Johnny Angel writes:
> But that was in 1991, before CSI: Miami.
Whereas now we now that all police units contain at least one member who, before making a dramatic speech, cocks his head to the side and takes off his sunglasses.
You’re kidding about that CSI: Miami thing right?
'Cuz everyone knows CSI: Miami totally ripped off Silk Stalkings.
Cogan uses spurs.
I don’t know offhand how many seasons Barney Miller ran, but Netflix has Seasons 1-3. Unfortunately, it’s not available for instant streaming.
Harris, “Just admit it, you’re a scum sucker who lives off other people’s suffering.”
Lawyer, “Yeah, so what’s your point?”
yeah Hail. my dad told me when we watched it on abc that is was the most realistic because of the personalities…
My fav besides the “brownies” was when Luger got them on the murder squad… And you can’t underestimate what it meant to me a young black kid to see Ron Glass play Harris… he was good looking, dressed sharp… smart and a real arrogant jerk. You just didn’t see a lot of black characters like that then…
I saw Ron Harris at Dragon*Con last year, and by the time the question I wanted to ask him occurred to me, it was too late to get in line to ask it.
He was talking about his character on Firefly and said that Book had been
an agent involved in something that went really, really wrong
and had basically run away.
I wanted to ask him if it had been a kind of
Blood on the Badge situation.
All these comments and nothing yet about Inspector Luger? One of the ultimate characters you love to hate.
I usually rank this show in my top 10 faves of all time.
See posts 6 and 25.
Hell, I credit Arthur Dietrich as one of the three foundations of my entire adult personality.
Brownies! I still chuckle just thinking about that episode, and Fish jumping over a building to catch a perp.
Why can’t they make shows like that today? No green/blue screen. No CGI. Just a cast and a laugh track. Sigh.
But you’d have to add Hill Street Blues and Dragnet.
One of my favorite moments- may have been the murder squad episode mentioned above- was when Jack Dodson, character actor best known as Howard Sprague on Andy Griffith, played a serial killer who murdered barbers who gave him bad haircuts. While Wojo is typing the paperwork ‘Howard’ is telling him “You have a good haircut… so even… nice natural flow to it… God, I don’t even want to ask how many barbers you had to kill.”
I think he later played a gun collector whose collection was stolen but who was surprisingly reluctant to press charges. They found out the collection included lots of illegal machine guns, a bazooka, rocket launchers, grenades, etc., and this was long before militia nuts were common news.
One of the greatest things was the set and the furniture. Every desk looked like it was picked up in a school salvage yard and probably was, and completely what you’d expect and underfunded detective’s unit in a broke city (NYC was majorly broke during part of the run and this was in the plot) to furnish.
On the Roots episode I remember (why do I remember?) Harris was also pissy that his great-great-grandmother ran a liquor store in Ohio. “I want some kings in my bloodline and I want them now!”
Another favorite moment was when Levitt was unexpectedly assigned upstairs for the day and was in his police uniform. He wanted to be plain clothes so he rented a sky blue tux at the rental shop across the street.
The episodes where Harris and Dietrich shared an apartment were funny. “I cannot stand that man, I’m going to shoot him dead before this is over, he has more annoying habits than anybody I’ve ever known… though I will give him this, he makes one hell of a quiche Lorraine”.
And the episode when Harris lost everything in the lawsuit and the man keeps singing happy songs. Harris, drunk, fumbles around and says “Where’s my gun!?”
Deitrich, to Yamana :
So, what city is your family from?
Omaha.
That’s funny. We have a city in Nebraska named that.
I had *such *a crush on Steve Landesberg. Until I spoke to him at work one day (call center) and he was an arrogant jerk. Ruined my teenage crush memories right there. 
I hate when that happens.
The werewolf scene is classic, but it didn’t include the best line.
Yamana: “What’s wrong with that guy?”
Harris : “He thinks he’s a werewolf.”
Yamana; (completely deadpan) “I’ll put down some papers.”
Regards,
Shodan
Junkie: Dollar for dollar, heroin is by far the best addiction to have on a working man’s salary.
Steve Landesbergh played a con man dressed as a priest on an episode before he joined the cast as Dietrich.
I liked one Detective Luger episode when his problem du jour was that he didn’t know what to do with his savings now that he was old and didn’t really need it for anything. Barney advised him to “go wild when you retire, do everything you ever thought about doing, travel, see the world”, etc., mainly because he wanted to get rid of him. Then Luger mentions that he’s left his estate to Barney and that he’s not talking about a few thousand dollars but a small fortune (several hundred thousand dollars).
Luger: But you’re right… I think I should have a blast.
Barney: Yes. Absolutely. Well… within reason…
This was also a sitcom that used actual dollar amounts instead of the more common trick of writing down salary/house prices/etc. on a piece of paper. I remember when Barney’s building went condo the price they wanted for his 3 BR apartment was outrageous- something like (I don’t remember the exact amount) $135,000 and the audience actually went “ooh”.
Assuming Barney lived in Manhattan (I don’t remember if he did or not) I’d love to know how much the same place would sell for today.
I was watching an old episode of Pyramid from ca. 1985 the other day and the contestant (who was a real estate agent) went to the winner’s circle and got the $25,000. When they came back from commercial one of the celebs pointed out that at 3% commission, he would have had to sold a house for [implied OMG] $855,000 to make what he just made.
I imagine that wouldn’t be too hard to do in Southern California today. 
That show was one of the really, really, great ones.
The two scenes that stick out for me both involve Dietrich.
- One of their clients was talking about werewolves, ghosts, UFOs, or something similar. He told Dietrich, “you probably think I’m crazy.” Dietrich went into one of his rants outlining that many intellectuals believe that stuff, and as he enumerates, the crook thinks he has somebody sympathetic, and says, 'yes, yes, YES" and jumps up on the last yes. When he jumps up, Dietrich jumps up, reaching for his gun!
The next one was when Dietrich saves Harris’ life. Harris is loathe to be indebted to the pompous Dietrich, keeps asking how he may repay Dietrich. Dietrich keeps saying ‘forget it.’ Finally, after more badgering, Dietrich says ‘Can I call you Ron?" Harris: "No!’
That’s about all I got.
Best wishes,
hh
Isn’t that one called “Criminal Minds?”
best wishes,
hh
I guess I’m a minority of one here, but I like Levitt. I love his plainclothes outfits (remember that goofy hat?), the way he stands with his chin elevated to appear taller, and his spin-move out the door when exiting.
The only one I could sorta do without was Scanlon. Just a bit over the top.
Luger is awesome, especially when he reminisces about the old days (Foster, Brownie, Kleiner), and the way he stamps his foot when he shakes your hand or makes a point. Or, how he always refers to Levitt as ‘Levine’.
One recent episode I saw was when Harris was mistaken for a criminal and was shot at by a rookie uniformed cop. During the discussion it became clear that the misunderstanding occurred because Harris is black. His anger was actually a bit scary. Then, the awkwardness in the squad room between Harris and the others was palpable; they eventually talked it out in a very well-written and convincing manner. Just another example that the show was more than just a sit-com; it was groundbreaking.