At 200mph not many people
are going to be able to play hobo and hop aboard Supertrain. Dennis Dugan in this episode does get
on Supertrain without the benefit of a ticket or station stop. Dugan plays Jack Hogarth a self-proclaimed
"boy genius of Hollywood" we're told in his narration as the episode opens. Seems that his genius
has included a movie financied by the underworld who is not pleased to find that Jack and his wife have split and the
movie is now without its desired star. Enter Timothy Carey and Mills Watson as the
thugs assigned the task of getting back the mob's investment, any way they can. Carey's illustrious
career of playing ethnic-heavies includes appearing in American International's "Beach Blanket Bingo" (1965)
and Watson was playing the bumbling idiot Deputy Perkins on "BJ and the Bear"
at the time. Dugan's character gets the jump on them and though his first attempt at getting on Supertrain
fails, he must get on the train to speak his ex-wife about the troubled movie, he does end up falling off a bridge and onto
Supertrain's roof as it departs Los Angeles. Naturally, he is not injured and even finds that the nearby roof hatch
is not locked and he easily opens it and climbs inside.
Jack's ex-wife is a famous
movie star named Tammy Tyler played Randee Hiller. She is accompanied on Supertrain by her new beau,
manager and former hairstylist played by Bo Hopkins. Given Hiller's looks with her
frizzy kinky perm hair and rather ample nose and pairing her up with a hairdresser-turned-movie-mogul, some might see
some real-life inspiration behind these two characters. A liberal dose of concentration on my part though and I
still haven't a yentl...I mean inkling for the name the woman or her goober boyfriend...what
a minute...goober...former hairdresser turned movie producer...nope, still haven't got a thing...you'll have to figure it
out yourself. Anyway, Hiller and Hopkins are New York bound for the broadway debut
of Tammy Tyler in a new production of Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra."
The thugs make it on Supertrain
and soon locate poor Dennis Dugan and he ends up hiding out in the closet of Sylvia Sydney's
compartment. Sydney befriends Dugan and aids him in his misadventures in trying to
get close enough to his ex-wife to plead his case for her to star in his movie. Young Noah Hathaway
of ABC's "Battlestar Galactica" has a supporting role as young pick pocket used by Dugan
to fool Randee Hiller into thinking Bo Hopkins has an undisclosed
wife and kids on the side. Will it all work out for poor Dennis Dugan or will he be tossed off Supertrain
to his death at 200mph?
A number of Supertrain
regulars make their final appearances on the series with the "Superstar" episode. This fourth episode marks the
end of the original format Dan Curtis-produced examples of the series broadcast by NBC. Saying farewell is Patrick
Collins, Nita Talbot, Michael DeLano, Charlie Brill, William
Nuckols and Arrika Wells. After this episode, we never again see Supertrain's gym and
hair salon.
Nita Talbot
receives her largest part in this her last appearance on the show. Boadring at Los Angeles are the young grandchildren
of Supertrain's owner Winfield Root. The two hellraisers are just what one might expect the offspring of someone both
rich and eccentric enough to have conceived, financed and executed Supertrain's existence. These kids are spoiled monsters.
Edward Andrews' Harry Flood pawns off the two brats on Talbot and she's forced through a
series of very predictable tricks and pranks by her young charges. In the end, the kids are pranked back by the
Supertrain crew. Given that most of the cast is missing following this episode, perhaps the kids went and complained
to their grandfather and that is why the cast changes dramatically after this show!
