Edward Woodward and Adam Ant on the cover of Ant News Today, 1985
 
The Equalizer was a crime drama starring Edward Woodward (The Wicker Man‘s Sgt. Howie) as Robert McCall, a secret agent turned private detective. Like the contemporary Miami Vice, The Equalizer brought in guest-star musicians to play the sinister jerks peopling its slough of rank criminality.

Also like Miami Vice, it was considered racy. Comparing the two series’ depiction of “raw, sometimes shocking underworld grit,” the LA Times reported in October 1985 that “several advertisers pulled their sponsorship of the [recent Equalizer] episode titled ‘The Lock Box,’ which starred Adam Ant as a purveyor of bizarre and forbidden sex.”

Many full episodes of this morally corrosive, sexually perverting entertainment are now playing on the world wide internet, and collected here are the ones with famous rockers. Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz (not yet 20!) plays the title role in “Mama’s Boy,” in which he gets mixed up with such drug dealers as Alex Winter’s Jeffrey. John Cale of the Velvet Underground wears his Songs for Drella ‘do in the role of “Aryan Leader” in “Race Traitors.” David Johansen of New York Dolls and Buster Poindexter fame and Stewart Copeland of the Police (writer of the series’ theme song) appear in “Re-Entry.” Though I haven’t watched Meat Loaf’s performance as Sugar Fly Simon in “Bump and Run,” I’m sure it’s some of his best work. And Adam Ant forces nice young women into prostitution in “The Lock Box.” (I haven’t been able to find the Quentin Crisp or John Cameron Mitchell episodes, but they must be on the DVD set.)

After the jump, watch John Cale’s, ah, “understated” performance as a neo-Nazi in the episode “Race Traitors”...

 
In the sketch, performed on the British TV show Saturday Live, which ran from 1985 to 1987 and was heavily influenced by the U.S. show Saturday Night Live, Meat Loaf and Fry poke fun at the massive gap between the wild American lingo of the new generation and the proper diction of a Cambridge graduate of the Stephen Fry mold. Fry’s punctilious manner is as much a part of the joke as the manic style of Meat Loaf, but Fry was on “home turf” if you will, so he had something of an advantage.

What becomes evident mere seconds into the sketch is that Meat Loaf is reading from cue cards, and Meat Loaf’s obvious reliance on the cards becomes part of the fun—Fry even begins to prompt him after a while.
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Not Meat Loaf
Fry and Hitchens Slam the Church

A man who was dressed in a vampire costume like the musical artist Meat Loaf is facing a criminal charge for allegedly grabbing the wheel of a taxi he was in.

Eric Brown, 37, of Middletown, was arrested early Sunday morning on the side of northbound I-75.

Police say Brown grabbed the wheel of the taxi while the car was in motion. They say he was drunk. He is facing one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct while intoxicated.

Brown was wearing a vampire costume to look like the singer Meat Loaf, according to police.

According to police records, Brown’s alias at the time of his arrest was Meat Loaf.

‘Meat Loaf’ Look-Alike Charged In Taxi Incident