interest as the TV movie generated . The series only lasted one season. It was a series worth watching especially with the chemistry between the stars of the show. It is very hard to find this show on streaming services or even DVD, for that matter. This show definately fits in that era of the 80's which in my opinion was the best decade ever, to grow up in with all these great tv shows, movies, video games, wrestling, music, late night weekend horror movie shows, sunday night television movies of the week, MTV, VH1, Saturday morning cartoons, and with so many other nostagia from that era. I wonder where all that time has gone. I hope someday one of these streaming services airs this little gem from this great decade, that sadly is gone forever, but not forgotten by those who grew up in it.

This TV series is a very entertaining crime drama set in southern California. It's Main characters are: "The Last Electric Knight" AKA "Ernie Lee"(Ernie Reyes, Jr.), "Jake Rizzo"(Gil Gerard).

Rizzo is a cop and Ernie is a karate kid-together, they take on crooks. It also has important lessons about life. It promotes respect for our elders.

As with all TV series however, some of the episodes are better than others. The best thing about this series is the martial arts talents of Ernie Reyes, Jr. He is one of the most talented martial artists I've seen who is so young.

This series only went for one season-and has been rarely seen, but for those of us who had the opportunity to see this series, know what a treat it is.

I seem to recall an episode of Sidekick's where Ernie & his friend's (extra's and/or actor's who had reoccurring roles on the show as kids Ernie's age) played "Dungeon's & Dragon's". Gil Gerard was apparently horrified by this, referring to the game as "Satanism"! I don't remember the plot of that particular episode but, I do remember thinking "I didn't know that Gil Gerard was a Christian fundamentalist.", since they are and/or seemed to be, at least at the time, typically the only ppl who get their panties into a bunch over thing's such as this, including with Harry Potter and how group's like the Westboro Baptist Church says that pretty much everything is Satanism...

Back when that episode was first aired I remember hearing about this 'scandal', if you can call it that, on, if I remember correctly, "Entertainment Tonight". Apparently, Gil Gerard didn't like the script, didn't want to do it, voiced his concern's, but, he was under contract... The producer's finally decided to write the script for that episode in a way that would allow Gil to save face, since his apparent disgust for the script of this episode and for Dungeon's & Dragon's specifically had already been made public. This would mean that his character, Jake Rizzo, would openly state, early in the episode, during his dialogue his concern's about Dungeon's & Dragon's and then Jake Rizzo would fade into the background for the rest of that episode, which perhaps means that this is the only episode of the entire series where Gil's character didn't not play an integral part of the plot?! The story did mention that all of the other ppl, including the other actor's, on the show didn't have a problem with the script or with Dungeon's & Dragon's. I remember seeing the episode and I remember all of the other character's behaving towards Jake Rizzo like he's some sort of a crackpot, staring at him curiously & with some sense of "Is this a joke?!"

Researching the show & some of it's actor's, I found that Nancy Stafford (Who played Patricia Blake on the show.) was raised a Southern Baptist Christian! She didn't have a problem with the script, nor with Dungeon's & Dragon's. I found that to be strange as it is those crazy Southern Baptist's who just love to swing that Bible like it's a baseball bat, in declaration that everything is evil, etc! Doing so means that they shove that garbage down the throat's of those who are the most impressionable, i.e. children, and they essentially rape them emotionally & psychologically.

(There are others who do it, of all religion's & not just Christianity. It may be something of a stereotype, & an inaccurate one at that, that Southern Baptist's are the only "Christian's" who do it but, they have done quite a bit of it. And obviously all Southern Baptist's do not subscribe to this developmentally stunted, fear, hate, scare, rumor and smear mongering, tinfoil hate wearing, Kool-Aid sipping, conspiracy theory dogma.)

I would like to catch the Entertainment Tonight episode that ran with this story, right here on IMDb if possible. But, with 5 episodes a week, for at least a decade, perhaps two & maybe more, I doubt that I will find it any time soon, if ever.