If you grew up in the late seventies, you probably remember the red and white Kenworth. It was loud. It was shiny. And for some reason, there was a chimpanzee in the passenger seat wearing a tiny hat. Honestly, looking back at BJ and the Bear, the whole concept feels like a fever dream sparked by the CB radio craze and a massive surplus of denim.
It worked.
The show, which ran from 1978 to 1981 on NBC, wasn't just some flash-in-the-pan gimmick. It captured a very specific American moment. This was the era of Smokey and the Bandit and Convoy. Trucking was cool. Being an outlaw on the highway was the ultimate middle finger to the "man."
The Man, The Monkey, and the 1979 Kenworth K100
Greg Evigan played Billy Joe (B.J.) McKay. He was a freelance reefer hauler with a heart of gold and a thick head of hair that stayed suspiciously perfect despite living in a truck. Then there was Bear. Bear was a chimp, named after the legendary Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant.
It’s easy to dismiss this as "monkeys are funny" television. But if you watch the pilot—produced by Glen A. Larson, the same guy who gave us Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider—there’s a weirdly earnest attempt at a Western vibe. B.J. was the wandering gunslinger. His Kenworth was his horse. The highway was the frontier.
People often forget how much the truck itself was a character. That 1979 Kenworth K100 Aerodyne was a beast. It had the custom paint job—red with white stripes—that every kid with a model kit tried to replicate.
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The plot was basically a loop. B.J. would roll into a town. He’d find a corrupt sheriff (usually played by Claude Akins as Sheriff Elroy P. Lobo). He’d get into a scrap, Bear would do something clever like steal a set of keys or distract a guard, and then they’d hit the road again. It was simple. It was fun.
Why B.J. and the Bear Tapped Into the 1970s Zeitgeist
You can't talk about this show without talking about the CB radio. In 1978, everyone wanted a "handle." People were obsessed with the idea of a secret language used by truckers to bypass speed traps.
The show leveraged this perfectly.
It wasn't just about the truck; it was about the culture of independence. B.J. McKay didn't work for a big corporation. He was an owner-operator. In a decade defined by economic stagnation and the oil crisis, the idea of a guy who could just start his engine and leave his problems in the rearview mirror was incredibly seductive.
Also, we have to talk about the "B.J. McKay Girls." By the third season, the show tried to pivot. They brought in a fleet of female truck drivers to work for B.J. It was a blatant attempt to keep the ratings from sliding, shifting the focus from the lone-wolf trucker to a sort of ensemble comedy. It didn't really work, and it kind of killed the original vibe of the show, but it’s a fascinating look at how networks scrambled to adapt to changing tastes in the early eighties.
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The Reality of Working with a Chimp
Working with Bear wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Greg Evigan has spoken in various interviews about the reality of sharing a cab with a primate. Chimps are strong. Like, terrifyingly strong.
There were two chimps, actually. They were trained by the legendary Hubert Wells. While they looked cute on screen, they could be unpredictable. Evigan once mentioned that you always had to be careful because if a chimp gets annoyed, it doesn't just pout—it bites.
Still, the chemistry worked. There was a genuine warmth between Evigan and his simian co-star that sold the ridiculous premise. If B.J. treated Bear like a person, the audience did too.
The Sheriff Lobo Connection
You can’t mention BJ and the Bear without mentioning the spin-off. Sheriff Lobo was such a popular antagonist that he got his own show, The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo. This was peak 1970s television—a universe of corrupt lawmen, bumbling deputies, and high-speed chases.
Claude Akins played Lobo with a perfect mix of menace and incompetence. He was the guy you loved to hate. The crossovers between the two shows created one of the earliest "shared universes" on television, long before Marvel made it a billion-dollar requirement.
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The Lasting Legacy of the Red and White Rig
Why do we still care?
Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s the fact that the show represents a time when TV didn't have to be "prestige" to be good. It just had to be entertaining.
BJ and the Bear remains a touchstone for truck enthusiasts. Go to any major truck show today, and there’s a good chance you’ll see a tribute Kenworth K100. It’s a symbol of a specific era of American manufacturing and pop culture.
The show eventually succumbed to the 1981 writers' strike and shifting demographics. The world was moving toward the glossier, high-tech eighties. Knight Rider was just around the corner, trading the semi-truck for a talking Trans Am.
But for a few years, a guy and his monkey were the kings of the road.
What You Can Do Now to Relive the Glory Days
If you’re looking to dive back into this world, here is how you actually do it:
- Hunt down the DVD sets. Due to licensing issues with the music (the show used a ton of period-accurate hits), streaming is a nightmare. Physical media is your best friend here.
- Check out the fan communities. There are massive groups on social media dedicated to "Classic TV Trucks" where people track down the actual filming locations and the fate of the original Kenworths used in production.
- Look for the theme song. Greg Evigan actually sang it. It’s a catchy piece of country-pop that perfectly encapsulates the show’s "hey, we’re just having a good time" attitude.
- Visit a Truck Museum. The Iowa 80 Trucking Museum often has exhibits related to pop culture trucks. Seeing a K100 in person gives you a real sense of the scale B.J. was dealing with.
The show might be a relic, but the spirit of the open road is pretty much timeless. Whether you're in it for the monkey or the machinery, BJ and the Bear is a weird, wonderful piece of TV history that deserves its spot in the Hall of Fame.