Wings For Wheels

Last month I discovered that MeTV, a local retro television channel, was showing Barney Miller reruns, and I’ve just had a blast seeing these shows I haven’t seen in years. Although it was very successful during its eight-season run from 1975-82, I don’t think it got the proper respect. That’s probably due to the fact that there were so many other groundbreaking sitcoms at the time (the same goes for the original Bob Newhart Show, which MeTV also broadcasts).

But the humor of Barney Miller has held up incredibly well. The writing was sharp and attuned to the times (if not always falling to our standards of political correctness). I love is seeing the character actors who seemed to bounce from show to show. You’d recognize a mugger on one episode of Barney Miller as the same guy who also played a wounded soldier on M*A*S*H.

And the cast was first-rate. As the title character, Hal Linden may have been the glue holding it all together, but everybody had moments in each episode to shine: Wojo’s ability to be simultaneously embarrassed and aroused any time the dialogue got remotely sexual; Fish’s perpetual exasperation; Yemana’s refusal to work; Harris’ fastidiousness; Luger’s insensitivity; Levitt’s brown-nosing. But my favorite character is Dietrich. He was rarely, if ever, the focus of a plot, but he would get the biggest laughs with a smart-ass deadpan and walk away with a self-satisfied smile. The writers must have loved coming up with things for him to say.

A typical Dietrich exchange: a southern businessman gets picked up for solicitation (“Same ol’ story,” Wojo says. “He was buyin’, she was supplyin’”). Dietrich is processing the arrest.

Man: I know why you arrested me.
Dietrich: Why?
Man: It’s because I’m from Arkansas.
Dietrich: Nah, we haven’t enforced that in years.

Later, he’s in the cage, trying to convince Dietrich that Little Rock is a modern, thriving city.

Man: We like the same things you like here: A good cut of meat, fresh lobster, a nice bottle of wine…
Dietrich: Red or white?
Man: It depends.
Dietrich: With possum?
Man: Red.
Dietrich: Thought so.

It also had the second funkiest theme song of the 70s (only Quincy Jones’ Sanford And Son theme had it beat).

Unfortunately, Hulu doesn’t have the classic episode where Wojo’s girlfriend bakes hash brownies for the 1-2 (“mushy, mushy”), but here’s an episode I saw the other day that has it all.