Also, a convicted felon can’t become a licensed private investigator in California, can he? Rockford has a license, so his pardon must have expunged the conviction from his record.
Do a search on youtube.
In the pilot episode, didn’t he and Angel explain to a woman in the records office how they ended up in prison together? (In Angel’s words: “We wuz framed!”) And later on, didn’t he tell Lindsay Wagner about his experience when they were sitting on the couch at her place?
I think Jim did in fact keep cookies in the cookie jar, at least some of the time. Oreos. He was eating them behind his desk in at least one episode.
Some of them, but not all. I’ve searched for them more than once.
Not?
Now that you mentioned it, I was able to find “Backlash of the Hunter” (the Pilot), and there is indeed a scene in the newspaper records office where Angel admits he did a bank job, and tries to get Rockford to admit that he did a robbery (Rockford says he didn’t do it, but nobody believed him). However, with other things like Rocky looking quite different (because he was played by Robert Donley, not Noah Beery Jr.), can’t say how canonical this episode is.
Along with Lindsey Wagner, the pilot has Billy Mumy as kind of a dickish drug store employee (as well as Lindsey’s brother).
And yes, there were cookies in the cookie jar, and one supposed reason Jim kept his gun there (given much later in the series) was to reduce the effects of the corrosive salt ocean air on it.
I remember watching an interview with Meta Rosenberg on line in which she explains how, after seeing Donley in the pilot, everyone felt he just wasn’t right for the part and they cast Beery instead, once the series went into production.
Not
wasn’t
I’ve watched every episode at least three times and have them all on my hard drive. I loved that show.
He never carried a gun that I recall but he did take one once in a very dangerous situation and was prepared to use it if he had to. I think it was that episode where his dorky friend Angel advertised he was a hit man. He had a great way of making money. He took half the price in advance and then just disappeared. What an idiot. You can guess at the result. I forget who gave Jim the gun.
I can think of at least twice Jim took his gun out of the cookie jar.
In Resurrection in Black and White (S2:E8) Jim is hired by a journalist trying to clear someone she believes has been wrongfully convicted of murder. Once they figure out the real murderer has left on his boat, they borrow another boat and chase after him. Jim gets in some trouble when the journalist’s article includes a picture of him with his gun.
Profit and Loss (a two-parter, S1:E12 and E13) ends with Jim and Rocky (in Rocky’s truck) chasing after Leon Fielder (Ned Beatty, in a Rolls Royce) and shooting at him. They get Fielder to stop, but after five shots Fielder gets Jim’s gun. Our hero should be a dead duck, but the gun doesn’t fire. Early in the episode Jim was trying to un-stick his garbage disposal. After the gun doesn’t shoot, he concludes the sixth bullet must have fallen down his drain.
There’s also The Battle of Canoga Park (S4:E3), in which Jim’s gun is used in a murder. The gun was taken by someone connected to his cleaning lady, Viola, who gives herself away when she denies knowing about the gun, but says she never ate a store-bought cookie in her life.
He gets asked occasionally, “Don’t you carry a gun?” or “Why don’t you carry a gun?”
His answer: “I don’t like to shoot people.”
In one of those episodes, and I think it was “Resurrection in Black and White” mentioned just above, he did eventually pull out the gun, but he said, “I didn’t shoot it. I pointed it.”
I don’t recall him ever shooting it, but there were a couple of episodes where he pulled it out of that coffee can (or cookie jar) and then you knew Shit Just Got Real.
All seasons stream on Netflix I think. I watch one or two a week.
Watch that episode all the way to the end and you’ll see Rockfish put his gun to good use…he shoots down an airplane! https://youtu.be/MgWb2uk8NS4?t=1h6m19s
Spoiler: I love how it exploded after it landed. 
Ah, the 1970’s crime shows, where so much as a pothole can cause a car to explode.
Why did the fuselage blow up? The fuel tanks are in the wings.
The late 1960’s through early 1980’s “exploder” device (nickname for a temperamental antismog device using left over WWII munitions) was generally mounted near the trunk of large Detroit sedans, while small plane manufacturers mounted them under the pilot’s seat for better weight distribution.
Sudden change in elevation could “explode” them, hence the nickname. This can clearly be seen in many archive films of cars exploding in the air after driving off cliffs.
Why they were ever put in planes given such temperamental combustion is still a mystery.
Luckily, they were banned in use of all internal combustion engined vehicles in 1983.
What I love is how helicopters and planes always exploded - just after they crash out of sight behind a convenient hilltop.
I love the old Rockford Files for car-spotting - so many classics in their prime on that show.
Ya know, Magnum always carried a big old .45, and still got his ass kicked on a fairly regular basis as well. Shot a lot, too.
I always wanted to know how magnum was carrying a pistol. Hawaii has some of the most draconian gun laws around, and issue CCW permits to nobody.
Why stuffed into the waistband of his tight, short shorts, of course!
It’s a crack up watching those old boats bounce around during the chases.They sure don’t make suspensions like they used to!