MovieChat Forums > Baa Baa Black Sheep (1976) Discussion > It was just pure entertainment, not hist...

It was just pure entertainment, not history

posted 11 years ago by jeffyoung1
4 replies | jump to latest

There was always an element of unrealism to BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP, with the hard-drinking, frat-boy partying, mischevious ways of the Marine pilots depicted in the television series. Anyone who has ever encountered the U.S. Marines in real life know that these people pride themselves on individual and team discipline. That's not to say that Marines don't enjoy themselves off-duty and off-post, but they're not reckless as the show made them out to be. I've personally encountered a few U.S. Marines in real-life and all of those distinct individuals impressed me by their courtesy and proper behavior. Of course, I've luckily never encountered a drunk Marine.

BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP could have been more and better but it seemed like its creators had little military experience themselves. Also, the American involvement in Vietnam had officially ended in the summer of 1973 and bitter memories of the public divisions, emotions, protests, scandals, and more led the U.S. military to fade for a time behind the public consciousness. Patriotic and realistic gritty fighting movies like, "Saving Private Ryan" were in the distant future. Compared to 2012, the action and violence depicted on the tv show is astonishingly bloodless.

What few people knew at the time was that the actual Major Greg 'Pappy' Boyington was shot down and captured by the Japanese in early 1944. If the show was going to be historically relevant, it would have been difficult to carry the show forward through 1945. Hence, the timeline of the tv show seemed to be stuck in early 1944, when the U.S. was clearly starting to win but the Japanese still retained significant fighting strength in the outer Southwest Pacific, which all but collapsed by the end of 1944. So that is why the tv series Pappy and his flying Marine pilots kept encountering so many Japanese antagonists, some of which were skilled pilots. In retrospect, it might have been possible to ignore the actual history and carry the show into 1945 but after three seasons, low ratings canceled the show, making the issue moot.

I think the show could have been a little more 'edgy' and thus successful. But the time period just wasn't right for it. The show had its good characters and some weak ones. A few of the Marine pilots depicted seemed questionable. The ill-disciplined, canterkerous, and oft-insubordinate master gunny sergeant Micklin was a complete Hollywood fabrication which likes to think such individuals can actually exist in the military to poke an thumb in the eye of the military brass. Micklin, I think, represented liberal Hollywood's disdain for the military and its culture of discipline by introducing an indisciplined individual. In real life, wartime or not, a guy like Micklin maybe, just maybe might have gotten away with some of that reproachable insubordination, but never near as long as Micklin did in the show. The U.S. Marines would have never tolerated a person like Micklin, at least not for long. Micklin was not only brazenly insubordinate, he was borderline psycho. Guys like him end up fast usually dead in combat, bounced out the military, or confined for years at Fort Leavenworth prison. Also, in the real-world U.S. Marines, senior non-commissioned officers serve as examples of individual and team discipline and dignified pride, not do the opposite. But well, this is after all, Hollywood, and through time and space, Hollywood has been alternately pro and anti-military, with an odd mixture of both today.

[–] TorontoJediMaster 11 years ago

Practically all living VMF-214 veterans despised the show. They hated that it portrayed them as being sent to the squadron as an alternative to being court martialed.

They felt sorry for Boyington in that he needed money to an extent that he would allow such a show to be made.

The air scenes were great and it was a treat to see F4U-Corsairs, but the show was an almost complete fabrication.

The actual Black Sheep Squadron under Boyington was only operational for about three or four months in the autumn of 1943. By the start of 1944, the time Boyington was shot down and captured, combat in the Solomon Islands was coming to an end. Bougainville was captured and the landings at Cape Gloucester had neutralized Rabaul as a major Japanese base.

1943 was really the year of combat in the Solomon Islands. The U.S. waged campaigns down there while they built up their strength. Beginning in 1944 (well, Operation Galvanic, the capture of Tarawa in November of 1943 was the real start), the campaign shifted -for the Navy and Marine Corps- to the Central Pacific as the true "island hopping" campaign began.

[–] shompa 10 years ago

Not even "real" history is factual correct. Why would a goofy TV series be anything better?

Just look at the 3 big organised religions. Muhammad did never exist. (fact). But according to "history" he did. Same with Jesus and Judaism. "history" that is just fiction.

And WW2. Everything is just political correct history written by the winners.
Every documentary, history book and so on starts with the "evil Hitler" and some fiction about all the bad things he did (that never happened).

Even wrestling is more real than our history books.

[–] Thirdover4 10 years ago

I read a book once about Wyatt Earp called "The Earp Brothers In Tombstone," by Frank Waters in which he researches the story and past of Wyatt Earp and the incidences in Tombstone and at the OK corral. The conclusion he comes to is that the Earp Brothers, along with Doc Holiday, were nothing more than a gang of outlaws fighting with the Clantons over turf in tombstone. In his research he finds that most of Wyatt Earps past "adventures" are fabricated, including his law enforcement past. He finds the court testimony of, as I remember it, five witnesses that stated the Clantons were unarmed at the shootout a the OK corral. He finds evidence that the stagecoach robberies that the Earps put a halt to were executed by them to create a problem they could solve en route to getting elected sheriff. In other words, the Earps may have been nothing more than street thugs, moving from town to town until they found a town small enough that they could muscle in on the local gang and take over. Why do we perceive him differently? Wyatt Earp wrote an autobiography claiming he was a great hero of the old west and embellished the stories to great advantage that made him a household name. He then moved to Hollywood and further entrenched his reputation, with virtually no living witnesses to dispute his claims. Fans of the Wyatt Earp mythos pan the book, but it certainly rings true to me.

So, history or fiction? You make the call.

In terms of the drinking aspect of Boyington, he says that during the year plus he spent in a japanese prison camp, his health improved because it was the only time he was sober. After the war he went back to the bottle.

[–] MiketheWhistle 7 years ago

Obviously a tv show that is a non-documentary will have lesser facts. But my Grandfather served with them as a mechanic and the series certainly stretched reality but was far from the teardown the pilots did. Obviously because it put them in a worse light from the get go. Had they not done that I think former members would have been different. Regardless my Grandfather was highly complimentary of their skills and the series clearly portrayed that.