*Smuggler's Blues is the fifteenth episode (some sources list it as 16 depending on how they count the pilot) of the first season of Miami Vice. It premiered February 1, 1985, at 9:00 P.M. on NBC.
Bloopers and Practical Jokes kicked off the night on NBC, followed by V: The Series and then Vice. ABC went with Benson, Webster, Street Hawk, and Matt Houston. CBS offered The Dukes of Hazzard, Dallas (by far the highest-rated program of the evening), and Falcon Crest.
*Miami Vice ran 5 seasons (1984-1990) and 112 episodes, mostly on Fridays with a few appearances on Sundays and Wednesdays at the beginning and end. It was only a top-10 show (#9) in its second season.
*Drug lord Esteban Calderone is Tubbs' nemesis in season 1.
*Anthony Yerkovich, creator of Vice and exec producer for a very short time, now runs this restaurant: https://www.buffaloclub.com/about-us
*Did Brandon Tartikoff really inspire the series by jotting down "MTV Cops"? Brian Cronin writes an excellent piece about that legend and puts the creation of the series in context.
*Jan Hammer's theme song charted as high as #27 and won several Grammy awards. It was a cornerstone of the show's first soundtrack LP, which also featured Glenn Frey's hits Smuggler's Blues and You Belong to the City along with Phil Collins; In the Air Tonight.
That album reached #1, and a follow-up, Miami Vice II, featured Collins' Take Me Home. Amazing that they did a Miami Vice III with Sheena Easton, the Hooters, and Don Henley (Dirty Laundry)
*South of Sunset aired once--yes, once--on October 27, 1993 and was axed by CBS. A handful of unaired episodes of the Glenn Frey detective show aired on VH1, of all places, years later.
*Frey's character Jimmy Cole does indeed disappear in this episode, but he sort of "returns" in season 2's Trust Fund Pirates as we learn about what happened to him secondhand via fellow smuggler Jackson Crane (the great Gary Cole).
*Read more about Frey and his role on Vice here.
*Here is an article from The Miami Herald discussing the impact of the show on the city.
*We talk on the pod about the show running out of ideas, and here is a fascinating read from 1986 exploring the idea that the writers were already running dry!
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