Baa Baa Black Sheep (renamed Black Sheep Squadron for the second season) is an American television series that aired on NBC from September 23, 1976, until April 6, 1978. It was part period military drama, part comedy. In the final seven episodes, the character list was revamped, dropping some squadron pilots, adding a 16-year-old pilot and four nurses.
Its original premise was based on the experiences of United States Marine Corps aviator Greg Boyington and his World War II "Black Sheep Squadron". The series was created and produced by Stephen J. Cannell. The opening credits read: "In World War II, Marine Corps Major Greg 'Pappy' Boyington commanded a squadron of fighter pilots. They were a collection of misfits and screwballs who became the terrors of the South Pacific. They were known as the Black Sheep."
Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is the commanding officer of VMF-214, a Marine squadron of "misfit" fighter pilots based on the Solomon Islands campaign and Bougainville campaign from 1943 to 1945 during World War II. Pappy often intercedes in altercations of the pilots at the base, but everyone seems to pull together when they are assigned missions in the air. Pappy likes to drink and fight a lot when not flying missions. He owns a Bull Terrier named "Meatball" — which he claims belongs to General Moore to get the dog on the base against regulations in "Flying Misfits", but General Moore says he "wouldn't own an ugly mutt like that."
The series premise was very loosely based on a portion of the real-life military career of Gregory Boyington, known as "Pappy" due to his "advanced" age compared to the younger pilots under his command. (He was 30 when he took command of VMF-214, but in the series pilot, he is stated to be 35.) Boyington, who was a technical adviser for the series, commented that the show was "fiction based on reality" and that no regular character in the series except for himself actually existed, although in his book of the same name there is a General "Nuts" Moore who has similar characteristics to General Moore in the series. Also in the book is Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Smoak, on whom Colonel Lard is based. Lard has almost the same animosity for Major Boyington in the TV series as Smoak does in the book. In the documentary film Pappy Boyington Field, Robert Conrad shares personal insight about Pappy from their time together during the television series. The squadron has many successful combat missions using their Vought F4U Corsair planes against the experienced Japanese pilots using their Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter planes. The combat missions took place around the Japanese military base in Rabaul during Boyington's September 1943 to January 1944 tour of duty.
Pappy was an ace pre-World War II combat pilot and has the most air victories, or "kills", of any pilot in the squadron. In the pilot episode, Boyington has six kills from his combat tour in China before World War II with the Flying Tigers. His count climbs into the mid-20s as the series progresses. The real-life Boyington had 14 kills in 32 days during his first tour of duty with VMF-214, and finished with 28 confirmed victories.
The TV show's squadron makes its base on the fictional island of Vella la Cava. There is an actual island called Vella Lavella in the New Georgia Group of the Solomon Islands, but in the initial episode "Flying Misfits", Vella la Cava was represented on an aviation sectional chart by the real Kolombangara Island. Under Boyington's command, VMF-214 flew out of Barakoma Airfield on Vella Lavella during the Solomon Islands campaign.
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The day of the show's debut, The Washington Post called Baa Baa Black Sheep a "war-is-swell series [aimed] at anyone who remembers World War II as a rousing, blowzy, fraternity turkey-shoot."[4]
Although the title Baa Baa Black Sheep comes from a nursery rhyme, the song heard at the beginning of the opening credits is actually the chorus to "The Whiffenpoof Song", written in 1909 as a homage to Rudyard Kipling's poem "Gentlemen-Rankers". One of the squadron's real-life members, Paul "Moon" Mullen, adapted "The Whiffenpoof Song" for the squadron's use.
The name of the island where the real-life Black Sheep were stationed was Vella Lavella in the Solomon Islands of the southern Pacific, known as "The Slot"; this was changed to Vella la Cava in the series. The same was done for the Rear Area Allied Command island of "Espiritu Santo" (Espritos Marcos). The Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California provided an adequate substitute backdrop for flying scenes. Filming of airfield scenes was primarily done at the now-closed Indian Dunes Airport in Valencia, California.[5]
Some air-battle scenes were actually short clips from the 1969 film Battle of Britain, and German markings on the planes can clearly be seen.[original research?] Other flying scenes pioneered the technique of mounting cameras on helmets worn by pilots, thus providing a pilot's-eye view never before seen in films featuring single-seat aircraft.[citation needed] Because of reflections from the Plexiglas canopies, many close-ups were shot with the canopies removed.
The Vought F4U and FG-1 Corsair fighter planes [6] were leased to Universal Studios by private owners. Many scenes showing repairs on the aircraft were filmed during actual preventative maintenance.[citation needed] "Japanese" aircraft used in the series were actually North American T-6 Texan World War 2 trainer planes, which had been modified to resemble Japanese planes for the film Tora! Tora! Tora! and later purchased by collectors. The Grumman J2F Duck float biplane belonged to stunt pilot Frank Tallman and his Tallmantz Aviation museum in Santa Ana, California. Tallman often stated that this was his all-time favorite plane to fly, with the Corsair in a near-tie.[citation needed] Tallman provided or arranged for most of the aircraft used in the series.
At an aviation history symposium in 2002, members of the real VMF-214 were asked about the authenticity of the TV series.[7] Retired Colonel Henry A. McCartney said the list of errors was too long to repeat. Boyington himself referred to the series as "... inaccuracies, hogwash, and Hollywood hokum,"[8] although he did serve as technical advisor on the show, and had cameo appearances in three episodes. A 2001 History Channel documentary, History Undercover: The True Story of the Black Sheep Squadron, depicted some of these differences in greater detail.[9]
As the show originally started during family viewing, CBS asked NBC to edit out the offending material found in the show.[10] A year later, NBC initially cancelled the show,[11] only for the network to reverse decision as a compensation to cancel the sitcom Off the Wall.[12]
Universal Pictures has released the complete first season on DVD in Region 1 in 2 volume sets. They also released volume 1 on DVD in the UK.
In Germany, ZYX Music GmbH released the entire series on DVD.
On December 7, 2015, it was announced that Shout! Factory had acquired the rights to the series in Region 1 and would release the final season on DVD on May 17, 2016.[13][14]
On June 13, 2017, Universal Pictures re-released season 1 in a full season set.[15]
The Gathering of Corsairs and Legends at the Indianapolis Air Show in Mount Comfort, Ind. ... Numerous Navy and Marine pilots who few Corsairs in combat attended the show, where they participated in a symposium and signed autographs.