Detective Extralarge: The Miami Vice Sequel That Never Was
Contributor David Rolland takes you on a journey into a little-known Italian cop show starring Philip Michael Thomas which aired after Miami Vice's run came to an end...
Given Hollywood’s current penchant for regurgitation, it’s surprising there haven’t been more Miami Vices since its final episode aired on NBC on May 21, 1989. There was of course the 2006 movie when Colin Farrell stepped into Don Johnson’s sockless shoes to portray Sonny Crockett and Jamie Foxx played Ricardo Tubbs. If you’re a fan of easter eggs, the TV series Nash Bridges which starred Don Johnson as a San Francisco cop, had a couple episodes where Philip Michael Thomas guest starred serving as a Miami Vice reunion (with the second of his appearances even knowingly being titled “Out of Miami”).
But unless you want to rewatch the 114 original episodes, there’s very little else on the Miami Vice bone for obsessives to chew.
Unless you want to take a dive into the truly bizarre.
What if I was to tell you that two years after Miami Vice ended, there was another buddy action show filmed in Miami starring Philip Michael Thomas as the sidekick? Like Miami Vice this show was also chock full of off the wall pop culture guest stars except instead of featuring Miles Davis and Frank Zappa, it had Lou Ferrigno, Erik Estrada, and Dionne Warwick.
If you’re screaming “Malarkey, this show could not exist, I’d have heard of it,” well then let’s introduce you to Detective Extralarge, an Italian production, never having aired in America, only available on DVD and streaming on obscure pirate Russian websites. This is a 12 episode, two season series so ridiculous, you could imagine it would be the output if you asked ChatGPT to formulate a TV series from 1991 that was created by an Italian tourist who loved 1980’s actions shows that just took a sightseeing tour around Miami.
The show is not only a must see for lovers of kitsch, it’s also an interesting time capsule of a pre-Hurricane Andrew Miami. You see a Miami where the streets were still littered with parking meters, Southern Bell pay phones, and Miami Herald vending machines. A South Florida that still had empty plots of land, still a region where Australian pine trees dominated every park’s landscape.
Detective Extralarge starred Bud Spencer, a one-time Olympian swimmer who represented his home country of Italy in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Spencer’s larger than life physique had him go on to an acting career where he performed in spaghetti westerns and buddy comedies, with another Italian who anglicized his name to Terrence Hill.
By the time Detective Extralarge was filmed you could not imagine Spencer swimming across a pool. He was in his early sixties and looked like he enjoyed quite a few extra helpings of gnocchi. But Spencer still had a powerful enough presence that you believed he had the strength to knock a bad guy cold with a single punch, even if his back was conveniently turned towards the camera during every fight scene so there was no proof a stunt double was doing the hard work.
Each episode, or I suppose movie, since they all have 90 minute run times, starts off with a catchy beginning that has nothing to do with the rest of the show. The intro features two dudes jet skiing on crystal clear waters as the theme song “Extralarge” plays. The song has an electro New Jack Swing calypso feel and is sung by Amii Stewart. There is no second guessing that this singer is a fan of the extra large.
At the first episode/movie titled “Black and White” we actually see the jet skiers come into the episode for a moment. They motor through Six Flags Atlantis, the old water park off I-95 at the border of Dade and Broward, just as a drug deal is about to take place. Who is watching the transaction? Our old buddy Philip Michael Thomas. You think Thomas is perhaps the star, the suave Detective Ricardo Tubbs back in action.
But no, when the drug deal goes bad, Thomas barely moves a finger. Instead it’s up to Detective Extralarge to pound some sense into the ne’er do wells. After a visit to a police station we learn Bud Spencer’s character’s name is not Detective Extralarge, rather he is Jack Costello, a private detective with an American name, whose voice is dubbed by an English language actor speaking with the heavily accented English of a comedian doing an Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation. But Detective Extralarge is not just a private dick, at night he plays saxophone in a jazz club off Española Way. Even more intriguing, he actually lives and has an office in the building that became known as the Versace Mansion on Ocean Drive.
It’s there that Costello confronts Philip Michael Thomas who has been trailing him for the entire first quarter of the movie. Thomas is handcuffed and finally speaks in an over the top French accent that would make Pepé Le Pew blush. He is not a federal agent, nor a cop, he is Jean Philippe Dumas, a French cartoonist, who sees Costello as his muse and has been drawing all of his adventures. Dumas is so excited by Costello’s action packed life that he dubs him, Extralarge, not as an act of fat shaming, but because his legend is so big he deserves his own zip code.
Meanwhile on Star Island, a United States Senator, who also for some reason speaks with an Eastern European accent, is being robbed by Wendy Davis. Wendy leads the Senator’s goons on a motorcycle chase that has her eventually end up in Detective ExtraLarge’s office. Her shenanigans do not come with much motivation except to seemingly have a reason to film some more car chases.
The next chase scene takes place at Bill Baggs Park, in the shadow of the lighthouse back when its red bricks were exposed rather than painted white. Wendy has set up Detective Extralarge and the Senator to be at the same place at the same time, only to show up in a stolen pick up truck with a Confederate flag hanging from its top and a license plate advertising country music radio station KIIS FM, in the kind of product placement that would get a publicist cancelled in 2024. They drive through the park with the bad guys shooting until Extralarge has had enough shouting, “You want to play war? We play war!” Then a couple gun shots has the bad guys’ car flipping over and over towards Biscayne Bay.
Some more scenes ensue including one where Thomas decides to stop having Dumas speak with a French accent. Extralarge and Wendy comment on his American accent, but no explanation is given. Eventually order is restored. The bad guys go to jail. Extralarge is to receive a medal in the Freedom Tower, but Wendy has stolen the medal. Dumas and Extralarge watch Wendy drive off on Biscayne Boulevard and start dancing and singing the words, “She’s so sweet, she’s so fine” as the credits roll.
The five other ensuing first season episodes get no less gonzo, nor take any less advantage of showing off every single 1991 tourist attraction Miami could brag about.
The second episode “Miami Killer” begins with Extralarge for some reason dressed like a literal circus clown, very slowly chasing after a criminal on a Miami rooftop. The episode involves a child abductor, so Extralarge and Dumas end up where all Miami kids used to hang out, at the old Parrot Jungle site in Pinecrest. Dumas and Extralarge go after a perpetrator in the first chase I’ve ever seen that exploited the many trunks of a ficus tree.
The third episode “Moving Targets” starts with Thomas on a stake-out in drag complete with wig and make-up, under the shade of another ficus tree in Merrie Christmas Park, before he gets molested by a creeper that only ExtraLarge can save him from.
Sadly in season two, Philip Michael Thomas is nowhere to be seen. His character Jean Philippe Dumas, is said to have returned to his native France. The thin strands on which Detective ExtraLarge could be set in the Miami Vice multiverse have been abruptly ripped apart.
In one of the first scenes of Season 2 we see Philip Michael Thomas has been replaced by Michael Winslow. Winslow portrays the character Archibald Baxter, who Extralarge in a not too enlightened example of 1993 racial profiling still calls Dumas. Fans of 1980’s pop culture will quickly recognize Winslow as the comedian who could mimic any sound effect with his mouth from the Police Academy movies and Spaceballs. This leaves you wondering that if season one of Detective Extralarge, could be an unofficial Miami Vice sequel, is season two a spinoff of Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach?
Watch one of the opening scenes from Detective Extralarge, filmed at Six Flags Atlantis, here:
A version of this essay appears in Issue 11 of Islandia Journal, which you can purchase in its entirety here:
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Maybe 2 years ago on YouTube I saw clips from what looked like a new TV movie reuniting the original cast playing the same characters many years later. If it was fake or made by a fan, then it was the most amazing, impressive fake fan project I've ever seen. It looked 100% legit. Some of those actors have not been seen on screen much for a long time (making it harder to fake them looking older now, doing scenes from a current drama). I'd love to see the whole thing. I can't find it on YouTube now, but maybe someone else can.