Andy Griffith passed away at the age of 86. Griffith was the star of one of the most beloved programs in television history, The Andy Griffith Show. 

Griffith’s legacy was not limited to that, however. Prior to Andy Griffith, he was a solid movie actor with He had a second great series two decades after in Elia Kazan’s masterpiece, A Face in the Crowd (1957) and the comedic classic No Time for Sergeants (1958). Then nearly two decades after Andy Griffith ended, Griffith spent nine years as high priced yet thrifty great suited lawyer Ben Matlock, and then after Matlock ended he enjoyed a state of semi-retirement as a character actor who could still create magic in movies like The Waitress. 

That said,  none of Griffith’s other work has had near the impact on his fellow citizens than  those eight years in Mayberry.  In 1998, 5 million people daily tuned into reruns of the Andy Griffith show. I doubt that number has declined much. Along with I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith remains one of those few shows that have not been forgotten by the sands of time.

What makes Mayberry stay strong?

Barney Fife: Any analysis of the show has to begin with Barney Fife. His five seasons on the show were the best of the series. He brought home four Emmy Awards for the role.  And won another as a guest star. Barney was the lovable buffoon and braggart who provided the show’s greatest comedic moments in shows, “Barney Joins the Choir” and “Citizen’s Arrest.” However, he could occasionally pull off the great dramatic moment as he did, “Andy on Trial.”

Gentle Human Comedy: If I could use one word to describe the Andy Griffith Show’s comedy, it’d be “gentle.”  Comedy today is often about put downs, denigrating women, denigrating men, denigrating different religions or political viewpoints, but Andy Griffith was about the foibles of frail human beings just like us who made mistakes and had their flaws.

It’s a show that makes you laugh without leaving you to question whether what you laughed was really funny or just cruel.  On Andy Griffith, the comedy often came from efforts to spare people’s reputation and feelings.  The Andy Griffith Show made more people laugh with its efforts to be kind than most shows that have tried to obtain laughter through cruelty.

Love and Music: The show in the midst of its hilarity would often create a beautiful dramatic moment that would touch the hearts of viewers as parents, as children, or just as plain humans who could relate to what the characters were going through.

Music was an important part of Southern life and played a significant role in the program with Sheriff Taylor, the Darling Family, Rafe Hollister, or others.  It gave the show a feeling of authenticity.

The Truest Show on Television:  Our trips to Mayberry would invariably come with a moral. The insertion of morals into the show was quite intentional. One man even used it as Curriculum for a Bible Study and a Baltimore pastor used it to create a sermon series when he observed that every one of the gifts of the Spirit could be illustrated by an Andy Griffith show.

The program taught good morals while rarely being “preachy.” You’d laugh at the events, but then turn off the TV and then you’d come away with a nugget of truth.

Of course, the show is often considered unrealistic with its often idyllic portrayal of small town life. Yet The Andy Griffith Show was more about truths that endure rather than the passing reality of the moment.

The strongest criticism of Andy Griffith was  the lack of black characters. There was only one Black character with a speaking role in the eight year run of Andy Griffith. We should note that the problem was not limited to Mayberry. In the far more urbane Dick Van Dyke Show,  I recall only two Black Characters with speaking roles in the five seasons. I’ve also seen the first three seasons of Green Acres and again no black actors. This problem has more to do with a Hollywood culture that had failed to cultivate black stars and character actors than it does any racism on the part of the producers of Andy Griffith. 

More to the point, it doesn’t matter in the long run to the show’s staying power of the program as Rochelle Riley wrote for the Detroit Free Press:

 “For me, and for many generations before me, ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ was about our lives, regardless of color or background…

“My family didn’t watch ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ to count black people. We watched to see our way of life, one that included spending hours picking plums in the plum orchard, then sitting under a chinaberry tree eating them, or walking along ponds to collect cattails.”

And many generations after will continue to enjoy the simple lessons of life in Mayberry.

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Part One is here, Part Two is here.

3) A Friend in Deed (1974)

This episode has a good twist in it. For starters, the primary villain is none other than the Deputy Commissioner of Police (played by Richard Kiley). For another, he didn’t commit the initial homicide.

The story begins with a friend of the Deputy Commissioner meets him at a bar and tells him he just killed his wife in a moment of rage and doesn’t know what to do. The Commissioner assures him he’ll take care of it and carefully re-arranges the crime scene to make it look like it was the work of a burgular who had been hitting local homes and arrange an alibi for his neighbor.

Then the Commissioner murders his own wife and uses the occasion of the wake for the first man’s wife to enlist the help of the first killer in covering up his own murder.

This case presents a unique challenge to Columbo. There are several cases when the prominent murderers he hunts will use their connections to pressure Columbo to back off, but this time Columbo is facing off against corrupt superior with more direct authority and control over the investigation. Even as Columbo produces more inconsistencies with “the burgular did it” story, the Commissioner pushes him towards that one answer.

The Commissioner is one of Columbo’s chilling villains, combining his sociopathic nature, an intimidating personality, and the raw power of a high police official.

In the end, Columbo has to get very creative and enlist the help of the real burgular to solve the case in one of Columbo’s memorable endings.

2) Now, You See Him-1976

This episode is the second Jack Cassidy episode on the list. This is perhaps the Columbo episode I enjoyed the most. Cassidy is fantastically believable as the Great Santini, a clever magician with a past that he must keep secret at all costs which leads him to kill his employer who is blackmailing him.

Even though, the music and style of the Great Santini are totally 1970s, there’s a certain edge of coolness even watching this episode 30 years later, and Cassidy plays the murderer with a great deal of charm throughout the episode.

This episode saw the return of Sergeant Wilson (Bob Disky). Wilson had appeared in the 1972 episode, “The Greenhouse Jungle” as a young by the book police sergeant who chafed against Columbo’s unorthodox methods, only for Columbo to be proven right after Wilson arrested the wrong man. In, “Now You See Him,” Wilson has grown a bit and actually is helpful to Columbo on the case. It should be noted that this is the only time that giving Columbo a sidekick worked out well.

With a solid denouement featuring Columbo’s own magic trick with some key help from Sergeant Wilson, this is a fun way to spend 75 minutes.

1) A Stitch in Crime-1973

This episode begins with a fairly clever murder plot in which a Dr. Barry Mayfieldplans to murder his partner by putting temporary sutures where permanent ones ought to go, which will lead to the doctor’s death. A nurse finds out and the Mayfield kills her to stop her from spilling the plan.

As Nimoy is most famous for playing Spock on Star Trek many reviews will reference this as Spock v. Columbo. The comparison is not entirely without merit. Nimoyis cold, calculating, and throughout most of the episode, detached and unemotional. He’s the picture of a perfect sociopath and very menacing. The scene right before he murdered the nurse is perhaps the most startling in the series. 

Like with “A Friend in Deed,” what makes Mayfield a particularly dangerous killer is not just that he’s a heartless murderer, but his position. In this case, as he’s a doctor who is supposed to be a healer, it adds another dimension to the character.

In this episode, Columbo has to work to prevent the original murder that Dr. Mayfield set out commit. This adds some additional tension to the episode that isn’t your ordinary episode of Columbo. This episode is also notable for being one of the occassions where Columbo gets mad at a killer and shows it:

The ending to this episode just can’t be beat. As we get to the end, it does look like Columbo may have lost or more accurately, got a split decision that will leave Dr. Mayfield free. It’s only in the last forty-five seconds that Columbo pulls it out. 

Of course, other fans have their favorites. And it’s a hallmark of Columbo movie reviews that on nearly every 1970s episode, some fans will insist it was one of Columbo’s best and others will insist it was one of the weakest. Your feedback is always welcomed.

The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Moviesseries will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.

UPDATE:

Linked by the Rap Sheet where folks are discussing their own favorites and suggesting substitutions.

(For Part One, see here.)

7) Fade Into Murder (1976): This episode of Columbo was far from the most difficult case Columbo had to crack, however the guest murderer made the episode entertaining.

William Shatner plays the role of Actor Ward Fowler. Fowler plays a famous TV crimefighter, Detective Lucerne. Fowler kills the woman who is blackmailing him and tries to put the blame on her husband.

Shatner is perfectly cast as the hammy actor who tries to “help” Columbo solve the case by getting in character as Detective Lucerne. The interaction between Falk and Shatner is fun. The highlight of the episode comes towards the end when Fowler, in character as Detective Lucerne accuses himself of having committed the murder!

6) Murder By the Book (1971): There’s a reason Jack Cassidy played the murderer on Columbo three times. Cassidy makes for a dashing and deceptive villain, and the chemistry between him and Falk made each outing memorable.

The plot centers around a writing team, where one member of the team writes best-selling mysteries and the other. Ken Franklin runs the business end. When the creative genius decides to leave the team, Franklin decides to kill him. The way Franklin commits the murder, it looks like he was miles away from the muder room.

The case presents a serious challenge to Columbo and thinks get even more complicated when someone who could blow Franklin’s alibi tries to blackmail him. “Murder by the Book” was directed by a young Steven Speilberg.

5) Columbo-“Short Fuse” (1972)

Roddy McDowell plays Roger Stanford, a genius and the nephew of the owner of a chemical plant who murders his uncle by turning a box of cigars into a bomb.

Stanford’s scheming doesn’t stop there. He spends the episode trying to manipulate his aunt into giving him control of the factory through a series of cunning moves. Of course, the young genius is dismissive of Columbo which turns out to be his undoing.

This episode, written by radio veteran Jackson Gills, features a fantastic ending on board a gondola lift.

4) Death Lends a Hand (1971):

This was the first of three Robert Culp appearances and the best of the three.  It was a unique story for a number of reasons.

The first one is that the killing was not premeditated. Culp plays Bremmer, the an ex-cop head of a security and investigations firm that lies to a client to tell him his wife wasn’t cheating on her, and then tries to blackmail the wife in hopes of getting some juicy information. When she comes to his door, threatening to tell her husband the truth, Bremmer gets angry and smacks her so hard that he kills her.  He then tries to make it look like a robbery that happened somewhere else.

Bremmer then gets into an even better position to further the cover-up when the grieving husband brings him in to help Columbo investigates. Columbo begins to catch on, and Bremmer tries to get Columbo off the case by offering him a job with his security firm.

Bremmer was one of Columbo’s most worthy adversaries, and in order to get his man, Columbo has to use a good bit of trickery. Sometimes, this can come off as contrived, but the end to this episode is one of the most memorable in the series.

This episode was also well done from a visual and music perspective. The scene when the death occurs and Bremmer hides the body is fascinating viewing. Taken with a nearly unbeatable mix of Peter Falk and Robert Culp, and you can see why this is a classic that helped to put Columbo on the map.

The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Movies series will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.

Columbo was a unique detective show in that the murderer’s identity was (almost) always known from the beginning. What made the show interesting was how Columbo would solve the crime and where the flaw in the murder lay.

Each episode represented a battle of wits between Columbo and the murderer. Columbo, due to his disheveled appearance and quirkiness, would almost be underestimated by the killer, who would try to lead Columbo down the path they wanted him to follow. Sooner or later, they would realize that Columbo was no fool and they’d move from helpful to hostile.

Columbo in some ways was the opposite of Dragnet. It was almost a police fantasy where a Police Lieutenant rarely supervised any men and didn’t carry a gun, and all of his cases involved the rich and/or famous who committed murder at an alarming rate.

Somehow, it worked. Arguably, it worked best during the show’s original 1970s run. So far, the only Columbo revival movie I’d put in the same category as the best 1970s shows is 1989’s Columbo Goes to the Guillotine. However, I’ve not seen every one of the latter movies, so I’ll limit this list to the 1970s run:

10) The Conspirators (1978):

In “The Conspirators,” Irish poet and undercover IRA agent Joe Devlin (Clide Revill) kills an arms dealer who tried to double cross him and his conspirators.

Revill turns in a charming performance as Devlin with fantastic chemistry with Falk. The show has some fun and relaxing scenes as Columbo and Devlin play darts, make up limericks, and talk about their past.

The show also does have some serious undertones as it deals with the conflict in Northern Ireland. Unlike the 1975 episode, “A Case of Immunity,” the writers didn’t fictionalize world affairs. Devlin had publicly renounced violence and was raising funds for the victims of Northern Ireland, but the money was actually to be used to buy guns to go to Northern Ireland which sadly did happen with quite a few international charities.

Columbo’s challenge is not only to find the arms dealer’s murderer but to stop the arms from going to Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, Devlin has to get the arms without his dealer.

In a series that featured a lot insufferable snobs, the showdown with Devlin was a pleasant change that made for a memorable end to the 1970s run.

9) Murder Under Glass

At the other end of the relationship scale from the chummy Murder Under Glass. Columbo. In the 1977 episode, “Try and Catch Me” Columbo admits to liking people in general, and even some of the murderers he met, and explained his overall positive outlook on life:

It’s rare for Columbo to express dislike for a suspect which makes the ending of “Murder Under Glass” so interesting as both Columbo and the killer express their dislike for each other.

Throughout most of the episode, Columbo and food critic Paul Gerard remain polite, even cordial, however, it’s clear these two have growing contempt for each other. Gerard poisoned a restaurateur who had gotten tired of being blackmailed by Gerard. Gerard then frames a young Italian immigrant for the crime.

The case is fully based in the world of high class dining, and the writers did fantastic research to make the episode come alive. The most notable thing we learn in the episode is that Columbo is a good cook. While this contradicts an earlier episode, seeing Columbo cook was so fun, I don’t really care.

“Murder Under Glass” comes down to a final scene where Columbo and the murderer prepare a meal, with the murderer becoming one of the few Columbo killers to think of killing off the good Lieutenant to evade capture.

8 ) Requiem for a Falling Star (1973)

One became one of the cliche’s of Columbo series was Columbo saying to the murderer, “The wife and I are really big fans.” After a while, I developed the theory that the police could most easily catch murderers by placing anyone Mrs. Columbo is a fan of under police under surveilance.

One of the earliest and most effective examples of this was in “Requiem for a Falling Star.” Here, it really works.

Aging actress Nora Chandler (Anne Baxter) kills off her assistant. Columbo is called into investigate. He is very excited to meet Miss Chandler, so much so that he calls up his family.

Throughout the episode, Columbo remains very kind and respectful towards Chandler, even as her guilt becomes more obvious.  Chandler remains gracious towards Columbo until the end when she really feels him closing in on her.

This episode also features quite a bit more mystery than your average Columbo episode. Oftentimes, both the motive and method of the crime are laid out completely. I have to admit that I was a little confused by how Chandler pulled off the murder, and the motive remained a mystery until the final scene.

Taken together with great chemistry between Peter Falk and Anne Baxter, this is one of the most enjoyable Columbos out there.

Continued next week…

The entire 1970s Columbo Series is available on DVD from Amazon, along the 1989 and 1990 Mystery Movies series. The 1991-93 Mystery Movies series will be available on DVD February 8th. Episodes of Columbo are also available on DVD and Instant Watch from Netflix.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post.

By the time the 1990s rolled out, Bill Cosby was huge.  He’d had many great efforts in television and other forms entertainment. He was supercool superspy Alexander Scott in the groundbreaking I Spy series. He was producer and host of the award-winning Fat Albert Series. However, his greatest success was the Cosby Show, which provided 1980s family friendly comedies that had gone missing for so many years (and have since disappeared again.)

Cosby in the 1990s brought two classic TV concepts back to the American screen.

The first was Groucho Marx’s classic, You Bet Your Life. Cosby was a huge fan of Marx and considered him one of the four best comedians of all time along with Charlie Chaplain, Buster Keaton, and W.C. Fields. Unlike the other three, Cosby actually got to know Marx a bit. More than anything else, he’d admired Marx for You Bet Your Life.   Cosby had even met the old producers of You Bet Your Life to get a chance to do it and been turned down. In the 1990s, on the heels of the Cosby show and becoming a $90 million man, Cosby could pretty much get any project he wanted and so he got to follow in the footsteps of one his heroes in the 1992-93 version of You Bet Your Life.

The show may have been a little too early. A revival of You Bet Your Life could have gone well in the reality TV era, but alas made it only one season in syndication, and was not widely viewed or known. The only video clips available are from those folks sharing appearances by their relatives on the show. These two clips from the show are priceless comedy, although they go on a little long, it’s worth a viewing:

Cosby wasn’t done bringing classic concepts to a new audience. In the late 1990s, he revived another vintage TV concept. Art Linkletter did his House Party show for 24 years over CBS radio and television, and had been best remembered for its Kids Say the Darnedst Things segment.

Cosby once again revived a classic concept as he took his turn questioning kids and hearing the surprising answers they gave.

The big difference between You Bet Your Life and Kids Say the Darnedst Things is that Art Linkletter was still alive and in fact Linkletter worked with Cosby on the program. When I watched Kids Say the Darnedst Things for the first time, I was very curious as to who Linkletter was. I had no idea, growing up.

Cosby introduced Linkletter to a new generation. Most episodes of Kids Say the Darnedst Things featured some footage of some of Linkletter’s most hilarious moments.  Linkletter, in his mid-80s at the time, appeared frequently on the show. Cosby always showed a warm regard for Linkletter and never illustrated it better than with a touching surprise tribute to the man on CBS:

Those who saw Linkletter and Marx in their prime feel that Cosby’s efforts were not as good. There’s certainly something to it as both Linkletter and Marx performances were definitive. 

I don’t think the point of Cosby’s effort was displace either of these two legends. Rather, Cosby did the shows because he enjoyed and loved the originals, and his efforts helped to bring awareness of the originals back into the public mind. And there’s nothing better for a top entertainer to do than that.

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If you mention Green Acres, people think of the 1965-71 Sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. But fifteen years before Green Acres came to TV,  it came to radio.

CBS broadcast Granby’s Green Acres as a Summer replacement series. Granby’s Green Acres told the story of John Granby, a Banker who got fed up with city life and took his wife and family to relocate to a farm.

Sound familiar?

The radio Green Acres were written by a 33-year old writer, who would go on to write 150 of the 170 TV episodes of Green Acres.

There were quite a few similarities between the radio and TV versions of Green Acres. Both featured a scatter-brained Mr. Kimball (although the radio Mr. Kimball ran the county store rather than being the County Agent.) Granby also had a farm hand named Eb. The radio show had some good bits that Sommers would dust off for early TV episodes.

An early Green Acres TV episode where Oliver can’t decide what to plant has its basis in the radio episode, “Mr. Granby Plants a Crop.”

And this great little bit of dialogue also came from the radio show originally:

Oliver: I’d take a seed, a tiny little seed, I’d plant it in the ground, I’d put some dirt on it, I’d water it, and pretty soon, do you know what I would have?
Lisa: A dirty little wet seed.

At the end of the radio run. John Granby (Gale Gordon) told listeners to send letters in to their local CBS station with their thoughts on Granby’s Green Acres.  The show never returned to the air.

There were many reasons the show didn’t make it in 1950. One big one might be that Granby’s Green Acres was not a show that audiences were ready for. Americans had migrated in large numbers to cities like New York and Los Angeles in search of economic opportunities. Granby’s desire to move to the country seemed absurd. When Green Acres appeared on TV, it was a very different world with violence and unrest, crime on the rise, and social unrest. Moving to Hooterville sounded a lot less crazy and made us more sympathetic with Mr. Douglas.

The biggest problem with Granby’s Green Acres may have been that it just wasn’t ready for prime time. Granby is too much of a cantankerous blowhard.  The radio version gives you an appreciation of the talent with which Eddie Albert played the role of Oliver Wendell Douglas, as a complex mix of bombast, idealism, practicality, and romance that made the character a joy to watch.

In the radio version, Sommers only had given real airtime to Mr. Kimball from the store, and a know it all County Agent who always ate Granby’s supper.  Pretty thin gruel.

Not continuing Granby’s Green Acres was a smart decision. Even with great comics like Burns and Allen leaving radio for television, radio comedy was still undergoing a golden age and Sommers creation simply was not in the same league as shows like Our Miss Brooks,  Life of Riley, and Life with Luigi. 

It also had a nice aftermath. Sommers continued to develop as a writer and work the world of television, writing on such shows as Amos and Andy, Dennis the Menace, and Petticoat Junction.  When Green Acres came back, it became one of television’s best sitcoms.

It featured Pat Buttram turning in the role Mr. Haney who was always trying to sell Mr. Douglas something, Eva Gabor as the sweet but often confusing Hungarian Princess Lisa Douglas,  and the Ziffels who treat their pig like he’s their son, and much more.

While the radio show didn’t have these elements, it serves as a rough draft of Green Acres, which makes it an interesting listen.

Related:

IMDB has the first five season of Green Acres available for instant watch.

Recently, I got the Best of TV Detectives (affiliate link), a 150 episode collection of TV Detective shows. Despite the fact that not all of them were detective shows. (Two public domain episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and a few crime dramas) it’s been quite a treat to catch some of these shows for the first time.

There was Front Page Detective with David Chase which called to mind some of the great radio detectives in its characterization. Racket Squad, Public Defender, Code 3, and the Court of Last Resort played off of Dragnet in their mix of entertainment and education about various aspects of law enforcement and crime. The set has further spurred my interest in other TV Detective shows, long forgotten to see what can be found.

The shows can be divided into the following categories:

1) Mostly/Completely in the Public Domain: TV shows made before 1964 were given a 28 year copyright term, renewable for another 28 years.  Those shows that didn’t renew entered the public domain. Each episode had to be renewed individually. That’s why you’ll find episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show (an otherwise copyrighted show) in dollar DVD bins. However, some shows simply didn’t renew at all. Some had a very good reason. Their network had gone belly up. The DuMont TV network produced several early television shows, but within 28 years, they were out of business, and whoever had been assigned Dumont’s Copyrights let them lapse. Other shows just lapsed for whatever reasons, perhaps official inattention as the shows weren’t being syndicated.

Just because a show has lapsed into the public domain doesn’t mean the public can actually see it. If there’s no film left, it might as well not exist.

Shows that have lapsed completely or mostly into the public domain tend to have a variable nature about the number of shows available, usually a sparse few episodes claimed from a TV station that had paid to syndicate the show one at point. The economics is simple. There’s no one with an economic incentive to care for the show or care if its episodes survive. The results: spotty prints, few prints, and many adventures lost.

2) Shows with few episodes in the Public Domain:

This category of shows was mostly renewed, but a few episodes slipped into the public domain. Examples of this include one episode of the 1960s TV show Burke’s Law that lapsed into the public domain, as well as two episodes of the very cool Peter Gunn. Next to actually being released commercially on to DVD, this could be the best possible situation for a TV Detective. An episode or two in the public domain. Fans are teased by the cheap public domain episode and made curious about other episodes, which can lead to the release of a full box set. Those who knew 1960s Detective Series Checkmate has only been available on bootleg DVDs, but the popularity of public domain episodes spurred a release of the Best of Season One and the The Best of Seasons Two. Now a complete set of all 70 episodes is set for release this year.

Copryighted And Actively Available: This is a good state for the show be in. Those shows that have been fully copyrighted and are fully available are available to watch. Shows like Perry Mason and the Rockford Files are easily accessible to mystery fans on TV and DVD, and in many cases online. Copyright preservation helps to ensure quality condition (usually) of prints, while some public domain shows can be of variable quality.

However, there is a downside to continued copyright protection when a series remains under protection but is completely unavailable.  Unlike, the public domain series, no third party can come in and make episodes available. I found quite a few interesting sounding detective serials that I’d love to see, if only they would release a DVD. Here are a few detective shows from the 1950s I’d love to see, if the respective owners would release them:

1) Johnny Midnight:

In Copyright Jail until: 2056

Edmond O’Brien, eight years after leaving Yours Truly Johnny Dollar returned to the serial gumshoe role as Broadway Star turned private detective named Johnny Midnight.  You can’t really go wrong with Edmond O’Brien as a detective. (see DOA and the Killers for more proof.) So this sounds like an interesting series.

2) Johnny Staccato:

In Copyright Jail until 2055

John Cassavetes stars as Johnny Staccato, a Jazz musician who is a private detective. It makes me think of a  mix of Pete Kelly’s Blues and Man with a Camera. I haven’t seen much with Cassevettes. He was a television pioneer who spent much of his career behind the camera, but he was very good in a 1972 Columbo movie, Etude in Black. Rated 8.7 out of 10 by IMDB users.

3) The Line Up

In Copyright Jail: Until 2055

The Line-up was based on an old time radio show of the same name and was one of the string of police procedurals that came out after Dragnet. It was set in San Francisco and ran in syndication for many years as San Francisco Beat.  Doing a copyright search, some episodes of this show have fallen into the public domain but the public domain shows haven’t come into any type of circulation. IMBD.com user rating: 6.9

4) Felony Squad:

In Copyright Jail: Until 2064 

This is a show that’s a fascinating must for fans of Old Time Radio.  It stars Sam Spade’s Howard Duff  as Detective Sam Stone, who works in a major crimes unit in a Western City. The show also featured Ben Alexander of Dragnet as Desk Seargent Dan Briggs. Rated an 8.7 on IMDB. It should be noted that this show at one point, had a few episodes released on VHS, but not released on DVD.

It’s interesting to read about the show, however it would be even more interesting to watch it.  Hopefully, copyright owners will take note and begin to release legal authorized versions of these shows on websites like Hulu or DVD, so that a new generation of fans will enjoy them.

It should be noted that Hollywood can make some bizarre decisions with these DVD releases. (There are more official seasons of Bonanza available to watch in Germany than in the United States.) If you think these shows belong on DVD, or there are other shows not currently on DVD that you’d like to see, you can go to TVshowsonDVD.com and let your voice be heard by voting for your favorites.

One of the Google searches that hit the site recently was for “Bill Cosby Detective Show.” People remember Bill Cosby for his Comedy, particularly the ratings sensation, The Cosby Show. But, Bill Cosby did try his hand as a TV detective.

It was 1994 and Cosby’s first project after the end of the Cosby Show and his choice was the Cosby Mysteries which followed recently retired police officer, Guy Hanks as he found himself retired after a heart attack and winning the lottery on the same day, but still drawn back to serve as criminologist solving cases for the NYPD or occasionally private clients.

The mysteries were well-written with surprising twist and turns, and plenty of tension. The character of Guy Hanks was typical Cosby. There was always the light touches that are in most Cosby Characters (going back to Kelly Robinson in I Spy.)  He and Police Detective Adam Sully (played by James Naughton) had good chemistry. He also had a good sidekick in aspiring young criminologist, Dante (Mos Def.) Cosby as an elder mentor always make for good entertainment.

The show had some fantastic episodes. My favorite featured Douglas Adams (writer of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) as a husband who runs into Hanks at the Party and has a discussion about the art of murder because he’s about to murder his own wife, and Hanks has to stop him without leaving the party.  In another, his Cosby show wife, Phylicia Rashad played an old flame and competing criminologist.

It was a fun show that sadly lasted only for 19 episodes. There are a number of reasons why. Cosby pointed to the timeslot quipping that with the Cosby Mysteries, “The biggest mystery was when it was on.”

The show may simply have come too late. Cosby chose to make the show a character-driven detective story rather than using violence and sensationalism to gain ratings.  The PG Detective shows that had been popular through much of the 1970s and 1980s with TV shows like the Rockford Files, Quincy, and Magnum PI, were passing from the scene.

Matlock had been forced to jump networks from NBC to ABC in 1992. The 1990s saw CBS fail with a revival of Burke’s Law and later in the 1990s drew a blank with Buddy Faro. Angela Lansbury continued to have success with Murder She Wrote, though that would also disappear in 1996.

The TV mystery and cop series that would take to the air in the 1990s and since have tended to be more lurid and violent, and to really sell the show based on that. Of course, there are exceptions, but the PG detective show may be the hardest one to make today.

The Cosby Mysteries’ biggest problem may not have been that there was something wrong with the series but not enough right. Two truly sucessful PG Detective shows that each managed eight seasons on the air were Diagnosis Murder. (1993-2001) and Monk (2001-2009). Both shows succeeded by being more than detective shows. The quirky Mark Sloan and the Neurotic Adrian Monk made for shows that you didn’t have to be a mystery fan to enjoy, with plenty of comedy. In Diagnosis Murder’s case, they also made use of guest stars, bringing several old TV detectives back to television such as Mannix, Adam 12 co-stars Martin Milner and Kent McCord, and Andy Griffith as Matlock, after Matlock was cancelled by a second network.

The biggest problem with the Cosby Mysteries was that its creators didn’t understand that a good mystery wasn’t enough to hold an audience. Still, fans of good mysteries would do well to give the Cosby Mysteries a look if they see it on reruns. Unfortunately, the show has not been released on DVD.