Episode 31: Toys + The Indian + Voice Analyzer

Welcome did the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast. I'm your host Mike White. Joining me is the rookie Chris Statue. I have all ten of my fingers I just checked. Also along for the ride is well.

We've got a special guest. He's here from Internal Affairs. It is mister Otto Bruno. I have not done an anatomical check, but I'm pretty sure I'm all here. Yes.

On this episode of the podcast, we were talking about three episodes of the original Barney Miller Show. We are in the fifth season, pretty much smack dab in the middle of the fifth season. We were talking about three episodes, Toys, which originally aired December fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight, The Indian, which aired January fourth, nineteen seventy nine, and Voice Analyzer, which aired January eleventh, nineteen seventy nine. We've got a Christmas episode here, guys. It's a Christmas time Yay, it's a very subtle Christmas episode.

Yeah, very very yeah. Yeah, we're talking about toys, so I guess it kind of yeah, it's not like these days or it's just like, oh, how do you celebrate Christmas? How do you well, there's necesarily a lot of discussion of Christmas in this one. We don't actually see as many of the amenities of Christmas as we did in that first one where Nick gets the Blue Tree. Yes, but it's discussed quite often.

And in fact, this was, of course the first time we had seen Chris's baborite Liz Buller in quite a long time. Oh, is that the perception among the listeners of this show is that I'm a Barbara Berry dan from long ago? Because you're right, I am. It's true. It's true.

Both of us who have listened to the show know that you are Barbara Berry's biggest fan, and all wanted that this is the last time she comes by. A boy, oh boy, do we get wrong footed here because we were headed straight forward divorce town and it looks like we've made a turndown reconciliation alley, But nope, fuck you, we are not going anywhere down that street. This is the last time we're gonna see Barbara Berry here. I'm really disappointed that at no point in this episode did Luger show up and go, hey, Blatnie, yeah, you're getting divorced, Like, where's this interaction episode where is James Gregory. The question that's being asked by all the kids right now on the street is where's James Gregory?

Because they mentioned him, They mentioned him, and that feels like a missed opportunity. Don't mention the man, give us, give us time with him. Well, but you can't have him in every episode. He was in the episode right before before and there, so he was in the Radical was the episode that preceded this one. But that's not the one we're talking about right now.

I know. But what I'm saying is he was never a weekly character. That's fair. No, that's fair. I mean, I get it.

It's just I like him a lot, and he would have added something to this episode, right And I don't want to, Um, I don't wanna give anything away. But while Mike is correct in saying that we will never see the likes Liz Miller again, UM, I might as well give it away and say that they are headed toward reconciliation. Lane, Oh okay, good, that is surprising. Yeah, yeah, well, they reconcile, but we just never see her again. Correct.

Well, to be fair, they were together all those times and we never saw her then, So he all of a sudden she shows up when they're on the rocks, but when they're fine, who cares? Right? And I think this was basically a case of giving in to the fans, because some of the guys who wrote it, like Tony Sheen, were telling me that, I mean, people were live it when they separated, live it. So, um, it's part of Barney's wholesome image. Is that what it is?

Because that's kind of what it feels like, right, Like he's the wholesome married one. Nobody else seems to be married, but he's the one and he's got his life together. Yeah. I was afraid we were going to go down the path of Barney starting to date. No, let me wants to see that, let's be on it.

I don't know. There was that one episode where he was getting hit on by that woman and it wasn't awkward. It wasn't as awkward as I thought it was going. Right, you're talking about the prostitute or ooh no, the doctor the therapist that was like, hey, you're pretty hot with that mustache. Well that prostitute from the hostage episode or not hostage.

There they're trying to take over the apartment building. Oh eviction yeah, eviction. Yeah yeah, she seemed all about that mustache to go for a ride. You two are lude and Lacivian. Well that I'm living up to our reviews right now.

I'm getting tired of people telling us that we swear too much, that we're too woke, all this kind of garbage. It's just like, we're talking about the show. We love this show. We keep getting these remarks that we don't like the show. If we didn't like the show, we wouldn't be talking about it for How many years are we going to talk about this show, Chris?

Quite a few? Yeah? Actually, you know what, let's take this opportunity because I'm gonna ask Auto here. We have him here, folks, he's hostage. There's a gun to his head.

Do you just don't see it? And this is a audio medium anyway. So I'm an old guy, So let me ask you something. You've listened to our show. You have not only listened to our show, but you spent more time with Barney Miller than any person other than the person writing a book about it should have.

Aren't we fans of the show? You know, yes, you're honestly fans of the show that goes without saying I mean, I kind of agree with Mike. I think if you're devoting out of I think you're obviously a band of the show. On the flip side, I could see where where older people would say, oh, they're so walked there because Chris, you and I have had this discussion before. Because I say this to my daughter, I don't.

I mean, in many ways, and in many areas, and on many subjects, I would be considered woke. At the same time, I do also feel very strongly that shows should be seen through the prism of when they were made. Agreed so, and a lot of the time, I'll say this too, and I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna be perfectly on it. You have to listen to your podcast, to the Berney podcast. You have to listen to more than one episode, because if they'd never listened to anything else, particularly with you, Chris, they have to know your sides of Humer.

In my opinion, funny me never, Oh no, I don't think you're funny. I don't think I'm funning either at long, trying to be funny, crying. Okay, I'm glad. I am glad that everybody could interpret me as trying to be funny. No, I've been just failing upwards this entire time.

Frankly, No, I no, I'm no. But in I'm being serious, people have to listen, right Like with any podcast, quite honestly, you have to listen to get the field for the hosts and how their delivery works with the material that they're covering. I mean, I think that I think that goes without saying for any podcast that I've listened to, quite honestly. So, um so I could see an old person getting all upset and bent out of shape if you're, you know, the criticizing something that they say or do. That's no longer acceptable.

But I don't think that I would agree that you're obviously not going to be spending all this time on a show that you're not patent fold so so that would be a little silly that Yeah, that's I mean, that is the thing about doing anything with any TV show, anything, is you have to watch it countless times and you have to do research outside of it. It's you know, we're we are just like you did with your book that you can pick up over a bear manner. Media, we're in, we're in inserting ourselves into Barney Miller and standing within the precinct and trying to be as part as much a part of the show as possible, because that is how you have to, like you've already said, experience this kind of media because it is from a time and place that it's not foreign, but it feels distant from where we are now.

Well, sure, it's almost fifty years old. And and if people only listen, for example, if people only listen to you at the beginning, if I'm not mistaken, remind me, I don't think Chris was crazy about Lugar at the beginning, and now he seems to love Luger. Yeah, that's one percent correct, And we have rounded the corner. I love it as well. Oh boy, haven't we?

Yes, well, yeah, both of us have, Mike and I because I want to say when he when he showed up the first time, Mike, like we were both like, why is this guy's gonna be here the whole show? Yeah? Yeah, don't you think I should get a promotion? And I kind of like to hear where he shows up in the plain clothes, you know, with that horrible herb tarlet type jacket that he's got going on. Are the's episodes out of order though, because he shows up with the jacket and then in the next episode he's like, hey, Arris, what do you think of my jacket?

He's like, well, he was already in this jacket though. You know, you know, Chris, you make an excellent point. Okay, I'm not crazy that right, that that did happen out of order? Right, because in my book, I'm I write about like the episode right before this that we're talking about that lug was in. He says, Inspector Luger mentions how hot it is bre October, but the episode air run.

So why you know, if you're if you're, if you're no one, it's going to err Why would we even mention a time, right, you know, just say oh, it's hot for the fall or something like that. Why would you say an actual name of a month that can be traced back. You know, that was just weird because, like Harris, Harris as a character, there's no way he wouldn't have seen Levin had been like holy shit, because his reaction was so visceral when he asked him about it. Anyways, right, Well, it's funny because I think in the last episode two, the Radical there's a camera if it's Harris or Woe. Joe talks about how old Barney suit is and that he shows up in this one in a brand new suit which no one and as Susie wrote it, it's a suit with the best Barney never wears a vast Yeah, so he looks real dapper in that suit though he does.

Yeah, well, but I'm just saying he can't not expect anyone to know, oh yeah, oh, for like if he had showed up without his mustache, when like it's something different Barney like, yeah, you don't have a mustache? Man, Like, what the fuck? So we always break down things and terms of a B and C plot. I would guess the A plot is this kind of reconciliation that Barney's going through, even though it's really very much at the beginning and the end of the episode. We'd go through a middle part there where leaves the precinct, and then she'll be back later on and she's making room for a little bit of the what I would consider the C story, which is and I know the gentleman's name is Sydney Lassic, but I just call him Chesswick from his role in one flu or the Cuckoo's Nest, and that he is playing a crazy person.

Essentially he is very claustrophobic, and so when they put him in the cage, he loses his mind. And then the b plot for me as these two toymakers who are rivals, and one of them hires a thief to go over and steal things from the other one and like basically stealing his inventions. It's intellectual property theft. Including that it's so funny because it's basically like sly is this stuff in a jar? And I don't know if this was a new thing back in nineteen seventy eight going into seventy nine, but this stuff now is so popular that my granddaughter comes over.

It's like, can we make slime? And they have like slime kits, like you can use Elmer's glue and ceiling solution and a few other things, and they will sell a kit of this stuff with colors that you can put into it and all this and it's like this huge thing. So hats off to you, mister so and so I think it's I can't remember it's the Stephen Medlane character or which one it is, but they you know, this is going to tear up the market, if not now, at least it forty years. I want to point something out that I would pay money to watch you make slime, Mike, just to see you, just to see you making slime. What am I doing here?

I've done it so many times? That's amazing thing. I know. It was really funny because yeah, like slime, I think as like it's kind of part and parcel to the growth of YouTube in a way. It feels like like a lot of the early growth on YouTube was like, at least in the tens, was like slime videos and people making and selling slime.

So to see it in this kind of like such a like such a starting spot. It's in like a glass jar that this guy's like, I've got this invention here, and it's gonna be stolen. It's gonna be so popular. Yes, you're correct. Poco sticks, on the other hand, I don't know, like that's the question I have.

Slime. Is slime a fad like pogo sticks into hula hoop though, because again it kind of feels like it in a way now. Even so, I know there was some slime that was pretty popular when I was a kid, but it wasn't the cottage industry that it is now. I mean, it was kind of like you would buy like the egg type of thing and you could get one that had the silly putty inside, or you could get the slime stuff where it would have extras more like the yellow almost like Plato type of cup, and you could get slime in that and then just yeah, all over your hands, and I think they would even market it as snot in some cases. Yeah, slime came after me.

That was after my time. Yeah, I knew silly putty and Plato, but that was I The only thing I knew slime from was one of my kids were young and watching uh Nickelodeon. You can't do that on television. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so well, which is totally not the same type of slime that we're playing with now, which is much more viscous and Ryah exactly.

I'm more of a thinking putty man myself instead of a thin silly that's a real thing. Thinking putty is a real thing. It's a it's a great h it's a great fidget toy slash resistance tool for your hand at your desk. I'm not joking. I'm not joking, being dead serious.

Errand's crazy, Errand's thinking putty. Oh okay, it's kind of like the stress balls and yeah, yeah, they have one that's like they have one that's like magnetic, and they have one that's like like heat banks. All right, yeah, yeah, that's where this guy, that's where Stephen Metterling. He'd just became crazier and crazier and slide well seven Metterling played by one of my favorites, Walter Janovitz. And Janovitz was the first of all.

I remember him fondly from The Odd Couple when I was a kid, because he did a couple of episodes of The Odd Couple. But he was also I think he was in like enter twelve episodes of Hogan's Heroes Nice and if I'm not mistaken, he and I. He was named Otto, and he drove the truck that would bring the guard dogs, you know, he'd take the guard dogs guard dogs in and he knew Hogan in the Man and he knew what they were doing and he would help them sometimes. But he was in a number of Barties. This was actually his first or second, but he'll be no his second because the first of one was in Half.

The first one is when he's a Polish actor in Half. Uh. Yeah, So this was his second episode and as you said, Mike Sydney lastic, this was his first of two Byrony episode. And yes, he always played those high strong, you know, erotic characters like he did in one flew over Kugo. Was that it kind of reminds me of like portly Bert Young.

Yeah, you know, like Bert, but like he'd like, I don't know, something about his face makes him play that crazy, that kind of crazy perfectly, right. He does it so well. Yeah, Like he was in a movie called Pandemonium that I absolutely love, and yeah, he just he plays a nut so well. And he was one of the teachers and Carrie every time he shows up, and I know he was in Cool as Ice of all things. But yeah, whenever I see this guy and he's just like, oh, it's mister Cheswick.

This is great. He's so good. Yeah, the things I've seen him and I always think of him as as very childlife. Oh yeahs as he is in this, you know, because serirely sorry. You know, later when he's apologizing to to Liz, right, I'm waiting for him to say I don't want his cigarettes.

I want my cigarettes. Yeah. No, yeah, you're right. He has very sincerely sorry that he has, you know, kind of gone off. And I knew the son as I saw this guy wrote Bellevue in my notes and Ryan, where he goes once again to our show's favorite place to dump the crazies.

Yeah, and I wasn't way, go ahead, go ahead. The guy who plays his rival in this The actor's name is Backery Burger and in the show he plays Nathan Berman. Um, he will be on Barney one more time and probably the most serious episode ever done. Oh the Barney Miller show. Oh wow, and this is a show that had an episode titled rape.

Just want to point that out for everybody at home playing along. Yeah, well, we've seen, just recently saw one of the most serious spots. Trust me that the I think once you see it and I can't remember now off the top of my head. Have you seen rape already? Oh?

Yeah, Well, once you see the one that he's a that comes in season seven, Um, you will, I think you will agree with me that it is definitely the most serious episode and in fact, believe it or not, this is gonna make it even crazier. In that episode, he plays a guy who runs a joke and novelty shot. Definitely. Wow, that's all I'm saying. Typecast on Barney Miller.

Wow. Well he as you will see, he ends up being a very different character from today's there he's But I honestly, this episode's I think this episode's a plot is the weakest. I'm I'm just gonna say this. Um, Having Liz in this episode didn't add much unfortunately, I mean it felt very kind of throw away. It felt like them just going all right, well, like you said, Otto, people didn't want this, so we'll have her show up and give her this kind of one off.

And now she's gone and they're back together. And yeah, like I said, they don't have to address it now because they didn't really address it when they were together for five seasons. So I've just ride it out to the end of the way. You've already done it, because they've already done it for more than half of the show at this point. Like why, I don't even understand why they had him at her getting separated to begin with, if this is what they're gonna do anyways, Like what was the point?

Yeah, Well, no, I from the way I understood it. No, I don't think this was how they always planned that doing it. I think right while they did plan on having them separate and get divorce and then she would be gone, I think they ended up again, this is opinion on my part. I think they ended up giving in and just saying people were so upset that we'll just bring her back one more time, and like, and I agree what you're saying here too, It's not it feels forced. It's it's totally exactly what you said.

It's what they're doing. They're just bringing in him, bringing her in and trying to put a bowl on it and make everyone feel better, and then we still won't see her any again after this, to the point where they have her snab, all the characters going high Liz over and over again, it's like, yeah, they do know her, like we know, we do know that other than Landisburg who has to introduce himself, which which I did appreciate that they did keep that continuity at least, right And can we please acknowledge one of my all time favorite lines when Metterlinck says, let me tell you about the toy business. It's all thieves and cut ropes, and Dietrich says, I thought it was mostly Elves as a great line. There's to your point, Chris about no Lugger in this episode.

I thought for sure that he was going to come in and help Bernie, like kind of what's the word to return the favor, because you know, Luger's the lonely old man and here's Barnie possibly going to be alone at Christmas time. But I was very happy that Wojo comes in and he's just like, hey, you can come over to my place and doing this whole thing. And I wrote in my nose like oh, Wojo seems to be maturing and this whole thing, and like, oh, you know, I'm not. I'm not banging and chicks every single night. Yeah, come on over.

And then when the when it turns later on, when he's like sad, like I'm so sorry, Wojo, I'm not going to be able to make it, and he's just like, yeah, no, that's cool, just basically like yeah, no, I do want to floozy over, so I'm good. He even goes as far as say like I was lying, yeah, yeah. Reminded me of a naked gun where he's like, I just have all sex with all these women. I'm young women all the time. Barne like foaming up about Yeah if we get it, Wojo, it's you're a good looking guy.

Yeah, I will say Otto. I do want to thank your book, which you can find over Barmannermedia dot com for forever placing into my mind that that's a two pai on Max Gale's head, because I, honest to God, for the longest time, didn't realize it was. I never would have picked that up. I mean, it's funny. I was we were doing a rewatch of Scorpion, that computer nerd show kind of like the Whiz Kids but grown up whiz kids, and Max Scale just showed up in one episode and he's you know, he's been bald forever.

But I didn't realize that he was bald when he was wo jehoits. I always thought that with that weird like Caesar hairline that he's got, I thought for sure that that was just the style of the day. Well, I was watching it with my folks and my mom was like, man, what's up with his haircut? And I was like, that's a two pai. That is a two pai, that is And I never noticed anything weird about his haircut, and all of a sudden was like, I can't stop looking at it.

I always thought that was abbe it. No, no, oh yeah, next thing you're gonna tell me Dietrich doesn't wear glasses? No he did. Jacksu actually was in Japanese, right, shocking? I know, yeah, it was all just makeup.

Yeah, yeah, I was very surprised that well. I was confused at first when they're talking about mister Woodman and the Academy, and I'm just like, is this something to do with David their son and is he going to this academy or something? And then I thought we were going to get a Welcome Back Cotter crossover because mister Woodman was a character that they're talking about, and I was just like, oh, great, mister Woodman's going to show up on the show. But no, unfortunately, And then so I wasn't really sure what was going on with this whole thing about the academy and that it seems like it turns into talk of their cabin that they have. Would it be Vermont that they're going to think?

Yeah? Yeah, so it's kind of nice that Barney can afford to have a cabin on his salary, So I don't know, maybe it's time to call internal affairs, if you know what I mean. Well, Wilson, we'll see them before it was over. But I was gonna say the same thing. We're scandaling when you need him, just getting get him in on this.

Barney is up to no good, Folks. It turns out plot twist, Barney Miller has taken bribes this whole time. It's been interesting, was that the reference to She says, well, you know David, he'll be up at six d am, right, And I'm thinking, okay, well, we've seen David in January of nineteen seventy five in those that first episode. I'm thinking he's why at least eleven in that episode, right, yeah, like that, And this is like four years later three oh yeah, almost four years later, so he's like, why fourteen fifteen He's I wasn't still getting up at sick dam with fourteen or fifty? Maybe he has a paper route.

Yeah, well that's dead. But they do also gloss over. Although I know that there were a lot of Jewish people who also celebrated Christmas, but I mean, technically speaking, Barney's Jewish. Yeah, you would think they'd be talking about going out for jet or Chinese food exactly, and asking if Nick was around, asking Nick where to go? Right, I'm not Chinese.

I don't know, Barney. Right there, we wrote that, we wrote the piece of dialogue that didn't exist as an episode. Didn't Fish do that one? I think something something to that effect, right, where's a good Chinese restaurant? Right?

Yeah? I think you're right, because I think he ended up taking out Bernice for for a dinner or something. What's Fish up to right now? Is he like raising kids out some hoocious little shits out there? In the bird One of the Burroughs talk about detours, Chris, We're gonna have to go down that road one of these days.

I don't know if we should take a pause at the end of season five and bust into Fish territory. If here we should save that to the very end and ap bullet. Then is that when it would have canonically been is at the end of season five? I think it would have been before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like I feel like at the end of season five is as good a time as any to maybe take a momentary and not even a detour.

As much as you know those places along the side of the highway where the truckers blow each other. Rest stop. Oh love, this is also good. Yeah put a rest stop. Yeah, like a restop.

We're ta take a picture of the historical monument or plaque that's there. Okay, we don't need to go, and I guess theoretically we are. Realistically we can't because there are what like only a handful of episodes of Fish available anywhere anywhere anyway. No, it's the first season in Toto. We can get the second one.

We can look at through like a Canadian video player. Otherwise I just was able to find like three or two episodes. I mean, I don't know. I feel like we should at least talk about it, because, you know, for me and maybe this is just my kind of young person's perception of TV in the sixties and seventies, But people want to talk about like the MCU with spinoffs and stuff. Does anybody remember all these TV shows that exist from like one TV show The Butler of These People has his own show, and the Maid and the Friend like Joanie Loves Chachi is based off of characters from another show that we're from another show as well, Or is it only one level, it's only one last one level deep yeah, okay, but there are some that were like three right oh yeah yeah, like Maud Goes to uh and good Times yeah, or like even like last night I was playing Golden Girls trivia and there's Empty Nest which was a spinoff of Golden Girls, and then there was a spinoff of Empty Nests called Nurses.

So yeah, these things can generate down the line. It's ground. We started that, right, both multiple ones. See now I don't consider see if you say that about Joony and Chatty, then you basically saying Happy Days was a spinoff. It wasn't a spinoff a Piece of Love American style because they used to do three stories per hour and that was essentially the pilot, right board.

It's like the Simpsons on the Tracy Ullman Show exactly right, right, but fish but Phish was like the way they were doing these other spinoff shows where it was a character would on the show, would leave the show and go somewhere else. Right, So I guess we should watch some of it, you know. Again, I think where we came down with a vagoda towards the end of his run, probably it doesn't get much better in that show. And according to Otto's book, you know, a Vogoda is kind of what we expected, and he kind of let it go to his head. And I don't know if the work he was turning in was good on Fish, but towards the end of his run on Barney Miller it wasn't so well.

I think the problem with Fish I don't think was necessarily with Goda's fault. I just don't think I thought I my personally, and I think I probably do say this in the book. I think the premise for Fish was incorrect. Yeah, well Fish with kids, isn't that what everybody wanted to see? Yeah?

What a fucking nightmare. They literally learned from Bartie that no one wants to see the home life. And then what do they do? They put him in a domestic comedy, right, I mean, it makes no sense so on that one unless he wanted that, which can't imagine. But maybe I don't know, but I think the whole premise was incorrect.

I've said this a thousand times. I think they should have put him as like a security guard somewhere where you could have a lot of looney characters coming through and he could be making his far pastic asides about all the people that he had to deal with it exactly what if he was a cop in the park and he had to dress up and drag every day, or he had to deal with random Charles White Eagles is sitting on the benches wanting to die. Oh boy, you mean George ten Fingers. Yeah, oh, my Lord in heaven. Yeah, Chris is taking us right into the next episode, The Indian which, Yeah, that I realized this is one of Max Gale's favorite episodes from what I understand, because we're talking about Native Americans, which is a cause it is very close to Max Gale's heart.

Yes, this was one of his two ideas that he was able to get in well that from what he said, they promised him he could get at least two storylines in with Native Americans in it, and of course the other one we don't see until the fourth episode from the end of the series, and that fourth episode actually propels the final trilogy of the show all and season eight. But um, yes, this was this was his idea in a sense because he wanted he wanted a couple storylines that would incorporate American Indians into it, because Yeah, he's been involved in the in the cause for oh god, fifty plus years now, fighting the good fight. What Max Gale is very very very close and respected within that community. Yeah.

Yeah, So we've got again our A B and C plot. The C plot in this one very minor. Its basically Levitt is a little jealous of Zetelly, who is back in this one. It's been a little while since we've seen officers it Telli, and from what I remember from your book, Auto, it is going to be We're going to get a lot more of Zetelly as we go along here, and I'm hoping that Levitt will get out of his phone, maybe stay in the plain clothes for a little bit. But yeah, to your point earlier, Chris, it's weird that he's back in uniform later on and that he's being noticed in this ugly jacket for the first time in this episode.

And there's also a really weird line that Levitt has towards the end of this episode that I want to point out. And I think Otto knows maybe what I'm talking about where and this might be me being a fucking wokester, and it probably is, but I don't frankly care The line that he has to Maggie Dubois is a little strange because I assume, or it is implied. It's the implication as they would say, that he is offering hers to do sexual favors to get out of whatever trouble she might be in. Oh, I wasn't picking up on that. I was picking up that he wanted to take her home and was hoping for a little or once they got there.

Well, yeah, but like he was expecting sexual something. He was coming on to her in an uncomfortable day. I was going to say, I would say he was coming onto her, Okay. I of course, of the of the old and very very clean mind would not have assumed that he was looking for But nowadays we would assume that, you know, he might have been looking for a future date. They're something.

This is the same show which involved an episode titled in by quote and autot knows what I'm going to say here the Harris incident, which or is it the Harris incident or is that what's the not the Harrison's And the thing was Steve Landisburg and Dietrich what was that called? Oh? They were like, he grow up to me and it's like there's no fucking ways gonna grow. That is the only original script that I own because one of the people who worked out at Shelley's Elman set me her copy. Oh wow, that's amazing.

And that was with that that very flighty Miriam bird Nethery right, who was married to the recently departed Clue Gallant. Oh well yeah, but um oh yeah, no, they did they obviously they they they always lightly touched on mature stuff dick matter. Um, but again yeah they didn't. You know, they never really went to those places too much. I mean, the things that they do and say with with Woe Joe is pretty uh, you know interesting for that time.

The only people who were you who were usually being quite that explicit in the seventies was Norman Lear. Everyone expected that. Um. In fact, I believe there is an episode later on in the series that will shock you because Harris uses the N word. Oh on the show on the show where else Chris and why and I will tell you thanks why I'm sucker?

Oh my god, god damn it. That was rather I have an occurrence on a on a Norman Leader show. Oh yeah, well, especially on my God, I'm Sandford's son. The poof right now. Yeah, yeah, so the Nightmare else the yep, you're yep, I deserve that one.

That was funny as fucking fied with one, right right, It wasn't ride gl Haris. He looked at me and he's he looked at man. He said it. Hey, I'm actually kind of surprised that he hasn't said it yet on the show because there have been opportunities for it. Yeah, well you'll you'll understand.

Oh boy, oh boy, I was very happy with. I guess it would be the b plot here, which is uh alex Elias, who we've seen on here before, and and Chris uh you know, she's more known to us as Hot Coffee from Citizens Band. Yeah, love her her voice, and Anne phil leads is back. I think this is like as Fifth the Parents or something. As Chandler, they couldn't tork him out of showing up on this episode, I know, I know, yeah, I get that History of the World Part one joke, and you would like one other person this episode alex Elias is Maggie Dubois, who she starts off the episode that her shoes have been stolen and yeah, yeah, it's basically if if Quentin Tarantino didn't get a film career, he might turn out like this horse Chandler character because he's going around taking the shoes off of women and fondling their feet.

Oh oh like that, oh like that? Oh yeah, all of that stuff at the beginning is so good and just those knowing looks and how clueless she is. And at one point she's like, have I been violated? Yes? Maybe, yeah, I've been violated.

And I love when they catch him and he's got all those shoes in his bag, Like, how long has he been doing this today? You know, this does not seem like a this is yesterday's catch. This seems like it's all what has been going on today? They dump out all those shoes and she picks hers out of there, and of course send their evidence, and so she's shoeless again. And that's how Levitt ends up trying to take her home and maybe cheer himself up because he is so bummed about this, the Telly thing, and that he's never been told that he does quote excellent unquote work by Bernie Right.

Well, uh, first of all, I'm sure I've said this before it too, but there are few faces in the history of television Networks. Great is Phil Lee. Oh he's so good. I love his face. He looks like a living parrot.

His long lost brother would have something to say with you. Otto otherwise known as the other face having human being Don Kalpa, who looks very similar to Fill leads like, they're like so close. It could be like father and son or brother and brother. Now I was gonna say Leeds was with old and in Calva, so yeah, they could have been father and so they have that same like hang dog kind of I don't know. The droop, the natural droop of their faces is just so fantastic.

And the droop and then the hair that kind of sticks up sometimes. Oh yeah, this is leads fourth of what will be sad. Then Barney appearances, Wow wild Yeah, seven different Barroney appear appearances. Yeah, oh yeah, He's had so many amazing appearances. And he will just show up like tiny little things, like I remember he was like an emergency room ghost, like when Patrick Swayzy Season and Ghost and he's uh doctor Shand and Rosemary's Baby.

I mean, this guy's been in I think he had to have been in like over one hundred things at least. I wouldn't be surprised. It was top of one fifty. And then Alex Elias, she's still working and she's still doing a ton of stuff, and she's got that great voice, that great squeaky voice. So yeah, with the two of them, I'm like, just just give these two a show.

You know, whether the same characters is that, but these two character actors are amazing. Yeah, I would definitely think that Phil Leaves did more than one hundred and fifty maybe two hundred different Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. Then so many things, and in fact, at the very end, I think I think it was one of the last, if not the lasting he did. He played the uncle on Everybody Loves Raymond. Wow, and he at that point he was like he had he was had shrunken.

Oh god, I know that, you know a little doll. He was. He was so he must have waited all of eighty five pounds or ninety pounds by that time, and he looked like he was a you did twenty and he was probably only about eighty. But yeah, he worked a lot for a long long time. Oh man.

And then the B plot is the whole thing with the end or sorry, the a plot is everything with the Indian the titular Indian or I suppose we could be politically correct and say the Native American. I think he's even more politically correct and call of Indigenous and man, oh man, that's this story and just Wojo's helplessness, like really trying to help this guy out. They find this guy in the park, and does he I think he thinks that he's dead at first, Is that right? They think he's dead multiple times in the episode, because yeah, alex Elias comes in and even thinks he's dead, so I think, but Wojo brings him in because he thinks he is dead, right, Well though I think they had gone out there originally, hadn't he started a fire or something?

Oh yeah, no, you're right, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I think he had, you know, and started a fire about permission or whatever. And they bring him in and then yeah, he's waiting the wolf is coming to take him, to take him home. Basically, that's right, And the only thing that Wojo can thing to do is basically take his case as high as he possibly can and contact the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Yeah, and they send out Richard Stall, who's another amazing face is Phil Owens. Who I mean, it feels like this is the second or third time we've had an official show up who is just so tired of their job and wants nothing to do with actually helping people.

It kind of reminds me a little bit. And I know this is slightly different the guy who showed up from the UFO bureau and it was just like, hey, Wojoe, you really didn't see anything, and just trying to convince him to basically shove off and not complain at all. And it's basically kind of the same thing, just like, oh, I am so tired of all this stuff, and I've got a meeting with the Jibway in half an hour, and then I have to talk to the Iroquois and he's just he wants nothing to do with this case, and it gets really angry that it's been conflated or or brought to his attention. He's just like, no, I don't need any of this, just leave me alone. Be Leaguered is probably the term best used for these these official characters.

I do like that this gentleman apparently thinks that Woa Joe is the name of the indigenous person that was good. That was good. It feels like Max Gale was like, get this line in there, make sure this line gets it there. He hasn't had anybody make fun of his name and like a whole season, I think, right man, yeah yeah, just like it's spelled well. Well.

The futility of bureaucracy is a center point of this entire series. And oh yeah, he visited over and over and over again throughout the series, yet will continue to be I mean, it is a through point, just like the er annoids with proof right exactly exactly. So wow, very good. You wants to write a book about this, so I have available over Bearmannermedia dot com. You've been mentioning the book with your head mentioned the name Chris what might be the name of that book?

Kevin Barney Miller and the Files of the Old One too by Otto Bruno over at Bearmannermedia dot com. That's a soundclip right there. It can credit where credits do like, oh yeah, honest to god, like I love books that do episode recaps, like the fact that your book has it, and at one point it may not have I'm glad that it does. Oh yeah, yeah, us you'd have met you had mentioned to us at one point. I think when we first met you that there was a moment where you wasn't going to have the recap in it.

So, yeah, well, people wanted that. I asked some people who were fanned, I'm like, what do you want to see in this book? And that's one of the big things. So I said, okay, fine, I'll do it. I just book sure.

One hundred and seventy one episodes later, right, almost double syndication. Yeah, well, I appreciate you, Chris, because I was just told again yesterday by someone who knows me that I'm not a good self promoter. And I can't disagree with that. I'm not a good self You're not a sell you don't toot your own horn, you're not a tutor, not very good at that. Now it's okay, it's okay.

That's what we're here for. One of the many things we are here for. It. I have to ask you, though, because again you you are a font of kind of the overall Barney Miller Cannon. Again, not that we're not, but we're getting there.

Is this considered one of the better episodes of the show, Like, okay, yeah, no, I think it's a very I think it's a very good and it's an interesting episode because of the way it tackles the Indian character. It's so kind of different and smart for the time. It feels a little bit more dialed in than I would expect, as not that I did and expected with this show, but I would expect of a show at that time. Well, I think I think that's exactly the fact is that while there might be aspects that wouldn't lie today, in circa nineteen seventy eight or seventy nine, that treatment of that subject manner was so far ahead, right, And that is totally I'm sure totally due to Max Gale's influence on the episode.

Oh yeah, was I can't remember if there was a how joking here or not, but I mean, we are so far beyond where we were even five years ago, Chris, when weren't talking about Coltrack and the MATCHI Manito and just how we had you know, Wayne Smith and Red Face and just all of this kind of horse shit about you know, Indians and all this kind of stuff, And it was just like and then there was even that one where Richard Keel played in Indiana as will in Brown Face, right, and I was like, Oh my god, can we get away from this stuff? And here we actually have Charles Whitey playing George ten Fingers, and I'm like, thank you. You actually have a Native American person playing a Native American that's very nice who I saw earlier this year in Altered States, where they kind of I mean, it's it's not it's about I don't know, it's about as they treated about the same way they treated here.

It's kind of the weird seventies way. But I don't I don't think it's disrespectful, you know. I think about like one of my favorite shows, mentioning Coleshack, The X Files, at the end of the second season, going into the third season, they incorporate the Anasazi, that the real, the real Native American tribe that kind of just disappeared, and they kind of have this whole thing about Mulder being healed by the Blessing Way and all this shit, and watching it now it does kind of feel hanky in a way, like it's like, oh, you know, the magic indigenous folk they come and say if the white Man, and like it does really kind of smack of a way of telling stories and approaching cultures that is not as complex and respectful as it is now.

But I don't think that they were going into it then with this kind of cavalier attitude of we don't give a shit about being respectful. I just don't think they really knew how in a lot of ways. Oh yeah, I agree, that's probably true. Yeah, I think that's probably true. The Internet is a massive equalizer for pieces of information that people just need to know to be able to make decisions in a way that is less offensive, just right out of the gate.

But I also tend to think that no matter what ear you're in, you're always going to get thumb people who are so far ahead of the curve that dip treat a subdect matter with dignity or respect and more complexity. And then, and then, even as that as the culture in general becomes more educated, you're still going to get people who are going to treat certain such probably yeah, oh yeah, for sure, just cast sloppily and lazily, you know. I mean, that's that's part and parcel of the fact that some people are really good at their craft and some are not. Well. I mean, just think about Massurski, a movie, you know, Harry and Tonto, a movie we watched earlier this year Auto for the Culture Cast, but you can find over weirdingwaymedia dot com.

Uh, they treated I think the character in that movie about as respectfully as they treat the character in this where it's again it's like, you know, we understand that we don't understand their culture entirely, but we're not going to like Mike, like you said, poke fun at the how or hey, how are you like? None of that? Like right, oh, there were some weird shots in this one, all of George ten fingers. You know, we talked a couple episodes ago, I think Chris about some of those weird insert shots of Dietrich, and then this we get other insert shots and they're from like a a higher angle looking down on him, and then later on we get like regular like the camera's more level with his eyes. But it's just this odd thing when they're talking about him and the cameras up and looking down.

I'm just like, what are you doing? Like the lighting is a little bit different. I mean, it's not as off as those intros now of Levitt and Dietrich would just stick out like a sore thumb. And the opening credit, Yeah, they really do, don't they? Oh, boy boy?

And then too long? They sure do, man, especially poor Dietrich, and it's just like it feels like he's just telling a story to somebody, laughing at his own story, and they just keep holding and holding and holding. Two seconds longer and it would have been police squad level of parody. Right. Yeah, the wall falls down behind him, with Levitt standing there fixing his tie.

In the background, Blandisburg is just on fire running by him. You say it because I was baking. I had not watched anything from season five in a while, and I'm watching that. Lads, then a biggie they're holding on this shot whangy too long? Yeah, I I really hope that they won you.

Well, obviously they're going to have to drop Jack Sue in season six in the opening credits, but I'm hoping they go back to the opening music from two seasons ago, which is it doesn't do that jump of octaves and it overstates welcome one whole you know, the bar too long where it's just like they go, you know, you're up here, and then it's like oh and then here's Luger and the music goes higher and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, just go back to the old stuff. I just missed the freeze frame of how Lyndon going when he's laughing outside of one of one of, if not the only time in the ever in the show we essentially see in front of them walking in. It's just him going in, which I just it is my favorite freeze frame that end, the freeze frame that exists because they had to put it in the intro Max Gale doing karate for literally no goddamn reason.

I kind of miss I miss it too, because it was like, man, that still makes no sense. He was hating karate training just that one episode. We're going to use that for the opening credits at one episode, right, Yeah, And now it's him at that board, and I just keep looking at those other names on the board, and I'm just like, where's Mike, Where's Mike cat? I was waiting for Mike to show up when Barbarbarry showed up. There was Mike.

Hey, Mike, Hey, I brought my favorite policeman with me. God Nick is gone, Mike is not coming back. You two get all bard. Oh God, we just can't let it go, like our comments, let it go. The in jokes are too much for us.

Mike, Um, oh my god. That was played by uh oh yeah, the guy that was He was another cool Check ved trim and think it was played by Art Metrial, wasn't it. You're right? Yes, that bad? That that right?

Yeah, yep. He was part of the headless Biker episode of Cold Check. Yep. Had a much more satisfying role in that. But now, I've never seen all the Cold Check episodes.

I've seen the movies and I've seen some of the episode when the when the DVD came out, I kind of like got swayed from buying it because people said, oh, it was a two slided disc and people were having trouble with disc and all that. So I got right in the way from now there's a blu ray out there right now that you should totally pick up. No. I like Cold Check, and I didn't watch it when it was originally on because at the time, like Bacon went up against Dean Martin celebrity rope, oh boy, yeah, you gotta you gotta choose your battles, and Dean Martin celebrity gross was holding cow was There was no question in my mind at that age. Yeah, I've never I don't even know what you guys are talking about.

But I'm already, I'm I'm engaged already. Oh yeah, there's all great stuff out there. I want to say that we even have a clip of Peter Folk on that roast, if not that it was something very similar. Yes, Peterfall is a Clay's Colombo. Yes, on the Frank Sinatra ros.

If you have never seen a Dean Biden rose, I beg of you to watch some over the holiday. I did beg of you. It's so good, it is so good. Wait, I want to hear your Hey, I'm a fan of I'm a fan of Dean Martin. He looked really bloated in Cannonball Run, so maybe it'll be better.

Oh, it definitely is. This is Dino, not necessarily at his prime, but definitely well. But he's blitzed out of his mind. But he looks a lot better than he did in Cannonball Run because this is like almost ten years earlier. Oh well, that's good, horrifying, but yeah, yes it is it really it's yep, yep.

One of the few things from twenty twenty two that Dean Martin just looking like a bloated fat man, just but grizzly. You you are a student of film and television. So the great thing about these roasts is how bizarrely edited they were. Oh yeah, okay, so that they would have say, they'd have like a deis of like eighteen people, right, but in reality there were only six people or I mean now, like twelve people there. But at the beginning when they'd announce everyone coming in to sit down at the table, bro no, yeah, yeah, they were just and then they would have the guy or woman stand there in a studio and talk and turn their head as though they were talking to the roast.

D but there's no one there, and oh my god, you're cut all these shots of people on the daist lamping, except for the fact that they would show the same cuts of them like three or four times a man. I wanted to how much cocaine were they used it in this editing room, because it sounds like it would have been a fucking night man, we're probably all drunk. But the guy who made it was a guy named Greg Garrison. He was he was Dean's producer, and he was very protective of Martin, and he wanted to make sure they got what they got and made it possible so Dean could do the least amount of work. This is this is the truth, and he started with the that was the point on the on the Variety Show, and this basically taught about spinoff.

This was an offshoot of the Variety Show because when they got tired of writing an entire hour long show, they started taking the first half as a variety show and the second half started as these rows and then events. They just started doing the roles because it was even that much easier for d And basically everybody just read off two cards that the writers wrote for them. Oh, there were only a few people who were allowed to write the row stuff, basically Jonathan Winter's Don Rickles, Don Rickles, Don Rickles own Oh well now, well, well now I'm so old. That's all you had to say, was mister Venom himself. I wish I was one of my fucking favorites period.

I bought my grandmother the whole set because I used to sell them off a TV all the time, and like, oh the Dean Martin Ross and you'd buy like the DVD set, and I wish that I would have been able to get those after the old lady kicked off, but I don't know where where they ended up at. But you know, gods, oh nice, nice Don Rickles man he he yeah. I was wondering because I was trying to think to myself, like who would have been there doing those and like you, there's only one name that came to the front of my mind. It was Don Rickles. So I think it's safe to say I think Mike might agree with me.

Rickles was an act the absolute best on these days. Yes, but dude, but do they ever have anybody from Barney Miller on in there? A Vagoda Rose? Oh my god, that's amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. The level of celebrity on here is pretty neat. I remember or Some Wells showed up once, if memory serves yea more than once. Wow. Yeah yeah, Orson Wells was on the Son after one.

Oh there you go. Yeah, that's why I think I remember it the most, because I've got that that fault clip where he's playing Colombo. That's amazing. So let's move on to the analyzer voice analyzer, which you guys are going to have to help me out here, because I remember two storylines going on, and I don't remember the third, the main storyline is the voice analyzer itself, which is it's basically a lie detector test. We've got the return of Lieutenant scan That coming in here.

George Doc just doing his thing, and a man that you love to hate. He is so despicable and I love when he shows up because he is just so awful and he always gets humiliated, which is fantastic. So we've got him coming in investigating because there's a newspaper story where it's been reported that people from all of these different precincts are taking bribes, including the detectives of the twelfth precinct. So it really narrows it right down. It's not another shift, it's not somebody on another floor where they've got the plain clothesmen.

It's this group of guys. Somebody is a dirty cop or are they? Because it's just being printed in the newspaper. And you know, we know all about fake news, now, don't we, folks, We know all about it. The worst deal we've ever had.

Frankly, this was actually in Newsweek, the magazine the m the weekly news magazine that was a national magazine. I don't even know is it is it still in print? News week. I'm not sure. It was like the rival for Time for a long time rack it was Times big rival, and then later on they introduced that the US News and World Report.

Right, it was like three networks and three because Time was owned by CBS or vice versus CBS was owned by Time or something Time Life Present. Yeah right, but um, yeah, Mike, I don't think. I think those are the only two storylines in this are the the the bridbery scandal and scandling and the the what do you call it? That? The furrier furrier?

Right? That the stolen furs, the stolen furs. We're we got two now Grease. Two Grease cast members are now part of this show. We got a good old berry pearl looking well, not looking like a teenager.

Definitely the yeah, you know, definitely he's no teenager. You know, Facebook was I had to admit that Facebook was really a big help in this book because, like I originally joined Facebook because they wanted me to do it on the radio station I was on because I wouldn't have been my thing. And what when I learned very quickly on Facebook was to not use Facebook the way it was originally attended. And I started using Facebook the way. What was the one that people were supposed to use for business networks like LinkedIn?

Thank you LinkedIn? So I said, using Facebook the way that LinkedIn was meant to be used. And at one point I was writing something on Facebook one day about the fact that I was researching the book or whatever, and Barry Pearl was a friend of a friend of mine on Facebook, and he wrote me this set me this story, this remembrance of his time. Oh wow episode, And I credit him in the book, and I tell the story on this episode where he said he was in he was a child actor and he was in Bye Bye Birdie on Broadway. And when Bye Bye Birdie went on the road, they went for a while and did it in Vegas in one of the big hotel.

And he said, while I was there, I saw Jack Sue in one of the hotels. I think it was the Frontier, he said, doing flowered drum song. Oh wow. And he said, for whatever, I was just so impressed by Jack Sue and so amazed at him, and I really admired him. So he says, when I got the gig on Barney, I was so excited because I'm here, I was going to meet one of my heroes.

Oh my god, And he said, I was very upset the day I got there because I found out once I got on set that he was in the hospital with a sophageal cancer. Right, and add something even earier. The day this episode was aired January eleventh, nineteen seventy nine, was the day Jack Sue died. Right oh man. Yeah.

Side note, Barry Pearl, super awesome individual as well. I actually have had the pleasure of speaking with him when we did an episode on Grease what feels like probably close to a decade ago now sow. I love seeing him in things because he's not in enough stuff. But he's good here. They just don't have much for him to do unfortunately, right, right, Yeah, I thought he was very good.

But yeah, the pirate is not a big pirate. But yeah, from what I know him on Facebook, he's a very nice guy. Yeah, very nice guy. Yeah. Yeah.

So we've got this guy who is trying to scan the system, Alan Rich another just super from your face, my goodness. And he's there's mister Ramson who's had his car stolen, and his car was stolen with twenty thousand dollars worth of furs in it. So, oh my gosh, we're gonna meet this police report, start the insurance procedure, and of course we're going to get Barry Pearl coming in later on talking about just there was no value to these first whatsoever. And yeah, wouldn't you know that he's trying to scam the insurance. So thank you criminal for actually helping us out here.

And meanwhile we've got George Murdoch, Lieutenant Scanlon going through now and investigating every single member of the old One too, and using this um Like I said, it's basically a line detective test, but it uses the waves from your speech and test the stress inside of that, and we get varying results here, especially Wojo just almost blowing out the machine. And then here you go, Chris, I was, well, we had the confirmation that Dietrich is actually an alien from outer space. It's true, it is true, your honor, this man is an alien. This is cannon, yes, Auto, is this not? Is this not cannon?

Or is this a joke? And he says I was born October twelve, ninety forty seven in Columbus, o Isle. And then they all look and he said, hey, it had to be set well, um, yes, I love that aspect of the episode, just as I loved that episode where the guy comes supposedly comes back from the future. I mean, have you guys seen any one Oh, yes, yes, we have with with um oh god, Richard Libertini. Yes, yeah, and he's like, hey, you're not Arthur Die guy.

He's a fucking alien. There's no other explanation at this point. And he's immortal. And you know what, I'm glad that there is this kind of in joke on this show. I really am, because they have you know, they have gone so many times into this interesting direction that again felt like it should have just been on Cole Shack, where we have a werewolf and we have um a I guess a ghost at one point.

You know, both Kevin Tiger episodes te Guard Tiger, however you pronounce his name Kenneth Tiger. Yeah, But that they just kind of go all the way with this, I do appreciate. I do really appreciate it, even if they're not being serious. It's head cannon for me. Now, It's wonderful.

I was so happy with it, just to have those different reactions between the two, and then that Bernie actually gets to use the machine against Scanlan later on and catch them in all the lies that he's trying to do, like oh no, no, this won't be held against Shoe and the machine just goes up, and that poor put a pun guy that's trying to actually like use the machine, the calibration guy who's monitoring everything. That guy just he hates his life and I kind of appreciate him for that. I'd like to acknowledge that that guy in his name is Philip Roth. He didn't do a lot of stuff. Yes, not the author, the actor.

Why Philip Row? And but he is also in one of my all time favorite films and that is What's Up? Doc? Yeah? Two, he plays uh like the government?

Uh he said. He always plays like a spy in that Who's after this? Supposedly I guess a journalist who's who has stolen government documents to try to show the people, you know, what the government is doing without telling them and stuff like that. Um, he's brilliantly funny in that as well. But I also wanted to just make a quick mention that Alan Rich along with Phil Leeds in the other episode, um, both were blacklisted during them black and Danny actually kind of made a habit of hiring people who had been blacklisted.

Um oh yeah, we've seen Jeff Corey has already shown up blacklisted Jeff Corey. Yeah, there's the he does it a number of times. Um so I always found that very very interesting. Gave me another reason. But like Danny, yeah, and also another Phil Broth was also another patient in um one flu with the Cuckoo's Nest, so common theme here as well as, of course, you know Chris we're talking earlier, Jimmy the shoeshine boy from Naked or Sorry Police Squad as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, lots of good faces in that crowd, raw than cuckoos, I got it. I haven't seen Cuckoo's Essen so long. I gotta go back and see it again. It's been too long for me as well. I mean that's one that I try to watch every couple of years.

Yeah, yeah, the great film, Yes it is. I've never seen it. Oh wow, Oh well, I got you should talk to father maloone. But also you should probably think about that because we're gonna be doing all those great uh uh milish Foreman films and may on the culture cast of it. Yea from Weird Going Media Dot com you.

It's it's on my list of movies to watch. I have the book. I bought the book earlier this year. The book's a little different by friend. That's fun, that's fine.

I like to read, so it's just it's more more along lines of I have the book, which means once I read said book, I will watch said movie no matter how different they are. It's like The war I read The Warriors too, vastly different the movie very different from the movie. Oh boy, oh boy. I hadn't read Cuckoo's Nest. Oh my god.

I just remember all that talk about the combine, you know, the combines coming for you and all this, and it's kind of interesting. That's all narrated by Chief Yeah at distance. So I'm trying to remember when I read it. I can all I can tell you who was it That it was long before Chris was born. That's awesome.

That's a that's a very large more time was before than after. Yeah, I probably read that book before Chris was born as well. Yeah. Yeah, also, oh to be young ag Yeah, of course. Lieutenant Scanlon walks away with egg on his face, swearing revenge, spitting and he's gonna get you one of these days here, Barney, he's gonna fatis one of these days you're gonna slip up.

I'm gonna find out about that cabin, and I'm gonna come for you and I what I had you too, if it hadn't been for that meddling alien. Yes there you go, and yes you can. I'm sure you guys already know this, but Russa shared this is not the last of that you saw. I sure hope not. Oh no, we got three more seasons.

Man, We even got more of this season here, because on the next episode we're gonna be back and we're going to talk about the spy. We're gonna go ahead and cover both parts of Wojo's Girl, which I think out of memory serves you think that that's one of the worst episodes of Bernie ever. I think part two of Wojo's Girl is the worst episode in the history of this series. All right, oh man, all right, we're gonna try to wash the bad taste out of our mouth, and we're gonna wrap that episode up with middle Age, because then we're going to have two more episodes after that of the fifth season, and then according to our talk, really we're going to dip into some fish territory for a little bit. So then God bless us, you know any interestingly enough, I think that I think in the book I say that one was kind of that episode didn't seem to have the same energy either.

But then they get right back on track after that with one of my favorites called the Counterfeit. Again. We've got Max Scale back in the directancy for the those two episodes. Afterwards, we're going to have Max Scale in the directing seat one time each and then we're talking earlier Chris, this is the season of no pitlick, just doing this thing for almost every single episode. Yeah, I guess as we as we end this episode, because I always ask you, Otto, since this is your your appearance for the fifth season, fifth season of the show, where is it considered in the pantheon of Barny Miller?

Because I think, Mike, I don't want to speak for you, I'll speak for myself. This has been a season of some very high highs, not a whole lot of really low low There have been some issues with the season, I think, but those issues kind of exist because of real life things like Jack Sue obviously, and then you know the barber Berry stuff also being kind of a real life thing. So I'm just curious where does the fifth season stand in the Barney Miller kind of series as a whole. Well, I mean, I still think it's the only season and I ever felt was like, I think season seven might be the weakest season, and then I think they'd make a little bit of a comeback in season eight. Danny will be gone in season six and season seven right you to health issues, so that may have been affecting him in season five as well.

I think season five is still a strong seasons. There are there are a few missteps in there, but I still think it's season five, a very strong season. And you get some you know, like you say, you get your, you get your, You've got scanaling in it, You've got um coming up. We are going to be introduced to a character and see near the yeah, near the end of season five, we're going to be introduced to a character that will be recurring for the rest of the of the series. That is a very interesting character.

In my opinion. Um No, I think it's a strong season. I think probably like most sitcoms, for whatever reason, season three is the strongest. Uh. I don't know what is among sitcoms.

I always used to say the same thing about the Andy Griffith Show. That season it was the But um no that That's a great thing for me about Irony is just how consistent it was throughout the course of it. I mean season one, looking watching it now is a little harder to watch because the characters have found themselves completely yet, but it's still incredibly well written. And even season seven, when I when I think it loses a little of its mojo, it's still better than most of what's on television. So um, it wasn't incredibly consistent.

I think season Biden is a strong season. Yeah. Yeah, we just only get your time once a season, so I figured I gotta ask holistic when we can. So yeah, right, well, I think I think it's a good There's some good episodes, Like I say, I love the Counterfeiter, I like the Indian. Uh these are I thought these episodes, these three we discussed today, I thought they're all strong episode.

I thought they're all good episodes. And of course, because I love the Dietrich characters so much. Of course, you know season five and he's really coming into his own, so oh yeah, it feels like the star of this season. I think we've obviously talked about him a lot because we're both huge fans of what he has brought to the show, but this season has definitely felt like he is the one who the jokes are going through almost constantly, which again not going to complain about. I just don't want it to be an Abe Vigoda situation again, where it's like, all right, not everything has to be a Dietrich joke.

Huh yeah, yeah, No, I don't. I don't think so, although although yes, I do think that is the funniest character per se throughout the rest of the series for me, because people already asked me what's your favorite character, and I'm like, well, my two favorite characters. One was nick Yamana, the other one was was Dietrich. But I loved all the characters. I mean, I liked all the characters.

Aren't any that I didn't didn't like. But I do think Dietrich is the funniest in terms of the lines and things that he got. Um. You know, you're going to have the big storyline with Um with Harris and his book coming up, and uh and Wojoe continues to mature why in my opinion, And as we go on, so it'll be interesting to see when I join you guys for season six. Barney, as we go on, you tend to see him start to get more frustrated, oh with John, and with and with the fact that and I think he uses this analogy in one of the shows, them spinning their wheel.

Oh yeah, crimes also problem. So maybe it's about time that Bernie take the lawn to his own hands. File Bernie Miller, Barney Street Vigilante. I mean, at some point they were just like, all right, Charles, we need to replace you with another actor who has a great mustache. How Lindon, what are you stage?

All right, come on down right, well, speaking of people that have great mustaches, Otto, what are you up to these days? I'm growing out of my full beard. Did you know I like that? Yes? Yeah, Well you got like a little color differentiation here, you got the darker and then the lighter.

I got some weird shit going. I think I might be doing the same, but yeah, it's in the winter time. I might let it go full phase. But yeah, now, actually i'd have started work on a new book, but I'm not saying anything yet because I'm one of those people who always gets a little ticked off when you hear someone on a show saying that they're doing a book or they're doing a movie, and then we never see from, see or hear of it again. But haven't you just now done that?

Well, no, because I didn't tell you what it didn't tell her what it is. Yeah, it could be anything. It might come out with a new book at probable year. You don't know that's book I'm working on. Very fair.

I could abandoned it in start something different. It's fair valid. But what about the books you have worked on and have completed? Where could people find those? Byroney Miller?

Book Byroney Miller? And the files of the old one too, as you so kindly pointed out, Chris as available at bare Mannermedia dot com. It's also on buyers and Noble dot com and Amazon dot com. And I'm just getting ready to do some more teaching and then hopefully when the weather clears up, we'll do some more speaking. Can get you this and stuff like that.

My it guy is home from school now for a month, so I'm going to decide whether I'm going to actually do another website because I haven't had one for years. I know people are telling me I probably should, but we'll see what happens with that, so I'll keep you informed, don't worry. I'm so I'm personally very excited about the fact that I'm now in the universe, in the podcast universe of both Chris Statue and like White Chris Statue. I've already done two culture casts. Nope, I did one Culture Cast and one give me the name of it, Bollywood Cinema Club available at weirdingwaymedia dot com.

There you go. So I've done one each of those, and then the Honor of all honors now coming up. Because it's hard to get into it, well, it's hard to get into it for what I dam rate it is unless you know a guy. If you know a guy and you know the right guy, it's it's not azard, but that guy's got to like you too. I'm going to see Projection Booth in twenty twenty three, and I am very honored and excited about that.

I think you're going to be on like three times or something. I am. I get to do Rules of the Game, the Natschka, and the Black Legion, quite a triple feature. There, and where can people find that podcast? Mike quite the Projection Booth, the Internet's finest movie podcast, just like this podcast.

You can find it over at weird ingweemedia dot com, as well as all of your other platform or it's your stitchers, your iTunes, all that kind of stuff. Go on over, subscribe, leave us a review, as long as it's kind things to say. Don't talk about how wolke I am. I already know you're not warning anybody. Everybody that listens to the show knows that I'm sort of died in the wool liberal a hole from Detroit, So that's what you get.

He bleeds blue folks, and not the kind where you're back in it. Wait, wait a minute. I'm the writer of Barney Miller book and I considered myself pretty woe, so I endorsed this man in this podcast.