Locations
New York: The locations you see in "Prodigal Son"
 were all Manhattan locations. There are four other boroughs in New York: Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and The Bronx (where Tubbs is from), but all the clips were Manhattan locations, mostly from the area called the "Upper West Side". In one scene, you can see a building with a street number "1155". That is a business location where many well-known banks, insurance companies and big name public accounting companies are headquartered. This whole area is known as "Times Square - 42nd Street". You can go to any Broadway show here, and Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall are just a few blocks away.

The scenes shot by the park with Jimmy Borges are a little tough to tell
which park exactly it is. It's not the most famous park in NY which would
be Central Park. The park could also be Washington Square Park, but it's really hard to tell. There were possibly shots of the Guggenheim museum, when Sonny and Rico are being chased and Sonny and Rico run in different directions and Sonny runs onto the block of the Guggenheim.

The scenes where Rico, Sonny and Valerie are sitting in the club "Delirious", unfortunately, that was not a real NYC club name, but the one Rico mentions in that scene, The Limelight, that was a real club. The Limelight was still around until a couple of yrs. ago when the owner was arrested for dealing drugs in his clubs. He owned more than one.

The club where Sonny meets Margaret is Studio 54. That was the place
for celebrities, models, and musicians to party in the late 70's. As a matter of fact, Peter Allen, who also appears in that episode, hung out and performed there. By the early 80's, both of the club's original owners were in jail for income tax evasion, and the club closed for 15 months. It reopened, but never reached the level of popularity it had during the disco era.

Special Thanks to Nancy L. for sending us the NYC information!

Magazines:  
TV Guide: 9/24/02 Don Johnson has just been listed by TV Guide as #12 of TV's 50 Sexiest Stars. This lists him 6th among the countdown's guys, and those above him include Tom Selleck, Denzel Washington, and George Clooney. Apparently, no female reader can resist DJ in his Miami Vice ensemble: pastel shirt, jacket, and 5 o"clock shadow!

Don Johnson was featured on the cover of TV Guide no less then six times during Miami Vice’s run, with and without Philip Michael Thomas. Twice after the show’s finale, DJ appeared on the cover, once in December 1989 for an decade retrospective (placing him among other 80’s TV celebrities as Alf, Cosby, Magnum, and President Reagan), and again in 1992 for TV Guide’s 40th anniversary.

DJ appeared at the Scarab’s helm on the cover of Motorboat & Sailing magazine in 1986, and in 1989 he was on the cover of LIFE with his then-wife Melanie Griffith.

At the beginning of Season 2, both DJ and PMT landed on the cover of TIME magazine with Miami Vice being described with the headline Cool Cops, Hot Show.

DJ alone appeared on the cover of People in October of 1985.  which was the first of seven People covers for DJ during MV’s run. 12/23/85, 5/19/86, 11/23/87, 5/9/88, 1/9/89, and 2/27/89.

And twice in 1985, DJ was on the cover of Rolling Stone, in March with PMT for their Inside Miami Vice article, and by himself in November for what was simply called, DON JOHNSON - The Rolling Stone Interview. Seems the fall of 1985 was a busy season for DJ, especially on the magazine circuit!

Other appearances:
* Don Johnson appeared in a string of commercials with rock star Glenn Frey (Smuggler's Blues) advertising Pepsi-Cola during the "Choice Of A New Generation" campaign. One shows the two of them cruising the streets while the song "You Belong To The City" plays, and another had Don crashing a party where Glenn portrays a disc-jockey. Oddly enough, later in the eighties, DJ appeared in a commercial for Coke, leading off a montage of party scenes with the phrase, "Something's goin'on!"
* Edward James Olmos made the cover of TIME Magazine in July 1988 for a special issue-article with the headline "Magnifico! Hispanic culture breaks out of the barrio" Olmos was biographed in a subarticle, which included pics from the 4th-season episode "Mirror Image" and his film Stand And Deliver. Saundra Santiago is also listed with several other hispanic stars of the '80s.

*  In October of 1993, CBS chose to advertise a Nash Bridges-esque detective series called South Of Sunset, which it promptly sabotaged by airing the pilot opposite Home Improvement and Melrose Place. However, a recurring character was introduced on the show in the first or second episode, which was shown on VH-1 a year later, portrayed by John Diehl. “Merlin” was a hippie computer geek living next door to L.A. private eye Cody McMahon, the show’s central character. Merlin appeared in two or three of the five episodes filmed, and his dubious skills with not-so-top-of-the-line equipment managed to send Cody information, which proved useful, though not exactly save-the-day material. 

Soundtrack:Philip Michael Thomas may be currently working on an album, but his career as a singer reaches back to his days as Tubbs! In fact, PMT recorded and released an album in the early 80’s called “Livin’ The Book Of My Life”, and Rico Tubbs can be heard singing the title track while undercover in the 1st-season episode “The Maze”. Unfortunately, PMT’s music was never featured on any of the MV soundtrack albums. And neither were any songs by Don Johnson, who released the album “HeartBeat” during the show’s run or Saundra Santiago, who sang two classic jazz numbers onstage in the 3rd-season finale “Heroes Of The Revolution”. Who knew any of them could sing?

 The Song "You Belong To The City" was on the Miami Vice soundtrack, but the video was shot in New York. Why? This one is simple. The song was featured in the episode "The Prodigal Son", where Crockett & Tubbs track a drug-dealing copkiller to New York City. The song plays while Sonny is roaming the streets of Manhattan, just as singer Glenn Frey does in the video. And observant fans might notice that wherever Glenn goes in the video, there's always a TV tuned in to Miami Vice!

Unshaven Look: Why did Crockett sport that unshaven look that became so popular? There are several different theories on this. Some believe a 5 o'clock shadow was part of Sonny's Burnett persona. (someone should check to see if he ever shaved during the 3-part amnesia cliffhanger.) Others think it was just Sonny's way of getting into a more relaxed mode when he cast off. 

Wardrobe: Though Crockett & Tubbs were rarely seen in formal wear, the style of Vice's wardrobe inspired a line of designer tuxedos, offering such Florida-themed colors as "Dolphin" and "Fiesta Blue".

Thanks to Don Johnson, one of Sonny Crockett’s white linen suits has been on display at Planet Hollywood Miami since 1994, complete with pastel-pink T-shirt.

Posters
Movie Posters