This week TRIO is showing COP ROCK. YES M.F.-ing COP ROCK.
It is part of their “Just Plain Cancelled” week. (A play on their Brillant But Cancelled week). Cop Rock at 8:00. Two episodes of My Mother the Car at 9:00, and Pink Lady and Jeff at 10:00.
Yes there is a God.
M.F.-ing COP ROCK! Woo-hoo!
This is why Digital Cable with 500 channels is a “Bad Thing.” 
I tried to watch a bit of Cop Rock last night. I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn’t know it was going to be…BAD…
I swear, there was real chagrin visible on the faces of the actors, as if each of them were thinking “So this is it: This is how my career ends.”
And then I tried a bit of Pink Lady and Jeff. Donny Osmond was on.
Hoo boy…
Looking back with hind sight it seems that anybody who is capable to breath without assistance could see that Cop Rock was going to fail, spectacularly. After seeing an early promo the thing that ran through my mind was “what the hell were they thinking?”
So, who did approve the show? Did they really think it had a chance? And, is that person still working in TV?
I don’t know the name of the person who approved Cop Rock, but after watching the Stephen Bochco episode of TVLand’s Moguls this morning, I know a little about why it was approved.
Stephen Bochco was just coming off the enormous success of Hill Street Blues. His L.A. Law was consistently in the top ten. And ABC had just paid him a truckload of money to join their network. IIRC, their deal called for Bochco to produce ten shows for ABC. Hooperman had tanked, but Doogie Howser, M.D. was a modest success, and now Bochco had an idea for a radically different cop show. O.K., in hindsight, it looks spectacularly bad, but no one wanted Hill Street in the beginning, and it launched a T.V. revolution, in addition to winning numerous awards. ABC had paid for Bochco and they were going to give him every chance to produce a big, ground-breaking hit for them. Unfortunately, Cop Rock wasn’t it. Fortunately, three years later Bochco gave them NYPD Blue. Add Murder One and Philly, and Bochco may still have three chances left to sink or swim on ABC.
And I’ve obviously sinned, 'cause I don’t get Trio…
alas.
Also more than the folks at ABC had musicals on the brain.
Another network debuted a musical series about a mini-mall around the same time. The show was called Shangri-La.
The show would have honestly been a good cop show if not for the you know… singing.
You can see alot of early NYPD Blue stuff in there.
Boscho tried to import The Singing Detective to the States. But he did it at a time when there was a huge downturn of the American musical. That, and the Fame-like ephemeral musical numbers in the show, insured its grand failure.
Be sure to watch for Sheryl Crow in the singing/dancing chorus parts. I almost died when I saw her (with big disco hair) doing the dorky “musical comedy” dance and singing backup.
The weird thing is that if you take out the singing, it’s a pretty good cop show. And if you ignore the police show part, the songs aren’t bad. Put them together, however, and you have something somewhat less than synergy.