The original Hawaii Five-O: The sales tape

In honor of the return of Hawaii Five-O to CBS tonight, here's a syndication sales presentation tape from January 1981, pitching local stations on the original 1968-80 series' exotic locale, exicting action, and oh yeah... those beautiful women!

The mastermind behind this piece was Viacom, which originally sold Hawaii Five-O in syndication. CBS produced the series and owns the copyright. Ironically, CBS spun-off Viacom in 1971 due to the financial interest and syndication rules, and when those rules ended in 1996, it paved the way for CBS and Viacom to reunite in 1999, which brought Hawaii Five-O back under CBS' roof (CBS took total control of the franchise when CBS and Viacom split in 2006.)

The New Hawaii Five-O (which stars Alex O'Laughlin) is produced by CBS Television Studios, and you can catch it every Monday night on CBS at 9 p.m. Central.

If you want to check out the original (handled by CBS Television Distribution), the Jack Lord version is still running every weekday at 11 a.m. on Me-Too (WCIU-DT, Ch. 26.3).