Hawaii Five-O was shot almost entirely on location in the Hawaiian islands, and it had much of the same cast throughout all twelve seasons. The "Five-O" police squad was headed by the hands-on, no-nonsense police detective Steve McGarrett, played (with never a shirt untucked or a hair out of place) by Jack Lord (born John Joseph Patrick Ryan in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1920), with James MacArthur as his sidekick Danny ("Danno") Williams. It also featured what were arguably the most compelling opening credits in the history of television.

     The opening credits to Hawaii Five-O commenced with a perfectly breaking wave from a Hawaiian surf­ ing spot, accompanied by traditional Islander drums and Western drums and cymbals. The soundtrack then introduces multiple brass instruments, as trumpets riff on a high-tempo beat, backed by a string accompani­ ment that provides a counterpoint to the brass section. Visually, the opening credits offer a series of images that became synonymous with Hawaii for audiences worldwide: surfers catching 20-foot waves, Islander men vigorously paddling a straw canoe, dancing women with floral leis around their necks and rapidly gyrating hips, and Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) atop a beachside high-rise apartment balcony.

     The musical score for the opening credits was com­ posed by Morton Stevens, who also composed much of the incidental music for the early series. Stevens also composed the theme music for TV series such as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964), Police Woman (1977), Knight Rider (1982), and Matlock (1986). But none of these were as evocative as the Hawaii Five-O theme music, covered by artists as diverse as comedian Bill Murray (as Nick the Lounge Singer on Staurday Night Live in 1977), to the Australian punk band Radio Birdman, whose 1978 single "Aloha Steve and Danno" was a paean to the program, marked by a re­ markable section where the band do a guitar-based rendition of the theme music.

     The Radio Birdman song ends with repetition of the line "Book him Danno. Murder one," which is apt, be­ cause after the opening credits, it is this closing line that most people remember about the program. In terms of classical narrative theory (Kozloff 1992), Hawaii Five-O had an extremely regular and pre­ dictable narrative structure. The first third of the pro­ gram established the presence of criminality on the island, frequently arising from someone arriving in Hawaii from elsewhere, such as the U.S. mainland or a communist state. The second third of the program would involve McGarrett establishing the presence of criminality on the island, and developing a strategy (usually unsuccessful) to stake out the criminals, such as the ever-popular A.P.B. (All Points Bulletin). In the final third of the program, tragedy would often ensue for gullible locals who got caught up in the criminals' schemes, as Steve and Danno pursued and appre­ hended the criminals, leading to the famous final line "Book him Danno. Murder one."

     Although Hawaii Five-O was produced throughout the 1970s, it never adopted the character-driven style of police dramas such as Hill Street Blues that emerged shortly after. Its focus was essentially plot-driven rather than character-driven. The only thing that the audience needed to know about Steve McGarrett was that he is responsible for enforcing the law in Hawaii. If one were to use the language of Lacanian psycho­ analysis, McGarrett is the law in Hawaii, which is per­ haps why criminality is so often presented on Hawaii Five-O as arriving from outside the islands.

     Hawaii Five-O was a highly progressive program in the late 1960s in terms of its commitment to racial and ethnic diversity. It had characters of Hawaiian Is­ lander background as members of the police force, such as Gilbert Kauhi (Zulu) who played Kono, and it also acknowledged Hawaii's large Chinese commu­nity, with characters such as Detective Chin Ho, played by actor Kam Fong. However, its racial and ethnic diversity was not matched by any commitment to gender equality: after a brief period in the first se­ries where there was a female detective, the detectives of Hawaii Five-0 remained resolutely male.

     After the final episode of Hawaii Five-0 screened on U.S. television on April 5, 1980, Jack Lord re­mained in Hawaii, which had become his adopted home, and which had certainly adopted him and the program. When he died on January 22, 1998, Stanley Fong, President of the Hawaiian Chamber of Com­merce, observed that "It was the original TV show that brought Hawaii to the fore of people who wanted to visit.  It was a marketing bonanza for us" (quoted in Adams 1998). Hawaii Five-O's ongoing significance lies in the unique way in which it packaged Hawaii as a site of cultural consumption for global audiences, its regularized narrative structure, and its compelling opening credits and theme music.