A way to keep track of some of the features in the Highway To Heaven series. It is intended to be a beginner’s guide in key points outlining the most basic, important aspects of the story. They will be referenced in almost any episode. To consult at will.

Jonathan Smith and Mark Gordon: the two main characters of the series. Jonathan (Michael Landon) is a “probationary” angel cast to Earth with the purpose of solving various assignments, while Mark (Victor French) is an ex-cop and Jonathan’s best friend, who joins him after the pilot.

A’s: baseball cap Mark wears in almost any episode of the series. It’s an original Oakland Athletics cap.

Assignment: the task Jonathan and Mark receive for each episode; basically what’s the episode is going to be about. It usually revolves around helping someone out, or getting a specific job. Most episode features a single assignment both Jonathan and Mark deal with together, while others branch out into many different assignments, and in those cases Jonathan and Mark get separated for the job. In other cases, an assignment involves different other assignments of varying relevance, with Jonathan usually taking the main assignment, if there is a bigger one, as Mark deals with the smaller ones. In some other cases as well, there are two different, unrelated assignments, and they deal with them either separately or together. The assignment is never thoroughly explained in the episode, so the “assignment” is intended to be a brief synopsis of what the episode is about.

The “Boss”: the way Jonathan and Mark call their almighty superior that provides them with the assignments. It’s an euphemism, no need to investigate further. Sometimes, Jonathan also uses the name “Friend”, especially on earlier episodes, to justify some peculiar occurrences.

BBD: acronym that stands for “Bums”, “Bins”, “Drugs”, three problems the series recurringly deals with multiple times, often described as the most serious issues America has to deal with. They are also known as the Landon’s obsessions.

Car: the staple vehicle owned by Mark and used by both characters to move from one assignment to the next in the series. It is an original, blue 1977 Ford LTD II.

Cute: Mark’s catchprase, whenever Jonathan plays one of his harmless tricks on him. Sometimes, it is used by Jonathan himself as well (in that case, it’s a “reverse cute”), if Mark makes a particularly sharp remark.

Probationary angel: Jonathan’s title when he’s first introduced in the series. It currently remains the only way he describes himself for the rest of the series. It supposedly means he’s not entirely an angel, but has to earn that by successfully carrying out his assignments, although the show never actually gives a proper definition.

The Punchline: a line that a character says with the intention of leaving another staggering or thinking about it, in a positive way, even though it often just sounds idealistic or very outlandish. It’s mostly a Jonathan’s knack, but sometimes Mark gets some impressive ones as well.

The “Stuff”: the way Jonathan and Mark refer to Jonathan’s mysterious powers that includes reading people’s mind, moving objects around or entering into others dreams. Term jokingly invented by Mark but then incorporated into Jonathan’s vocabulary.

Other useful entries in this guide:

Catchphrase: a recurring line in the series. They include: “Cute, that’s cute, real cute“, (mentioned earlier), “Give me a break, will ya” (when Jonathan lectures Mark on something), “Kemosabe” (the nickname Mark uses on some occasion to call Jonathan), which is a reference to a famous old western program. These catchphrases are mostly attributed to Mark.

Doozy: it refers to an episode featuring an obnoxious, impolite kid. And there’s plenty of them.

Highway of mysteries: a random feature of an episode that is left unexplained during the series. For instance, some common mysteries are: what’s Jonathan carrying in his bag from the introduction, what does it mean that Jonathan’s a “probationary” angel, does Jonathan have to have wings to ascend to Heaven. The “wings affair” constitutes itself an entire different story.

Highwayman: nickname of a writer who just contributed to one, or very few episodes in the series, unlike Michael Landon (show creator), Dan Gordon (headwriter) and their various collaborators. The remark implies that the episode is likely going to be different from the rest of the series, most of the time by letting Jonathan handle the assignment and leaving Mark as a comic sidekick, even though he’s supposed to be the protagonist as well.

Horselaugh: a moment in the series when the characters randomly burst out uproariously laughing for no apparent reason. A very common trope in the 1980s TV.

Quiet quitters: indicates when an episode concludes with Jonathan and Mark absconding without saying a word to the people they met and helped for the assignments. Fortunately, on most episodes they actually inform those they’ve met along the way they’ve got to leave for some reasons and exchange a final goodbye. However, sometimes they quietly, silently walk away just like that. Most of the times it happens when they are actually in the same room of another character that just got distracted for a moment and that, upon turning around, simply notices they’re not there anymore — their walking away passing unnoticed to the audience as well. It sounds impolite of them, but for some reasons they do that quite often.

From Little House: indicator that an episode shares something with Little House on The Prairie, Landon’s previous show; it can be an actor appearing in both series (beside Landon and French, of course), a piece of the score, or a reference.

The Angel and Mark: feature of an episode (basically all of them) where Jonathan patronizes Mark in many subtle ways. For instance, in most episode, whenever they meet the person they’re assigned to help for the first time, it’s always Jonathan who does the talking and introduces both of them: “Hi, my name’s Jonathan and this is my friend Mark”, as if Mark couldn’t do that himself. It can even apply to episodes where Jonathan, despite having the Stuff that could get any laborious job done quickly, just lets Mark doing it while he runs the angel’s errands. Sometimes, it is found as “Friendly Jonathan” instance, especially for some particular cases where the angel doesn’t consult his friend to take a decision involving them both, or for the deployment of the Stuff just to annoy Mark in some way.

“Joey Chitwood”: recurring moment in the series, when Mark is driving and Jonathan uses his powers to unexpectedly stop the car, annoying his friend. The name is taken from the one reported in the script of some episodes to describe a moment when Jonathan uses the power to make a stunt with his friend’s car, and here is extended to indicate any instance of Jonathan’s interfering with his friend’s car through his powers.

Recycles: moments of the series in which they recycle something from previous episodes or even from different series; it can be the score, an image or a set. The “From Little House” mark is an example, but it constitutes a different, special category on its own for the sake of clarity.

Conclusions:

Highway To Heaven Cast: the name is a pun with a double meaning. First, as a noun, it’s an abbreviated form of “broadcast” — in a way a synonym for “show”. Second, as a verb, it’s meant to be encapsulate the conditions of the two main characters, an angel “cast” to the same Earth (possibly the viewers’ Earth) with a man, where they’ll drive together along the Highway To Heaven. But, if you think about it, people are all navigating their own way, at their own pace, the same Highway To Heaven — sometimes forgetting or without even realizing we’re “cast” on the same road together. And, hopefully, they can learn something from each other, and from Jonathan and Mark’s own journey as well. In a way, that’s what the series was about back then.