'Charlie's Angels' is 50, good heavens!

"Charlie's Angels" turns 50 on Tuesday. How to celebrate? With a look back at the five most ridiculous, over-the-top, sublimely campy episodes over the five-season run, naturally. (The ABC series aired 115 episodes from Sept. 22, 1976 through June 24, 1981, including a March 1976 pilot movie.)

But before we get to those, a quick refresher: Jill Monroe (Farrah Fawcett), Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith) and Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson) were three undercover detectives; their handler was the affable John Bosley (David Doyle). The never seen Charlie (voiced by John Forsythe) was their boss. (Cheryl Ladd joined the second season as Jill's sister, Kris, after Fawcett left.)

And away we go!

'Angels in Chains'

When a corrupt sheriff sends young women to a Louisiana prison farm as part of a prostitution scheme, Charlie comes up with a scheme of his own — get the Angels behind bars to find out what's going on. They later escape, in chains, raising the question — how far could Sabrina, Jill and Kelly get while shackled together? Pretty far.

With their hair absolutely perfect, they run through a rugged, mountainous landscape that looks suspiciously like Southern California (yes, this is supposed to be Louisiana, but perhaps Western Louisiana?). After they get rid of their chains, they heist a truck loaded with potatoes. You do know the Chekhov line about potatoes, right? If you introduce a potato truck in the third act, you better dump those potatoes on the pursuing cop car by the last. They do, and foil the pursuit.

Charlie, in the final scene: "How does it feel to be out from behind bars?!" Cue to the Angels: "Not funny Charlie!"

'The Sammy Davis Jr. Kidnap Caper'

Bad guys want to kidnap singer Sammy Davis Jr., so the Angels are hired as bodyguards to protect him when he hosts a charity look-alike contest. As it turns out, one of the contestants — Herbie Brubaker — is a dead ringer for the famed entertainer.

"Groovy, man," says the real Sammy, who takes a liking to his doppelganger (played by, you guessed it, Davis).

The bad guys kidnap Herbie by accident but when they learn they've got the wrong Sammy, they threaten to kill him. To save himself, Herbie pretends to be the real Sammy. Meanwhile, Sammy pretends to be Herbie, as part of a scheme the Angels hatch to fool the bad guys. Does any of this make sense? Certainly not, but it works. With bad guys caught, Herbie saved, cut to the final scene: Herbie and Sammy on screen together. Groovy, baby. Groovy.

'Angels on Ice'

Someone's kidnapping the stars of an Ice Capades-like show, and to find out why, the Angels join the show — Kris as a clown skater, and Kelly as a belly dancer. (Why a belly dancer? It's never a good idea to ask "why" with "Charlie's Angels.") By the end of the second hour, the Angels uncover a plot to kill Saudi dignitaries to boost the price of world oil.

Among the pleasures of this episode was the sublimely ridiculous final scene (the Angels on ice — what else?) and props for guest star cameos by Jim Backus and Phil Silvers, as the blustery owner of the rink.

 'Mother Goose Is Running for His Life'

Mobsters want to buy out a toy company, and they've got help on the inside — a psycho designer who makes toys that kill. "Mother Goose" features this classic line by Sabrina, posing as a lawyer inspecting his lethal toys: "Is this good for the children?"

To learn what's going on, Kris dresses up as a life-size Raggedy Ann doll, then cracks the case and saves the owner of the toy company — by stuffing her bubblegum in the barrel of a gun disguised as a toy.

'Lady Killer'

Especially in the first season, "Charlie's Angels" rarely missed an opportunity to build plots around the sex industry, all the better to display women (and the Angels) in scant clothing. In "Lady Killer," someone is killing the centerfolds of a skin magazine, but when they turn up dead, their hair is missing. Charlie arranges for Jill to go undercover as the new centerfold but Jill protests with this priceless riposte: "That's not undercover. That's no cover!" As it turns out, the centerfolds (and nearly Jill) were offed by a jealous former girlfriend of the magazine's owner. (But why the hair? She needed it for a wig — her own.)

 

'Disco Angels' and 'Angels on Skates'

What's great about "Charlie Angels" is that the entire plot of an episode was often in the title, with these two cheesecake gems as proof. Anyway, it's 1979 and the height of discomania. Did anyone expect "Angels" to ignore the craze?

In "Skates" the Angels, umm, skate — roller derby style, to disco, in search of another missing disco skater. (Ed Begley Jr. has a priceless guest star role.) In "Disco Angels," Kris gets a job as the dance partner for the star at a hot discotheque; think "Saturday Night Fever," or better still, "Can't Stop the Music," which won the 1980 Razzie for Worst Movie of the Year. In both, the Angels got their groove on, and boogied down. Can you dig it? We dug it.