He always got to beat up (or just shoot) the bad guys at the end of each episode. 
Mostly unrelated; but interesting nonetheless. I have been watching Dragnet 1967 on Hulu Plus and one of the episodes is about a jewel heist in Bel Air, CA. I cracked up hearing Jack Webb narrate about how some of the homes in that area can cost $100,000 or more!
Rockford has to resort to dirty tricks, like in the 2-hour pilot movie.
Like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1oK5SVmRQ4 for example
Which happens to be the exact scene I was thinking of. 
Ooh! Looks like the 1990’s Rockford movies are on YouTube now! Yeah!
Outstanding!
“you karate guys, always expect everybody to fight fair.”
There’s another one where he’s being followed by another P.I. Early in the episode he has the opportunity to hit him (has his leg trapped in a car door) but doesn’t. At the end, he has the same opportunity and decks him. As he walks away, he says “I knew there was a reason I didn’t do that earlier. I think I broke my hand.”
Just seconding your motion on the price of north LA coast RE “back in the day”.
My folks were deciding between Ojai, Trancas Beach and Palm Springs for a weekend place in the mid-60’s. Palm Springs won. They paid ~ $14K.
FYI, there was no freeway between Santa Monica and Downtown LA at that time, the Santa Monica freeway ended at National Blvd for years. Why? Because the City of Beverly Hills successfully blocked the I-10 freeway going through their town.
Now, get off my lawn!
When I saw the show mentioned in the title, I got the warm happy feeling I always felt as a kid when I heard the theme music. God I loved that theme music, I still do.
I think it must’ve come on after something I watched and I was supposed to go to bed after, so if I was hearing the music that meant I was somehow getting out of bedtime. I was always so thrilled that I was actually going to see an episode.
And then I’d wander away. I definitely responded to Jim Garner as a charismatic actor, but the shows were always boring to me.
I was just now assuming they were over my head as a little kid, but I’m realizing this is my same dynamic with “The Mentalist”. I always think “I love this guy!” because I find the actor (Simon Baker) and the character (Patrick Jane) so appealing. But then I realize, “oh, they’re just solving a crime” and wander off.
“This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave your name and message, I’ll get back to you.”
“Hey Jimmy, it’s Angel. You know that phone call the cops let you make? This is it.”
“It’s Norma at the market. Itbounced. You want me to tear it up, send it back, or put it with the others?”
“This is the message phone company. I see you’re using our unit, now how about paying for it?”
“Mr. Rockford, Sue Ellen. Our class is having that crazy scavenger hunt I told you about. If you’re wondering what happened to your trailer door, it’s going to win me first prize.”
Anyone remember a couple of episodes with pre-Magnum Tom Selleck?
It’s been a while for me, but he played a “perfect” PI, Lance White (?)–good looking, rich, won the awards, things fell into his lap, cops loved him, and he got the girl–which drove Rockford nuts.
I remember a scene that vaguely went like this (to paraphrase):
Lance: “Don’t worry, Jim, a clue will turn up.”
Jim: “Lance, it doesn’t work like that. It may take hours or days of hard work before we find something, if we do at all.”
Lance: “Oh look, I found the murder weapon.”
Lance had a .38 clamped to the lid of the glove compartment. It always fell into his hand when needed, the glove box always jammed on Rockford when he needed the gun.
And before he hit someone, he always said, “Put 'em up!”
I vaguely remember Rockford needing the reward they earned on a case to pay off his car or trailer, and Lance gave it to an orphanage.