World's Wildest Police Videos

Production

World's Wildest Police Videos began in 1998 and ran for four seasons, comprising a total of 56 episodes, before being officially canceled in 2002. In Season 4, the name was shortened to Police Videos.

Most of the police videos featured on the show were from various U.S. police departments, but footage from other nations such as Argentina, South Korea, Brazil, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom also appeared. Video sources included police dashcams, cameras from police and news helicopters, store security systems, news reporters, and private citizens from around the world. Much of the aired footage had previously only been seen by law enforcement officials before it appeared on the show.

The show became popular with viewers. It had the highest ratings of any Fox network television special to that date. It was also featured on Entertainment Tonight and was re-aired later that month. It was the first sweeps-month special ever to run twice during a sweeps period by Fox.

Format

The series began with a special entitled World's Scariest Police Chases, which was broadcast on February 2, 1997. It was narrated by actor Peter Coyote, and featured commentary by Captain C. W. Jensen of the Portland Police Bureau. Five more editions of World's Scariest Police Chases aired, with the second on April 27, 1997, third on November 4, 1997, fourth on February 17, 1998, fifth on April 28, 1998, and the sixth on April 29, 1999.

A further two specials called World's Scariest Police Shootouts aired around this time as well. It was hosted by John Bunnell, a retired police officer and former Sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon; series creator Paul Stojanovich had known Jensen and Bunnell through his early reality series, 1991's American Detective, for ABC, with Bunnell hosting that series in the last season.

The two specials focused on police shootouts rather than chases themselves, although some of the clips featured a car chase along with a shootout. The first edition of World's Scariest Police Shootouts aired on May 15, 1997, and the second edition entitled World's Scariest Police Shootouts 2 aired on April 23, 1998. Both episodes were narrated and hosted by Bunnell. The episodes featured more well-known content, such as the North Hollywood shootout, the murder of Darrell Lunsford, the 1991 Sacramento hostage crisis, White supremacist Chevie Kehoe and his shootout with police, and the 1996 Honolulu hostage crisis.

Eventually, the show was broadcast weekly. Bunnell's commentary was often characterized by puns, multiple clichés, and over-dramatic descriptions of the struggle between good and evil, the police and criminals, victims and abusers, etc. Although Bunnell hosted and commented on most of the show, most police video segments were dubbed with the actual law enforcement officials acting in the situation presented. Tire screeching noises, horn beeps, automobile collision sounds and sirens are often overdubbed in these segments; this is especially noticeable in footage where vehicles are driving over dry grass or sand.

It has been widely noticed that the same voice is used in almost every helicopter footage scene, regardless of the location the footage is from. This uncredited role is said to be that of Lawrence Welk III, who usually goes by "Larry Welk", and is a reporter and helicopter traffic pilot for KCAL-TV and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles. He is also the grandson of famed musician Lawrence Welk.

Originally, a typical episode included sections entitled: "PIT Maneuver", "Car Thieves", "Rainy Chase", "Big Rig Road Block", "Jumping Off Bridge", and "Drunk Drivers". This was dropped after the first season, and replaced with a string of clips, each commentated on by Bunnell. After a few videos, a small clip of Bunnell would be shown, often describing the police mentality behind the videos that were about to appear.

Occasionally, episodes were dedicated to police officers killed in the line of duty and an episode featured the footage of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 in 1996.

There were VHS releases of the first three World's Scariest Police Chases specials with additional footage in late 1997 and a video game was released near the tail end of the series' original run in June 2001.

Series overview

Fridays at 8:00 PM (5–12)

Mondays at 10PM (10–13) Mondays at 11PM (3–9)

Episodes

Specials (1997–2003)

(Spike – USA) (FX – USA) (Fox – USA)

Season 1 (1998)

Season 2 (1998–99)

Season 3 (1999–00)

Season 4 (2000–01)

The show's title was shortened to Police Videos for this season only.{{Episode table|background = #FFDF00

Season 5 (2012)

Video game

A video game based on the series was released for the PlayStation in 2001, entitled World's Scariest Police Chases, also featuring Bunnell. The game received mixed reviews, ranging from a 3.6/10 from GameSpot.com, to a 9/10 from Official PlayStation Magazine (UK).

In popular culture

In the Family Guy episode "Quagmire's Baby", there is a sequence of Fred Flintstone fleeing from the police in the family car, in an episode of World's Wildest Police Videos. Flintstone crashes, and attempts to flee on foot, but is delayed by the Hanna-Barbera skidaddle running effect. A similar sequence was used in the episode "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side", when *Star Wars''' TIE fighters and a Star Destroyer were chasing the *Millennium Falcon''. These sequences were narrated by Bunnell himself.

It was also parodied on MADtv as "World's Queeniest Police Chases".

Some of the Alarm für Cobra 11 - Die Autobahnpolizei, Der Clown and one from Die Wache car crashing clips were used in 2 episodes in 1998.

The show appears to be a source of inspiration for the in-game television show "The Underbelly of Paradise" in the video game Grand Theft Auto V.

Worldwide syndication

Americas

• United States: April 2, 1998 – September 7, 2001 on Fox. The series was syndicated on local stations, such as UPN, both CourtTV/TruTV from 2002 to 2011, and on Spike TV/Spike until 2015. The series is currently airing on Busted. It was also seen as World's Most Dramatic Police Chases in the early morning on TNT. Spanish language re-runs were also syndicated on Telemundo under "Acción Extrema".
• Mexico: Televisa
• Latin America: truTV Latin America
• Canada: mentv, CourtTV Canada
• Brazil: weekly (Sunday) mash-up show consisting of 4 shows mixed together. Aired on Universal Channel.

Europe

• Hungary: Viasat 6
• Sweden: Aired and rerun on ZTV.
• Norway: Viasat 4
• Germany: on RTL, called Im Einsatz, die spektakulärsten Polizei-Videos der Welt, commentated by former American police officer Stephan T. Rose.
• Ireland: TV3
• Iceland: SkjárEinn (2000–2001)
• United Kingdom: Bravo, ITV4, Channel 5, Men & Motors and CBS Reality
• Greece: Skai TV
• Italy: AXN Italy
• Czech Republic: TV Prima

Asia

• Indonesia: antv, NET.
• United Arab Emirates: MBC Action
• Malaysia: Star TV
• Philippines: Studio 23, Maxxx
• Thailand: UBC series

Malaysia

• Malaysia: TV3

Oceania

• Australia: Some premiere episodes were shown on the Seven Network and Network Ten, and re-runs of all episodes appeared on Fox8. Episodes of the 2012 series began airing on the Seven Network in 2013.

Africa

• South Africa: DStv

Home media

There were also home video releases on VHS of the first three World's Scariest Police Chases around late 1997, which included never-before-seen footage that wasn't shown on FOX. The specials would be re-released as Deluxe Versions in the late 1990s, with minor differences.

In early April 2023, it was announced that New York-based streaming provider FilmRise had acquired the digital distribution rights to the entire series from Pursuit Productions, it was made available on their streaming service and on iTunes/Apple TV, which included some of the additional specials that premiered during the shows original run. Between April–July 2023, FilmRise would upload the entire series to their "FilmRise True Crime" YouTube channel, releasing full episodes of the show on a weekly basis. Between July–August 2023, some of the additional specials were also uploaded to the channel, with the specials (excluding World's Scariest Police Chases) being incorrectly labeled as "Season 6".

The series and its specials are also available for streaming online on The Roku Channel, Amazon Prime Video/Amazon Freevee (with the exception of fourth season), Pluto TV (United Kingdom only) and Plex (second and fifth seasons only).

It will be made available on FilmRise's streaming partners Crackle, Tubi, Peacock and Xumo Play in the future.

It is also available to stream as a FAST channel on Amazon’s Freevee, Rakuten TV and Plex streaming services.

References

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