Right now, I'm watching Peter Gunn on Decades.
My favorite is and always will be Columbo!
He always acted as though he was stumbling in the dark. He was always the smartest one in the room!
We were just talking about this at work the other day. There are so many cop shows to choose from. What's your fave?
It’s kind of tough to top Columbo, but I always enjoyed Barnaby Jones.
This next one doesn’t really count, since it was a radio program, but an excellent series was “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” particularly the episodes with Bob Bailey.
And Sam McCloud.
sharePeter Gunn had the best theme music.
shareAbsolutely! I expressed the exact same opinion in, I believe the TV Board on here.
share"Peter Gunn had the best theme music."
I agree! I'm watching now. Very cool!
I am convinced that this tune influenced the music for Sin City. The trombones are almost identical.
PS I wouldn't be surprised if it also influenced Monty Wooley's classic James Bond theme: Don-Don--DON-don-don-don-Don.DON-don-don-don-us.
Dennis Weaver was fun. I always hated that cop who was hard on McCloud. I never could understand that. Sam McCloud always got his man!
shareI definitely remember the series, but I don’t think I saw much of it unfortunately. I mostly remember Dennis Weaver as Chester on Gunsmoke, and from that movie “Duel,” where he was pursued by the homicidal semi-truck driver.
shareWow! I never heard of Yours Truly.
Radio counts!
Give it a try sometime. I think they’re 15 minutes long, but they’re usually multi-part episodes. You’d be surprised at how good those old time radio programs are. Phillip Marlowe, and Richard Diamond with Dick Powell are good as well. I like them the best when I’m retiring for the evening.
shareI remember the soaps on radio. They were 15 minutes long.
Back to cop/ PI shows....
I liked Mannix. I had quite the crush on him back in the day!
I used to listen to The Shadow on my grandmother's radio.
shareMy mother took my son to some yard sales when he was a little boy. He was only about 8 years old. He bought the entire collection of The Shadow. The records were 75's. He loved those! We use to listen to them all the time. That was a great series!
When my son had the chicken pox he preferred listening to The Shadow to watching television. This was back in the 80's.
The good news Miss Margo is that you can usually download most of these old shows for free now. I downloaded the entire series of X Minus One and Dimension X (Excellent if you like Sci Fi) and next on the list is Suspense! I then transfer them to my digital recorder.
Much better than how Hollywood tried to depict it later on !
shareA private dick show that was VERY popular in the late 50s and early 60s was "77 Sunset Strip," starring Ephram Zimbalist, Jr., and Roger Smith, about an LA detective agency. They had a young costar, Ed Byrnes, who played a parking valet named Kookie, who became very popular with teens and eventually became a partner in the agency. He was always combing his hair! This schtick resulted in a 60s pop tune titled, "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb." The show was so cool that Sammy Davis Jr. made a guest appearance.
Roger Smith got married to Ann-Margaret, which is, in itself, a world-class achievement. Zimbalist went on to star in the TV series, "The FBI," hand-picked by J. Edgar Hoover himself. Zimbalist's daughter, Stephanie, had her own P. I. show in the mid-80s, "Remington Steele," which I much enjoyed. She was frustrated because of not being hired as a dick because of her gender, so she created the fictional titular character to let her pretend to be working under the guidance of a man, and calm clients' concerns. The ruse worked just fine, until a man walked into the firm one day and told her that HE was Remington Steele, and that she now worked for him. He was a con artist--played by Pierce Brosnan! He knew nothing about detecting, but was a rabid movie fan. He solved cases by remembering something from an old movie. The two quickly became attracted to each other, but she faught the allure, producing sexual tension and humor so thick it would take a chainsaw to cut. Brosnan was so charismatic he was very quickly asked to be the next James Bond, but his contractual obligation to RS prevented him from accepting for several years. A very enjoyable P.I. series!
(I toyed with the idea of creating a spoof counter series, to be titled "Wilkinson Sword," but there was no Fox, nor CW, network back then, and the idea was stillborn. I wanted it to star Heather Thomas, and me.)
Now, to look at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, two words: "Baywatch Nights."
I'm going to add one more "consulting detective"
show that I enjoy, and I have to do it in a separate post because I've exceeded MC post limit: "Elementary," starring Johnny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes, a recovering drug addict. I think his portral was of Holmes is, if not brilliant, then at least inspired, and is superior in nuance to Basil Rathbone's, my touchstone Holmes. Yeah, it's on CBS.
Yeah, its nominally a police procedural show. Within those restrictions, Miller delivers a performance that is passionate, tortured and convincingly intelligent. I am aware that most prefer the BBC's "Sherlock." I can only speak to what I have seen.
Miss Margo, I apologize. I thought this thread was delimited to private investigator TV shows. If we also include cop shows, two come quickly to mind:
"Dragnet," starring Jack Webb. "The facts, ma'm, just the facts." Resurrected as "Badge 714," and was pretty much the archetype of US TV cop
shows.
"Miami Vice," mid-80s,created by Michael Mann and starring Crocket, Tubbs abs and Ferrari Daytona. In its day, it was easily the hottest show on the tube. I can't think of a single other show in the inventory you've identified that had as much popular cultural influence.
that's ok.... PI's and Cops.
It would be a sin not to include Hill Street Blues. That was a good show!
I remember 77 Sunset Strip so well. That catchy theme song is going though my head right now.
As for Private Eye shows, I remember Honey West. I wanted to be her!
Hardcastle and McCormick. I loved that show and still do. The judge was a hoot. It wasn't really a cop show but the judge was the law.
The premise was a retired judge and his last defendant follow up on cases that were dismissed due to technicalities.
Starring Brian Keith, Daniel Hugh Kelly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dhpSp3sG20
Well,the midsomer murders it's looking pretty good,not great but good enough.Another one is Poirot series( i liked that belgian detective ) and,of course Monk😉
shareMonk was so unique! I love Tony Shalhoub anyway from his time as Antonio on Wings. I hated seeing that show end.
Thank goodness and Tony for Monk...... one of the best shows.
Indeed😉
shareI've been catching some of the reruns on The Hallmark Channel lately and I've become especially fond of the episodes featuring Monk's estranged brother Ambrose portrayed by John Turturro. I see this as truly inspired casting. Not only do the two actors actually look like they could be brothers, their chemistry was amazing...equally as quirky, neurotic, yet brilliant.
shareThat was perfect casting! So much fun!
shareOh man , I forgot Monk- another one of my favorites
shareI was a sucker for all those shows.
Mannix
Banacek
Barnaby Jones
Hart to Hart
Switch
Dragnet
77 Sunset Strip
Quincy
All great shows! I had almost forgotten Switch.
i had a huge crush on Paul Micheal Glazer so let us not forget Starsky and Hutch.
Some more of my favorites. Too hard to pick just one.
Blue Knight
Cannon
Streets of San Francisco
McMillan & Wife
How could we forget about Police Squad. Without that we would have no Naked Gun movies.
LOL! Police Squad was so funny! I will always be grateful to the creators so that we had NG movies.
While we are talking comedy, there was Car 54 Where Are You?
Then there was unintentional comedy: Cop Rock.
shareSomehow I seem to have missed that......
I take it that I didn't miss much?
Steve Bocho got too impressed with his various "Blues" shows (Hill Street, Bay City, etc) shows that he decided he could do an hour-long cop show FILLED WITH SONG AND DANCE ROUTINES! It was like, "Cops: The Musical." Didn't do well.
shareI just thought of another. It's an oldie.....
Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Mary Tyler Moore played his secretary, Sam. You heard her but all you ever saw of her was her legs.
Well, then, we should also include Charlie's Angels, where we never got to see their boss, Charlie, we only got to hear his voice.
shareWell, then, we should also include Charlie's Angels, where we never got to see their boss, Charlie, we only got to hear his voice.
YUP! LOL!
But we all know that it was Bentley Gregg, who raised Kelly Gregg, that was Moochie’s sister, and was friends with Liz McGavin, whom later married Blake Carrington. But that’s probably not going to make much sense to very many people 😀
Whoa! You just took me for one hell of a roller coaster ride! I have caught up though.
I tend to skip Blake Carrington when I think of Bentley Gregg and what possibly became of him when he became a judge...... And Justice For All.
EEEEWWWWW!
I remember the old Cannon detective series. William Conrad was also in the later, but lesser remembered detective series Jake And The Fatman. And even fewer remember that he had a career going all the way back to the radio days in which also starred in a few detective series, such as: Johnny Modero: Pier 23, with Jack Webb (aka Joe Friday) and The Adventures of Sam Spade. He was also the narrator for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Sherman and Peabody, and Dudley Do-Right (He had quite a vocal range) not to mention the original (and best imo) Matt Dillon from the original Gunsmoke Radio Series.
shareI left Mannix out of my original post - a thousand pardons - Mannix ,a great show
shareQuincy M.E.
shareColumbo is for sure a classic and such a memorable character.
For private detective shows, I also like any version of Sherlock Holmes, I like Poirot mysteries, I like most of the PBS "Mystery" series. Inspector Morse.
Cop shows: I like The Wire, Homicide, Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue. Prime Suspect. The Fall.
I also grew up on all the "Quinn Martin Productions" shows. The opening credits with funky music and the hard boiled announcer. Tonight's Guest Star! Epilogue!