twenty one jump street

Just a story about 21 Jump Street.
Do any of you remember when Fox was the coolest channel on tv? Sunday nights were the shit, The Simpsons, Married With Children, and of course 21 Jump Street. I was living with Kristen and Magda at Tropical Gardens in Fort Lauderdale. We didn't have a TV but Kristen borrowed one of those tiny little black and white things and we would gather around on Sunday and watch the Fox lineup.

We knew very early on that Johnny Depp was awesome but seriously who could have guessed about the career he would have?

At some point, in the Fall or Winter (must have been cold in Canada because the premise of the show was that everyone but Johnny's and Peter DeLouise's characters were freezing but those two got to go on an assignment in Miami and the others were jealous), anyway....the show put up flyers requesting extras to show up at Woody's on the Beach in Miami and a bunch of us decided to skip classes and go.

My friend Cindy and I drove together and worried that we wouldn't be able to find our friends once we got there because there were sooooo many people (keep in mind, this was pre-cell phone days). So we arrive and walk out to the beach to start the search. Well, the entire beach was full of beautiful bodies dressed in pastel and colorful bikinis and swim trunks and then there was one lone table with a group of obviously "art" students wearing mostly black. Black hair, black pants and shorts, long sleeve shirts and not one swimsuit in the lot was there standing out like a sore thumb. "Uh...I think I see them." "Gee, you think?"

So, we gather at the "art" table and wait for our moment of fame. I don't think the producers were really looking for that type of extra because we didn't exactly get front row seats when the cameras were rolling. We were however standing toward the back of the crowd and as luck would have it is where Johnny Depp was making his entrance from. So, for several takes he had to keep brushing past me to get to the front of the crowd where the female jello wrestlers were (high class). I was next to my friend Frank who kept standing on his tip toes to try and see.

We spent the whole day there and during breaks we were able to get autographs and bug the stars (such groupies!). Cindy took these shots and got a cute one of Peter winking at her playfully, she was so happy. One of our other friends, Dawn (Frank's girlfriend) was standing right next to me and she is petit and had jet black bluntly cut hair and was wearing very goth clothes and as Johnny walked by he totally checked her out. I was so jealous. She looked at me like "did he just do what I think he did or was that my imagination?" He was engaged to Winona Ryder at that time and Dawn had that whole look going on.

The day ended and we anxiously waited to see the episode which didn't air for several weeks. When it did air we taped it of course. We watched and when the scenes came on that we knew we were in, we looked closely for any sign of us. Not one glimpse. We rewound the tape and watched in slow motion and there it was....Frank's nose peeking out over the crowd. It was hilarious and Frank's nose had it's 1 second of fame and I knew I was standing right next to him so I lived vicariously through Frank and his nose.