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TV’s “In the Heat of the Night” hits 35

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We mark our lives in time by the passage of time. We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and if we should hit longevity in our experiences, it generally involves many other people acknowledging the moment in our live.

In the United States, collectively, we just passed a marker in television history. The TV police drama series “In the Heat of the Night” debuted on NBC on March 6, 1988 – 35 years ago. A racially driven story line reaching back to the novels of John Ball and the Academy Award winning 1967 film by the same name but set in the 1980s South.

When it was started production only eight episodes were ordered. While creating so few is not unusual today, then a season order was 22 episodes. It gives me the feeling that those in charge at the networks didn’t really see the staying power of such a show and the appeal it would gain from the viewers.

Those eight episodes made the show a runaway hit appealing to the residents of small and medium size towns across the country and with them they took city viewers who connected with the small town experience.

In creating the show the developers working with MGM/UA selected Carroll O’Connor as “Chief Bill Gillespie” and Howard Rollins as “Det. Virgil Tibbs” to lead an amazing ensemble of actors who brought to life the fictitious town of Sparta, Mississippi. For those of you from that state, you likely know there is a crossroads community by that name but not like the community on the screen in the series.

From left are In the Heat of the Night stars David Hart “Parker Williams,” Randall Franks “Officer Randy Goode,” and Alan Autry “Bubba Skinner” in the Sparta Police squad room. (Photo: Randall Franks Media – Ned D. Burris)

Casting directors and producers found an amazing mix of actors to depict the characters created for the new series – Alan Autry as “Bubba Skinner,” David Hart as “Parker Williams,” Christian Le Blanc as “Junior Abernathy” and Hugh O’Connor as “Lonnie Jamison” and Peter Gabb as “Horace Goode.”

That was the original police cast that instilled a desire for viewers to tune in every week.

As the network locked in a second season of 22 episodes and MGM/UA moved its on location filming surroundings from Hammond, Louisiana to Covington, Georgia, they also changed up the cast a bit leaving the characters of Junior Abernathy and Horace Goode. They added actor Geoffrey Thorne as “Willson Sweet.”

Covington and Georgia welcomed the show as it began it’s second season filming in August of 1988 and many new adventures. Hosting a TV series was a major economic coup for both the state and a medium size town like Covington. So, all the cast moved to their new hometown crossing their fingers for continued success of all the team to create engaging stories that viewers would connect with.

And connect they did. The show became a mainstay in the top 30 weekly shows. Alongside “Matlock” and “Midnight Caller,” NBC’s Tuesday night lineup ruled the ratings.

Audiences tuned in to see a group of actors playing small town Southerners who each week reacted to the impact of the problems and topics every community across America was dealing with at some level. How the writers, actors and directors depicted these issues, offered America options in how to overcome such issues, how everyone can get along together no matter our differences, how to live together in a community, and how to succeed against adversities.

Yes, it was generally a weekly story about a crime, murder, solving mysteries, and hopefully getting the bad guys and girls. But we watched because we wanted to see how these characters that became beloved by audiences were impacted and responded to whatever faced them.

The show went on to produce what they described as eight seasons of hour episodes and a few movies filming from 1988-1994 while airing both on NBC and eventually moving to CBS. At it’s height of foreign first run, 150 countries were watching the guys and girls of Sparta and the show was top 10 in several nations. The cast and crew garnered numerous award nominations for the Golden Globes, Emmys, and Image and others. And they took home 2 Image Awards, and American Cinema Editors Award, and Carroll O’Connor received an Emmy.

“In the Heat of the Night” stands alongside the greatest police dramas in TV history, and among the few Southern dramas ever produced for episodic television. We tend to look back nostalgically, while looking more harshly at our current time. The period of this show was not an easy one in America, it was a racially centered drama in a time when our country was dealing with several racially centered issues that were dominating news cycles.

The show from my prospective was a release valve, that allowed us to collectively look at issues, and find the reality of our communities within the stories, and the strengths we have when working together rather than being divided. I am thankful for the writers who wrote the stories, the directors that guided their creation, the actors who were the face of the American South in that period and even today.

While I was not there in the beginning, in the fall of 1988, the directors and producers created a character for a young country music artist who had an earnest desire to act, I was that young actor and “Officer Randy Goode” was born giving me five years of working with “Bubba,” “Parker,” “Lonnie” “Willson,” “Chief Gillespie” and “Det. Tibbs” and all those who eventually joined the police cast, some among them: Crystal Fox, Dee Shaw, C.C. Taylor, Mark Johnson, Harvey Lee and Barbara Lee-Belmonte, Sharon Pratt and John Webb. I created with these amazing people and lived a life in Sparta, a favorite town for so many TV viewers.

As we mark the 35th of the beginning, all I can say is it was “Sho nuff” a grand old time and I want to thank all of you who watched, laughed and cried along with our efforts while maybe playing some checkers along with me. Those who watched will get the last bit. You can learn more by visiting www.RandallFranks.com/in-the-heat-of-the-night or check out my Encouragers book series for more photos and in-depth experiences with stars and guest stars.

Reaching and creating goals

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Reaching lifetime goals often means it is time to reformulate your life and create new goals. As time passes, these goals seem to race by like fence posts but each one is a marker I look on fondly. I reached a career goal in 1993 that I had pursued since I was a little child.

Since the first time I watched Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs sing “Little Girl of Mine In Tennessee” to “Granny” and “Uncle Jed” on “The Beverly Hillbillies;” since the first time I saw Wayne Newton play a down home country boy who could really saw the fiddle; or since the first time I watched Doug Dillard and all the Dillards entertain “Sheriff Andy Taylor” as “The Darlings” on the “Andy Griffith Show” with his up tempo banjo tunes; I dreamed of walking on network television to pick and grin.

I always figured that such national exposure for a young boy from Georgia had to come through music. There were just not that many other avenues at that time. So I worked and studied to improve my music, working to create and market our youth group, The Peachtree Pickers®, by working flea markets, churches and schools. We began competing at fiddler’s conventions and then moved up to entertaining larger and larger audiences at bluegrass festivals and fairs. The support of my late parents Pearl and Floyd Franks and those of the other group members helped to move our joint goals forward. We reached network cable in its infancy with a children’s show called “The Country Kids TV Series,” essentially a children’s “Hee Haw” which aired in the United States and abroad. Our growth would eventually lead us to performances for the Grand Old Opry ® and some acceptance by the more mainstream music industry.

In 1987, members of our youth act decided to go their separate ways, partially due to new college obligations. I was at a new point in my life, trying to decide what is next. I had not yet reached my childhood goal, but without a group, which was still the foundation of bluegrass and southern gospel music at that time, I did not know what my next step would be. I decided to make some solo appearances pulling together musicians when needed and continued appearing with other acts such as The Marksmen Quartet and Doodle and the Golden River Grass.

I began work at the Atlanta-based MBM records in 1987 helping to guide the careers of several artists signed with the label while still performing every opportunity I had. In 1988, the label changed hands and my job was eliminated. So, once again, I found myself searching. While I had enjoyed doing some minor acting in school, I decided in order to reach my television goal, I would have to begin a more intensive study of acting and take any opportunity, which were not many at the time, I could to get to be on screen in Georgia.

But God seemed to immediately open the doors, giving me opportunity after opportunity. The music talents God gave me seemed to put me where I needed to be. It would not be music that landed me my role as “Officer Randy Goode” on “In the Heat of the Night,” but it would be the many friends I developed from years of touring and recording that would share their exuberance about my presence on the show. After countless requests from those who cared about my music asking for me to perform on the show, Carroll O’Connor wrote a uniquely designed scene in an episode entitled “Random’s Child” which would set up a reason and purpose for “Officer Randy” to be pickin’ and grinnin’ just to frustrate the bad guys in that episode. One of those bad guys was Robert O’Reilly, “Gowron,” leader of the Klingons, from “Star Trek, Deep Space Nine.” I bet that is the only time in my life I will get to aggravate a Klingon.

Anyway, Carroll wrote a little piece entitled the “Sparta Blues” for actor Thomas Byrd and I to perform at the Sparta Police impound yard when the bad guys came to claim their car.

I have always jokingly called it my biggest hit since millions saw and heard it on CBS and millions more around the world have heard it since. I’ve often wondered what it sounded like when translated into Chinese or Italian. Recently, one of our Italian fans actually sent me some Italian performances, they were interesting. I didn’t know I spoke Italian so well.

It took years but the childhood dream was reached, and the goal I had chased for years was accomplished.
Then I had to decide what was next. Life is a constant re-evaluation of where you are and where you are going. We can’t just simply drift or what service will that be to God and our fellow man? He has a purpose for everyone’s life. It is up to us to make His vision for us happen. He will open the doors; we must simply study and be prepared to walk through. But at the same time, as we walk with the confidence He gave us we must always be mindful of whether what we are reaching for is His will or one we have created. Only time will tell.

Thank Your Lucky Stars

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Webster describes a star as a celestial body with twinkling points of light. The wise men of old followed a star to the baby Jesus. Centuries ago, sailors learned to navigate themselves around the world by the stars.
Today, many look at people who have reached a certain status in their field as stars.
Do we look at these people as twinkling points of light? I imagine some do. Many stars use their celebrity to accomplish great works of charity.
The late Danny Thomas and his St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital is a wonderful example. Now, many years after Mr. Thomas left us, his work lives on in the children they help each and every day.
I have been blessed to know many stars in my life. People who I have admired. People who have been guides to me in the darkest of night, or the brightest of day.
First and foremost, one of the greatest stars I have ever come to know is Jesus. His light has lead millions now for 2000 years. For this Georgia boy, he is always there to lean on, or to guide me through whatever comes my way.
My parents were stars to me. No matter what they faced, the great depression, war, meeting the needs of my brothers and I, they were always there doing what had to be done.
Many teachers were stars to me. At any given point in my schooling, I can find one teacher who stood out in giving me more than what was required. They would make whatever I wanted seem important. No matter how dumb the question was, they made it seem intelligent. One teacher in particular, because of his love of music, changed the direction of my life. Dr. Donald Grisier brought the fiddle into my life and set the stage for God to open so many doors.
My first employer, Joe Wyche, ran the local Dairy Queen near where I grew up outside Atlanta. He and the managers, David and Ed, gave me a chance to earn a little money. I was able to learn responsibility and how to deal with customers. Thanks to their guidance, I soon became one of the youngest managers in the Dairy Queen system. But before that I could make the best cone curl in the business. All the people I worked with there were stars to me.
Now I have mentioned parents, teachers and a restaurateur as being stars. Now I’ll mention a couple of people who you may consider to be popular stars.
When I was still in my teens, Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music, took interest in this young fiddler. He spent many hours sharing his music with me. Grand Ole Opry stars Jim & Jesse also become huge advocates and mentors in my life. They were my guides, my teachers, my friends and some of the highest stars in the musical heavens to me.
Carroll O’Connor, TV’s “Archie Bunker” and “Chief Gillespie,” and Alan Autry, TV’s “Bubba,” both took an interest in me as a person and in my work. They took the time, along with many producers like Walt Dornisch, directors like Peter Salim, Larry Hagman and Leo Penn and other actors to encourage me, teach me and give me opportunities to go where a boy from Georgia could not even imagine — on “In the Heat of the Night.” These and so many others are stars to me from that period in my life.
So many stars touch our lives every day. To me a star can be anyone who does what they do well. Then they share that God-given talent with others. They may be a good cook, a great mechanic, a successful salesperson, an inspiring clergyman, a visionary statesman or a cone-maker. They are all stars to me. Why don’t you take a look at the stars in your life? and let them know that your life is better because their light is shining on you. Is your light shining on those around you? If so, you can be a star too.

God opens the doors

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It is amazing how God will open doors for people in their life. My road to Hollywood and network television is one He set in motion at an early age. I remember going to my mother and telling her “Mommy, I want to play my music on television like Flatt and Scruggs or The Darlings.” She didn’t discourage me; she just said, “We’ll see what we can do.”

Several years later after graduation my father Floyd Franks, who served as co-manager with my mother Pearl for our youth group The Peachtree Pickers, was diagnosed with lung cancer. The members of my group had all decided with new responsibilities at college that they needed to go a different direction so I found myself at a reorganizing point musically once again after forming and reforming our group for several years encompassing 25 youth.

I was praying a lot over where the Lord wanted me to be musically, should I bring together another band, go out as a soloist, concentrate on finding a “real” job. Hearing the words that my dad, who was my constant companion on the road, especially since his retirement five years earlier, was threatened with facing this dreaded disease which could take him from mother and I spun me into an unusual merry-go round of worry and denial of the danger.

God led me to walk through the doors of an acting course during this period, I had always loved being on stage and getting a chance to fulfill that childhood dream gave me a new focus for my energies.

I remember at one point that the doctors said, “With the treatments, he should have five more years.”

Five more years, I thought that’s not a lot but it is in God’s hands. While I sent up many prayers for Dad’s healing. I distinctly remember one plea. I asked God these words: “God, if I am to do anything in television, please let it be in these next five years, so Dad may be part of it.”

I made my first film appearance with a silent bit as a sports reporter in a movie to be called “Blind Side” starring John Beck and Gail Strickland that summer. I remember sitting at the kitchen table telling my mom and dad about my days on the set in the August heat on the football field. Just relaying the story, I could see a bit of enthusiasm return to Dad’s face in spite of his declining condition.

It was just a couple of more weeks before God chose to call Dad home.

But the story doesn’t end there. That prayer I vocalized received an answer one year later, almost to the day when I received a call from casting director Dee Voight asking me to be on the set of a new television show that had moved to Georgia called “In the Heat of the Night” the next morning about 5:30.

I had seen the show’s first episodes and I remember saying “If I am ever to be on television this is the show.” But how could that be I was in Georgia and they were filming then in Louisiana but God can make amazing things happen.

Dee wanted me to be on the set to perform as an extra in a crowd scene the first day of filming. I remember her saying, “I think they are going to like you.” Within the first hour one of the directors came by and said “You look an a lot like a police officer.” I replied, “Thank you” not giving any thought to the work that God was doing behind the scenes. Over the next, few weeks the directors kept bringing me back using me as an extra on the show. Each time, even on that first day, I found myself in scenes doing silent bits with the stars of the show. When about six weeks passed, they came to me and said that a new police character was to be added to the show and I was to be it. Within a very short time, “Officer Randy Goode” was born into a five-year role on NBC and CBS television.

His gifts kept growing bringing my work to new allies all the way up the studio and network ladder.

After being on the show for about a year, I realized I had reached part of that childhood goal but as I found success in various areas being provided through God’s love, in prayer I asked God, you are giving me all these wonderful opportunities but what is it I am suppose to be here doing for you.

A few weeks passed and I had my answer. I was called into the set through the echo of assistant directors fully expecting star and executive producer Carroll O’Connor to add me to a scene as he did many times before. Instead when I walked to the middle of the Chief’s office and said “Yes, sir.” Carroll looked at me and said “I want to use a scripture in this scene.” Internally, I felt as if my mouth had dropped to the floor, about 100 people working for our show on the set and he called me in to give counsel about the first time that the “Chief Gillespie” would use a scripture that would touch the ears of more than 25 million Americans and millions of viewers in 150 countries around the world. Many of which never cross the threshold of a church door. I had never spoken to Carroll O’Connor about my faith nor do I recall doing so with any that had his close counsel. I believe however that someone else whispered in his ear in answer to my prayer. We settled on I Corinthians 13:13 “And the greatest of these is Charity” and that became his comment about the situation facing a young Vietnamese boy found needing help in our Sparta community in an episode entitled “My Name is Hank.”

That began a wonderful dialogue between he and I on Christian and biblical topics. While not overly religious, the Chief Gillespie character became a purveyor of biblical wisdom through scriptures even leading a condemned prisoner to Christ in one episode.

Our characters sought inspiration and solace from God by attending church, we prayed before meals, sang songs of faith both on camera and in our CD “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” which God blessed me to produce featuring our entire cast and many notable guests. Executive producer Carroll O’Connor himself was seldom found from that point walking on the set without his script under one arm and a King James Bible beneath the other.

This is a refreshing alternative to what we see on most gritty crime dramas whether then or now. The show was unique and I thank God for allowing me to play a small part on the screen and off in its making.

By the way, God gave me another little gift before my departure from the show; many nice folks wrote in to our show about me and that encouraged Carroll O’Connor to write a scene that would feature me musically in an episode entitled “Random’s Child.” That childhood dream was reached.

God sews seeds in many gardens in hopes that one day they might bear great fruit. I was blessed to serve as one of His workers in this garden that fed and continues to feed millions nearly twenty years later.

Christmas Times’ A Comin’

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Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. There was a time in my memory when I hoped I might never hear those words sang again. It was just over 20 years ago and I was in the midst of trying to complete the musical orchestration of a special Christmas CD.

Alan Autry and Carroll O’Connor had asked me to bring together the “In the Heat of the Night” cast Christmas CD for charity.

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