Hawaiian Eye
Robert Conrad,Connie Stevens,Anthony Eisley, andPoncie Ponce inHawaiian Eye
Created by	Roy Huggins
Starring	Anthony Eisley Robert Conrad Connie Stevens Poncie Ponce Grant Williams Troy Donahue
Theme music composer	Jerry Livingston Mack David
Opening theme	"The Hawaiian Eye Theme" performed by Warren Barker
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	134(list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer	William T. Orr
Producers	Stanley Niss Charles Hoffman Ed Jurist Oren W. Haglund (Production manager)
Production locations	Oahu,Hawaii California
Running time	60 minutes
Production company	Warner Bros. Television
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	October 7, 1959 (1959-10-07) – April 2, 1963 (1963-04-02)
Related
77 Sunset Strip Bourbon Street Beat Surfside 6

Hawaiian Eye is an American detective television series that ran from October 1959 to April 1963 on theABC television network.

Private investigator Tracy Steele (Anthony Eisley) and his half-Hawaiian partner, Tom Lopaka (Robert Conrad), own Hawaiian Eye, a combination detective agency and private security firm, located inHonolulu, Hawaii. Their principal client is theHawaiian Village Hotel, which in exchange for security services, provides the agency with a luxurious private compound on the hotel grounds. The partners investigate mysteries and protect clients with the sometime help of photographer Cricket Blake (Connie Stevens), who also sings at the hotel's Shell Bar, and aukulele-playing cab driver Kim Quisado (Poncie Ponce), who has connections throughout the islands. Engineer turned detective Greg McKenzie (Grant Williams), joins the agency later on as a full partner, while hotel social director Philip Barton (Troy Donahue) lends a hand after Tracy Steele departs.^[1]

Hawaiian Eye was one of severalABC/Warner Bros. Television detective series of the era situated in different exotic locales. Others includedHollywood-based77 Sunset Strip;Bourbon Street Beat, set inNew Orleans; and Miami'sSurfside 6. In reality, all were shot on the Warner Bros.backlot in Burbank, Calif. making it easy for characters—and sometimes whole scripts—to cross over. Although the shows are notspin-offs in the traditional sense,Sunset was the first in this chain of "exotic location detective series". In this regard,Hawaiian Eye was the most viable of theSunset look-alikes, lasting four seasons.^[2] The show's debut coincided with several real-world developments that helped contribute to its longevity. These werethe granting of statehood to Hawaii, the advent of mass tourism to the new state brought about by the introduction of jetliners for commercial passenger flights, and the promotional efforts ofHenry J. Kaiser, whose real-estate projects in Honolulu included building the hotel complex originally known as Kaiser's Hawaiian Village (later theHilton Hawaiian Village Hotel).

The series regulars, who were shown during the opening credits, are listed below in the order in which they debuted during the show's four-year run.

• Lt. Danny Quon, played byMel Prestidge, was the Hawaiian Eye's main contact with theHonolulu Police Department.
• Moke, played byDouglas Mossman, was the chief uniformed security officer for Hawaiian Eye. He went by several variant names in the first season before the writers finally settled on one.
• Paul, played byAndre Philippe, was the master of ceremonies at the Shell Bar in the Hawaiian Village Hotel.
• Bert, played by Sam Rawlins, was the doorman at the Hawaiian Village Hotel.
• Teo, played by several actors including Ralph Hanalei and Keone, was a uniformed security guard for the Hawaiian Eye agency.
• Roy Hondine, played by Rush Williams, was a columnist for a major Honolulu newspaper.
• Sunny Day, played byTina Cole, was a singer at the Shell Bar. The role was created after Connie Stevens temporarily left the series in the fourth season over a contract dispute.
• Sgt. Alika, played byMakee K. Blaisdell, was a detective for theHilo police force and appeared in several episodes that took place on thebig island of Hawaii.
• Bubbles Smith, played by Karen Griffin, was a temporary girlfriend of Tom Lopaka in several second-season episodes.

All of the Warner Bros. detective shows of this era featured a musical interlude, generally performed by a series regular. On occasion,Hawaiian Eye had a guest act perform:

• Sterling Mossman and his Barefoot Bar Gang: A real policeman by day, Sterling also performed nights at the Barefoot Bar, one of Honolulu's most popular tourist attractions from 1952–1969.
• Arthur Lyman and his exotic tropical sounds: In one episode, "An Echo of Honor," Connie Stevens sang a version of the title song accompanied by Lyman's group.

Hawaiian Eye would become the precursor in a long list of other crime action-drama detective andpolice procedural television shows based in and around Hawaii, includingHawaii Five-O and itsreboot series,Magnum, P.I. and itsreboot series,Hawaiian Heat,One West Waikiki,Hawaii andNCIS: Hawai'i.

• A limited amount of spin-off material accompanied the series.Gold Key published a single comic book,Hawaiian Eye #1, in 1963, which detailed an adventure of Cricket and Phil Barton. In 1962, a singlenovelization byFrank Castle also appeared on bookshelves in America.^[2]
• A Warner Bros. Music record of the show featured some songs performed by Stevens and Robert Conrad, a rerecording of the title song and some Warner stock music.

• The series was parodied in a 1962 episode ofThe Flintstones inSeason Three's "Hawaiian Escapade", billed asHawaiian Spy withWilma andBetty as huge fans of the show, in particularly over its hunky lead star, Larry Lava; where they win to be on the set of the production shot on Hawaiirock's Rockiki Beach (a parody onWaikīkī Beach) in the show's promotional contest.^[3]
• The show was also parodied inBob Clampett's cartoon seriesBeany And Cecil in an episode entitled "Hawaiian Eyeball."

SeeList ofHawaiian Eye episodes

Wikimedia Commons has media related toHawaiian Eye.

• Hawaiian Eye atIMDb

• American Broadcasting Company crime dramas
• 1950s American crime television series
• 1960s American crime television series
• 1959 American television series debuts
• 1963 American television series endings
• Television shows set in Hawaii
• Television shows filmed in Los Angeles
• Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios
• Black-and-white American television shows
• American detective television series
• American English-language television shows
• Fictional portrayals of the Honolulu Police Department
• Cultural depictions of Kamehameha I

• Articles with short description
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