Episode 35: Inquisition + The Photographer + Vacation

I got better things to do with my money. Welcome to the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast. I'm your host. Mike joining me is well, you used to be a plain clothes man and now he's been upgraded to detective. It is mister Chris Stashue.

I feel personally attacked watching this episode. Of these three episodes, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Wokesters, Wokesters, beware, you're in for a scare. I'm here, folks, and I'm ready to talk.

Barney Miller Season six. Seasons six starts off with Inquisition, which drops September thirteenth, nineteen seventy nine, The Photographer, which came out September twentieth, nineteen seventy nine, and Vacation, which came out September twenty seventh, nineteen seventy nine. As we have noted in the past, this is a gnome pitlick season. He is directing every single episode we're talking about this season. This episode, Inquisition got a teleplay by Tony Sheen, so you know we're in good hands.

Story by Calvin Kelly and Jim ten Easdale. Ah, yeah, there we go. That was taking me a little bit to say that inquisition, are we going we going Spanish here? Or what are we doing on this one? Chris, nobody ever expects the Spanish inquisition.

We've said that twice in one week. Now. That's weird. That's really very weird. So this episode is all about one of the characters in the Precinct being yeah, whoa oh how salacious.

However, it is a complete cop out and in every stretch of the imagination, because it's like, oh yeah, by the way, it's not just the dude's upstairs. It could be the people downstairs too, And it's like and when they when they kind of put that part of it into perspective about halfway through the episode, you're like, oh, yeah, right, Like would it who would it be? Like? That was the thing I wanted to ask you, Like, if any of those characters in the Precinct are gay, of the main characters, it's got to be Dietrich, right, Oh, I was thinking Harris myself, Okay, like, oh, like bisexual, you mean a single he's clean, he's neat, Yeah, I mean Barney's into some freaky shit. Apparently apparently Barney into Like is what is Barney into?

Is that what is the implication, as they would say, is he in a p and pooh? I don't know, man, What is Barney into where he's like, I don't think it's weird, but you would like, yeah, I don't know. Maybe he's Colin, Barbara, Barry Mummy or something. I don't know, what if? What if he tops from the bottom type thing.

Oh, don't be around people like that. That's fair, But I mean Barney's just like, hey, Liz peg me. What he's doing is you know Chanos still in our life. He comes over and fucks my wife and I watch. Oh, oh that's what happened to Mike.

Oh that's how he knows Mike so well? God, good lord oh man. Yeah, this is an interesting episode. I think the subject matter is fine. I think it's handled better than most of these episodes have handled it.

But it's kind of a strange conceit. This is nineteen seventy nine, we are three AIDS crisis, We're ten years after Stonewall. We've had eight characters on here before, all the way back in season one, but not one of our own. But I agree with you as far as officers a Tally though he has been a frequent guest and has been part of the upstairs occasionally, especially when Lovett got bumped up, as he does occasionally, and we'll definitely talk about that as we go on in this episode. But yeah, he's not one of the core people.

So I can see where you're coming from. I just think it's still pretty brave in nineteen seventy nine to have this character that they're not making fun of. He's not some sort of lisping queen. He's not you know, talking about the color of the drapes or anything. Seems like a regular, regular dude who happens to be gay.

And I'm like, all right, that's pretty good for nineteen seventy nine. No that in that regard, I completely agree. I mean, in terms of, like the narrative, it's a little bit of a cop out. But outside of the kind of the narrative cop out, I think the episode's perfectly fine. And this show has never really had a hard time portraying homosexual characters in a positive way that's not degrading, mind you, Bojo Hooitz is still it's sort of but then not really.

Yeah, more than anything, I think he's mad about Scanlin being there, right it's the whole you know, we don't care that you're gay thing. Right, It's like, okay, well it's not the it's the the ted Lasso did the whole fucking thing better than I could. Were we care, but we don't care. Jesus Christ, Yes, right, like that, I would ask Chris maybe you drop a little bit of that in here, because that was one of the best speeches from ted Lasso, and that whole show has just been golden, but that when he was talking about that what Denver Broncos fan and the seven layer dip, Holy shit, that was fucking brilliant. And yeah, we don't get that moment here, but we do get as close as we can for this time period and also say like this is the time of like Billy Crystal playing a gay character on soap.

I think it's right around this time, but there's not a lot of positive gay images on TV for anybody to look at. And I think the other issue I do have is by not making one of the main characters gay, it kind of doesn't matter that Zeiteli is gay. And that's again, I mean, they're kind of having their cake and eating it too, as it were, Like again, like you said seventy nine. I get it. Representation isn't what it is then versus now, and that's fine.

And again, you know, I was joking about being personally attacked. There's nothing offensive about this episode outside of the things that are intended to be bristly aka fucking Scandlin. Again. Just George Murdoch is just it's just the worst, Like he's the worst. He is the worst, and that comes through in this episode.

I'm actually kind of surprised that they didn't just take the opportunity to Outlouger here because I'm pretty sure, Okay, I'm just saying, all of us sudden, he's putting his marriage on the back burner for a second because he just realized that maybe he's not as much into women as he initially thought. Like, there you go, and James Gregory could have James Gregory could have made that work. And I don't think it's that much of a stretch really now and here we are talking about these first three episodes, no Luger yet, So I'm anxiously now talk about a difference from however many years ago when we started talking about this. What a difference that I'm now looking forward to seeing Lucer and I'm just like, please come on back, let's see you, right, And he would have been a welcome presence in this episode outside of the gay thing, though, Like I think the episode's fine, but the gay thing takes up most of the episode thankfully, like it is the focus at least.

Yeah. Yeah, Well, and one thing I want to focus on real quick as a little detour. Season six, we got a new opener. We are going totally away, like we've got the opening of New York City, but we don't have Barney walking down the street anymore. We've got him walking through the bullpen.

Doesn't really match up to the music too well, like it used to be, like the cuts and the you know, like some of the beats and the music dictated where the cuts were. There's a little bit of a flourish when Maxcale looks down at his baseball and kind of notices something. But I had to say, and I bet you any dollars that you picked up on this too. Landisburg. What the hell's going on with Landisburg and these opening credits last season when we're talking about Steve Landisburg, It's like, oh, it looked like an outtake it looked like Danny Arnold was just like feeding him lines or something, and he's just laughing.

And it's basically the same thing. It's like we are following Barney through the bullpen as he's making his way to the office. We kind of jump back to Harris and then almost like where Harris is sitting apparently I guess he's right in front of him would be d Trick, and he's just laughing at the camera, breaking the fourth wall, kind of walking a little bit, laughing some more. And then we cut to Pour Levitt and he's there in front of the signing board and he's not doing all the mugging that he was last season. But I'm just like, well, no, you start, you start at the door, here's how landing.

You move in. Maybe Wojo's there, introduce Max Gale. He turns, he sees Ron Harris. Now we got his credit. He comes across, there's d Trick and then maybe you got making coffee or something like introduce the team in order as you go through the office.

But I don't know, maybbe I'm thinking way too much about this. Levin ends up looking more like a plumber than he does a cop because he's standing in front of that fountain and it looks like he's working on the fountain as opposed on the board. It's like, is this guy a plumber? It's to me Levin, Yeah, I mean it works, small, diminutive Italian. All he needs is a mustache.

Uh. It's interesting though, you mentioned the Landisburg thing. It's like, I don't know what they were thinking. He's like, he's like focusing on someone who's off stage. Yeah, it's bizarre.

He's just like laughing, like hey, Like it's almost like they took the thing from last season and they just said, Okay, remember how you were laughing before. We're going to do that same thing this year, but we're going to do it at a different place, and it's going to look like you're actually part of the set. But it still just doesn't integrate. And they were doing weird camera angles that they don't do during the show either. Oh yeah, and the intro, Like if you watch the intro and then you watch the show, you'd be like, these are two different things.

Like this this feels very The intro doesn't feel like the show anymore the way it did up until this point. Yeah, and at least the music. I think the music has gone back to normal and we don't go up one more octave like we were doing last season, where it's just like whoa, this is a little harsh here, right. No, I think you're right. The music.

The music works better, but it doesn't sync up with what's going on on on screen as well as it used to. Yeah. Yeah, so the whole gay thing, that's definitely our a story. The whole thing was scanling coming in. I did notice, you know, I was around when the term sexual preference changed to sexual orientation, So it was interesting for me to hear them talk about sexual preference because it's like it used to be.

And I'm sure you're well aware of this, but just for the audience, we used to say the term sexual preference as if, oh, I just prefer men to women or I prefer women to men, rather than it's not really a choice, it is your orientation. So I did notice that they had that. But the B story I really enjoyed because we're back to that whole thing. What is it that Auto and Danny Ardoll call like a nut with proof? Oh, paranoids with proof, Yeah, paranoids with proof.

Because we've got this guy who comes in who is all about that in the debaters? Was your version of the censored as well? No, I watched it on the Plex server, so it wasn't censored. I guess the Amazon one is censored the one that I watched, and I don't know. I didn't watch the Amazon one.

I thought I watched off of your server. It might have been off of my server. So whoever uploaded that it was the censored version where muzak is not bleaped out, it's just eliminated from the soundtrack. Interesting. Yeah, it was really really weird because they're just talking and then all of a sudden the audio just drops and I'm like, wait, wait a second.

That was very strange. And then there's one point might be de trick. He makes a reference about the musach Man, like the music man the musical, but they cut the musach word, so it's just like he's the man, and I'm like, what, Oh my god, I kind of wish I had watched it now. So strange. And then yeah, I love the whole thing of how mister Musaic comes in and they're like, oh, hey, you know you're this guy says that he's got proof that you have subliminal messages in your music there, and he's like, oh, can I make a phone call that wasn't supposed to get out.

They weren't supposed to know that. You know. He's like, they're not supposed to be reporting on that. I think is exactly what he says. Right, Norton Bartold.

I've only seen him in close encounters, but he's got a great voice. Oh he does right, sleep well. And Peter Jurassic is the guy who's accusing him of all this. He has a great look. He kind of reminded me a little of I know, he's been obviously in a ton of stuff, especially Babylon five and Tron, but he reminded me a little bit of like a Josh um Oh god, what's that guy's name that played um HEROD in uh The Jesus Christ Superstar Zero?

No, Josh Mustel Seromustele's son. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can kind of see that. It could have been the hair. I think the hair might have done the hair. It's there.

Yeah. Also, what a great last name, Jurassic. Just want to point that out. Yeah, Oh yeah, that's a great last thing. He's He's fun in this episode.

I mean again, like I will say, like the B plot with the you know, paranoid with proof, like they do that a lot. Oh yeah, like maybe kind of you could say, it's kind of getting near to a fault, like I like it, but it is kind of samey like right it is it kind of the show's formula at this point. Yeah, but a lot of times these paranoids have proof. It doesn't feel as socially well music is not socially irrelevant, but the whole idea of us being subjected to this ever present syrup sacharin awful music, and especially that it is containing sublimal messages. Right, you know that's a really good thing to bring up.

And I feel like these paranoise would proof is almost the social consciousness. Also, you know, you've got the social consciousness of the tally being gay, but then you have that stuff. But I feel the word The most useless part of this episode is David Darlow as this burglar who attacks adult bookstores. He seems to have no anything to him. He just feels like his index card.

You know, I was talking about the index card of ideas. It feels like his index card had one line and that was it Also kind of forgot that that was even in this episode, Like it's right, so it's so unmemorable. Well, when Jurassic goes into the cage, I'm like, oh, yeah, there's that other guy in the cage because he gets introduced in the pre credit sequence and then he's barely there for the rest of the episode, and comparatively to in the next two episode, we'll see people getting into it in the lock up Like this one, It's like, why is this one guy even here? Like he doesn't do enough to justify being there. No, No, they could have used actually more as the Telly I think in this episode and had a little bit more of him, Like I love the whole idea of him kind of flirting with the idea of coming out, but he can't really do it publicly, but he's doing it for Barney.

It's like he seems to know Barney is a judgment free zone and he's able to talk with him, which is interesting because it's he's not one of Barney's guys, you know, he's a uniform he works downstairs. But which is why him be gay is the biggest cop out, because yeah, why is even telling Barney, Like right, why would Barney care Yeah, exactly. This guy wants some sort of outlet. So and I'm sure as this season goes on, we're going to get a lot more of the Telly having one on ones with Barney, I would hope. So if that ends up being the case, then great.

If this is that opening moment, awesome. It's just I didn't wouldn't necessarily expect that, given again, this show doesn't necessarily care too much about continuity. Well, I feel like as we've gone along, we've gotten more continuity, to the point where in the next episode, Dietrich is there, it's either the next episode or the one after that, talking about how it's his third anniversary, and I'm just like, oh, okay, yeah that was at the beginning of this episode. Wasn't this one? That was how the season opened?

Yeah, where he's like it's been three it's essentially like it's been three years since I joined the show, Like I didn't get you a gift. Yeah, I don't care. Ron Harris is so fucking funny. He just puts up with his ship. That's it.

It's easier to put up with his ship than to fight it. Like that's what it is, like, you know, god. Oh and then in the next episode he really just oh yeah, yeah. I did like to the whole thing of Levitt having I guess it was Levitt the kind of talk because the tally into talking with Barney, you know, oh yes, a really good guy. He's a little too pickyune though, And then I love how Barney says that at the very end, He's like, oh, I'm not too pickyune.

And then the look on Levitt's face. I mean again, Barney said he was into some weird stuff. Oh yeah, I mean, hey, maybe Barney gives mustache rides to not just women. And I did like that moment too, at the end, when Scanlon is almost trying to connect with Barney this whole thing, and like, ah, yeah, we've had our differences and he's got this like grudging respect for Barney, and Barney's just like, yeah, no, that's a one way street. And that's the thing.

Like it totally is like Scanlin is I feel like the de facto villain of this show. Oh yeah, the antagonist of all I mean of all of them is Scanlon. You know. The whole thing. I'm like, oh, I'll put the bride money away.

Yeah yeah, again like when when the expectation is you have to have something like that. George Murdock is a perfect a perfect person for this role because he is just very unsavory kind of across the board. Yeah, yeah, he is. I mean, he's such a great actor, and he plays this type of role in so many things because he does it like a champ. Yeah.

Again, you know, say what you will about typecasting, but some actors just play bastards better than others, and George Murdock plays a pretty good bastard in the face of like essentially people just laughing at him constantly. Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I was looking up something with him in it, and it was like him and Harris Yulin and a couple other guys, and I'm just like, these are these are like the heavy hitters when it comes to character villins. And I now need to go back and take a look because those two together, I don't know if they share the screen at the same time, but they're very cut from the same cloth a lot of times. So I'm just like, this could be interesting.

What about Abney Coleman, Oh, boy, Dabney Coleman. I was just watching they were having a Columbo marathon over the weekend, and it was his episode, which we'll get to in like seven or eight years. The way that we're going nice, I'm excited, But he's Damnie. Coleman to me is like this forgotten treasure. And he was so good in so many movies.

I mean I grew up watching nine to five, so he was just and he was an ever present person. I mean he had Buffalo Bill, all this kind of stuff, and just not enough people talk about Dabney Coleman. They stay so thank you, Chris, You're welcome. I'm a huge fan of Dabney Coleman. He's just he for me, is one of those like perfect dickhead villain actors, the same way Chris McDonald is like Chris McDonald.

Chris McDonald is a great character actor, villain. But I would say Dabney Coleman and Chris McDonald are better in like comedic things, you know, like a heavily comedic because you know what I think of Dabney Coleman, I think of Dragnet and Hot to Trot, which is, oh boy, the fucking worst. And Chevy Chase has modern problems where he has faked teeth in his mouth the entire movie. Yeah, I love I'm I am a Dabney Coleman fan as well, But I love the I love eighties and nineties and seventies like character actor villain character actors. Because there's there's like twenty of them.

I think that are the ones that everybody talks about and they pop up all the time. You know what, Chris, I think we just found their replacement for ranking on bass when we wrap up the Dabney Cast, the Coleman cast, not Ron, not not not Gary Coleman. No, I mean, who else around here is named Dabney. There's no other Dabney, so I can think that's fair Dabney Cast. Yeah, yeah, we just keep doing podcasts on dead people, though I don't know where you're he's alive.

I thought Dabney Coleman is dead. He's alive, Oh God to the internet. Oh no, no, he's still room. Oh shit. Okay, yeah, well I apologies to Dabney Colebyn is ninety one.

He's looking pretty rough now. Yeah. He was in a Boardwalk Empire. That was the last thing I saw him, and and he's also in Yellowstone so yeah, he's still working. Oh man, I can't wait till we get to The Pound Puppies, where he was the mayor for four episodes.

Oh You're good, then the Dabney Colbyn cast, the Day the Niche of Niche. When we talked with Richard in half an hour here, I'm gonna pitch it. I'm gonna pa he'd probably do it just just to be like, as long as it's not ranking on back, just for spite. Yeah, So yeah, to wrap this one up, I'm looking forward to. What they do is to tell you we don't get a lot of him, if any in the next you're going to do something with him though, Like is that for sure?

Okay, Okay, Yeah, I mean I remember from game from talking with Otto in the past where he's just like, oh yeah, he's one of the you know, he's a gay character and he's not used all the time. So I'm like, okay, but yeah, I haven't looked up what Dino, what other episodes he's in Dino Natali, but I know he's in quite a few more episodes. Okay, cool, because like I just want to make sure because like it's like, oh he's gay, and then like goodbye, goodbye from the show, Like okay. Fuck, Like, if he miked his ass real hard. Well, if we play our cards right too, he is, he's going to he's still alive.

We might be able to actually talk with him. That would be kind of cool. Yeah, hell yeah, that would be great. So he's in two one more episode in season fifteen, so I'm sorry, only one more. And then he's in only one in season seven, so just two more times.

So I was misled. I thought he was going to be hiding here a lot more. That is a shame. Yeah, gay representation, this is not. But that's okay.

It's nineteen seventy nine, folks. You gotta you gotta give them. You can't get mad about things that have already happened. We just need to do better, and we are exactly we are. So in the next episode we are talking about the photographer.

And this one I think has the best running bits of these three episodes, especially this whole thing. The opening with Dietrich and Barney talking about salt, the seasoning or the treaty, and just Dietrick taking over the conversation talking down to Barney, and then Barney just coming back with are you familiar with the term pedantic? And then I like that Dietrich gets to turn it back around on him. Oh it's so good. And I was waiting though, for Dietrich to take that and then be like, how about them mets.

I like that he's like, oh do you oh pedantic? H yeah, especially because I'm so jumping ahead a little bit. N a Tiger. He's back and he is talking. He is Christ now.

I love that he played and actually I'm sorry, I think it's pronounced tiger. So Kenneth Tiger is back now he is Jesus Christ. And I have to say I never heard the term perusia before, so thank you Dietrich for introducing me to that. I like that Kenneth Tiger is playing like the ultimate version of all the characters he's played up until this point. It's so good.

Yeah, he's so good. He's fantastic in this show. I mean, every time he's shown up, he has stolen the spotlight every time, the Werewolf, the Good, the Werewolf, the Ghost. And now this is his third time as Jesus Christ. Right, yeah, at least I'm not sure if he's done anymore.

But yeah, he's amazing, and this whole episode is just filled with familiar faces because Salvacuso has been on here before. I love him coming in and being like the first criminal that they lock up. Um and and I fucking um what's his name? Phil? Uh?

Yes? Oh my god. And especially the build up for that joke. The build up with the lady was just like, oh, he was so handsome and I'm like, wait, I'm like, who are they going to bring into the station house? This is amazing.

And then Phil Lead shows up and I'm like, oh my god, this is hilarious. I just said she is so jealous of him, and he was taking pictures of other women, and you know the way that Barney gets her to sign the complaint is that he'll be she'll be able to see him more at the trial and all this. It was so it's very bizarre. I mean, I feel like, heaven't we had a similar He had a similar thing to this last season where there was a guy harassing women. Oh yeah, yeah, there was the guy who was touching feet and I think that was that set the lady from Ice Pirates or was that alex Elias.

It might have been alex Elias Hot Coffee from Citizens Band. Okay, yeah, no, you're right, I think you're right. Yeah, yeah, interesting yeah yeah. And then we've had people, we've had women looking through mug books before. There was the one woman who just came to New York and she's like, well, it's better than seeing Annie, so right, yeah, and that was like right at the end of the last season.

Yeah yeah, I like where this one ends up going. With the phil Leads stuff. I think the Kenneth Tiger stuff is better. I think it's more interesting. Again, I don't I don't know what the show is getting at.

I mean, the show has played a lot with these kind of weird metaphysical things that like I'm not sure I understand, like this whole thing. So Salvacuzo as Joseph Beaty's brought in. He's got tons of drugs on him, and he meets Kennath Tiger in the cage and it's just like, oh, what are those guys called the Apostles? And he wants to become one of Tiger's new apostles and he's like, oh, can you work a miracle for me? And then next thing you know, oh, all those drugs were fake.

They're all baking soda and he's like, looks at him, Like, Oh my god, that look at Tiger's face. I mean, that's the thing. Tiger plays it with such like sincerity. He just plays it so straight. He just look he just looks at everybody with that that dopey smile and just yeah.

Like again, I don't understand if there's a point to any of this with these kinds of things, but I enjoy and appreciate that they're part of this show. That there's these weird kind of like the alien thing and the werewolf thing and the ghost thing, like I and the fact, like the fact that Dietrich is an alien has been more or less confirmed by the people who make this show, Like that's that was never part of Spin City guys, like you know, Colombo never turned out to be a chud or something like. There's there's none I mean that would be interesting, was the really Shabby Detective. But there's none of that in any of these other shows. But there's none of that.

The attack of John Hurd and Daniel Stern, there's none of that in this, like and there's none of that in and not in this But there's none of that in like Hill Street Blues and stuff like that, like other cop shows so it's weird, but I appreciate it. It almost makes it feel like, in a way, a precursor to Night Court. Right, I can definitely see that. Yeah, yeah, actually night Court would be a good follow up to this. Right, I've never seen Night Court, but I know that Night Court has like weird things that happen that are just weird, Like they do they interact with like monsters and shit in that show, right, like what people that think they're monsters.

I'm assuming similar to this all kind of was a monster. But yeah, I had a real hard time with with Night Court when it was originally aired because I just I was like, why is he so mean? All the time? Dan? The John Larrikett character and every once in one like you never knew where you're still with Harry.

Harry definitely has a lot of Barney Miller vibes, So I can totally see where you're coming from. And yeah, all the all the weirdos that come in and that we barely ever leave the courtroom. So yeah, you're right on track. Man, that's great. And I want to say that if you take the opening of night Court and you play the Barney Miller theme over it, that it actually fits really well, really, I want to say.

A friend of mine sent me that, Yeah, this reminds me is just like some sort of Wizard of Oz Pink Floyd thing. If you play it might be yeah, but you don't have to, like it doesn't like stop, you know, two thirds the way through, and then you have to put on animals or something and then and pretend and just pretend that this all makes sense. Dan, all makes sense. Yeah, of course Roger Waters was watching this and recording all at the same time. Yeah, yeah, sure, just like Kenneth Tigers.

Jesus, Yes, yes, but he's billed as Jesus Christ in this episode, so we must be Jesus Christ. Poor woe. Joe is so confused. And and here we actually have the first confirmation that Birnie is Jewish, like pledge confirmation, right, which and they just they just say it so flippantly. It's like, oh, that's right, I forgot you're Jewish.

It's like, what, by the way, and goes and oh, yeah, I'm not a very good Catholic either. It's like, and you're Catholic, Like wait a second, here, he's never mentioned that as he Wow, that makes sense. He's Polish. They're almost all Catholic, that's fair, but also don't want us Yeah, exactly exactly. Yeah, I don't know which way that pulls sausage hangs.

I don't know, maybe the maybe eggs on the right. I don't know. I do appreciate how flippant they were, which you're Jewish, as if we knew that, Like I don't want to assume just because the actor is Jewish, but you know, like and also his name is Miller, but like I don't want to assume, but like, okay, season six coming in hot, like Jesus, Jesus, I am sure that there are people named Miller that aren't Jewish. Though, yeah, oh, I just assume that's why they named him that, ye, Like honestly, Bojahowitz is a much more like again, like you would assume, like maybe he's the Jewish character. I don't know what it What does it matter at this point?

I guess, like it's such a it's kind of a weird thing to bring up, like, but you're Jewish, Like, yeah, you've made it this far in Barney Miller without it mattering. Guy, He's like, why do we have to confirm that? Like I guess Jesus just pushes the issue because it's like, oh, I do like that whole thing have Who is it that washes their hand and hands? And of course and I think it's Rich says, of course there is a precedent for that. Oh it's a it's a Bojahowitz.

I'm gonna wash my hands. Of course you. I think it's great. Yeah. Again, I like what Kenneth Tiger brings to the episode.

I think that that, like having that kind of situation with all of them to deal with it is interesting. I think the phil Leads stuff is okay. Yeah, I don't think it's as interesting. I don't think it's as interesting as the Kenneth Tiger stuff, But they don't spend very much time with phil Leads comparatively. Yeah, yeah, I kind of wish that there was a little bit more to his character and like a reason, you know, like that he's doing this or something right, Like just a little bit more like why.

Yeah, Like like, if you're going to do one of these characters again, you've got to give us more than you've given us before. And like you mentioned, in the past, it's pretty much been not much like they're not expounding on why these characters are doing why they're doing. Maybe this episode they should have like maybe that would have helped with that. I mean, look, Phil Leads is a great character actor and he's got a great look, so he can shoulder the responsibility of being given something interesting to say. But they just kind of don't.

They're not interested in that. It's it's it's a little bit of a missed opportunity. Really. Yeah. And in the final episode that we're talking about tonight, which is a vague vacation this one, Yeah, this one, we've got a central conceit of Barney hanging up a vacation calendar.

It's not the most motivating thing in the world, but there are some interesting stuff going on here. The whole idea of Harris going on a ski trip as opposed to Dietrich needing those that exact same time. I'm off to go to a Gerta festival, and there's a lot of girt expect that necessarily our internet is am I lagging? Yeah? Oh boy, I was trying to see when okay, are we good?

I think so? Okay? Is it weird that Barney Miller is making jokes about Gerta. It feels very on brand for Dietrich, at least for Dietrich. Yes, but you know what I mean, like, what kind of cops show?

Again, I go back to this, what kind of cop show is making these kinds of jokes? And like only Barney Miller is Oh yeah, yeah, like the whole Police's interrupt us it's Latin humor. I mean, I feel like, you know, at this point where it's season six, so I don't necessarily remember a lot of the early seasons of the show, but I don't remember the comedy being so esoteric in those first three seasons before Dietrich showed up, and now it's gotten very esoteric and like intentionally strange. Compare well, yeah, and I'm here for that definitely. This is the kind of weird shit that really tickles my funny bung.

Well you mentioned Ted Lasso before, and just like that quick banter and the weirdness of like coach Beard and stuff, this just plays right into that for me, just having this strange dude. So Landisburg reminds me a lot of Stephen Wright. Oh yeah, right, I think I've said that before on this show. But like Landisburg's comedy stylings have lived on and I appreciate that, and it's it's a welcome injection into a show that was rather warm mole. I mean, Danny Arnold brings a lot to this show with the paranoids, with proof stuff that, like I said, other shows like this didn't have.

But I mean outside of those, you have to have some other things to really keep the train moving. And Steve Landisburg being added to this show, I think is the smartest thing they ever did, honest to god, Like the smartest choice was adding Steve Landisburg as a reoccurring character and then a main Gass member, like he has absolutely like he is a he is a treasure and a jem. Like I haven't seen him in anything else other than like the in Fucking Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where it's like, oh, it's totally Steve Landisburg as as Jason Siegel's doctor. And I think we talked about that last time, like Landisburg, like, I don't I want to go see other things that he's in, but like why would I when we're just watching the thing that he was in the most more than anything else, best I can tell, like this was his like big role, right, I think so yeah, and like that's it.

And you know what, like he probably lived a amazing life off of this show for the rest of his life because he was in one hundred and twenty four episodes of this and that it's still on guys, it's still in syndication. Like that's the thing. Like, but Landisburg, for me, is the best part of this show in so many ways, and his addition to the show has made the show's shelf life for me seemingly almost endless. Like I'm on board to the end of this show. And if the person that they added in a Vogoda's place hadn't been such a strong presence, I don't think I would be as into the show because so much of what makes me laugh and what I enjoy about the show is the weird energy that Steve Landisburg brings to it.

I mean, it's like I'm trying to think of like post Barney, you know, like Harris. I think Ron Glass might be the most successful Barney Miller castmate insofar as you know, his recurring role on like Firefly, I he had at least a few other shows. I want to say he did a lot of producing work as well. In twilight Zone. He was definitely in Twilight Zone, which is hilarious because there's that joke, you know, I'd sell my soul to go on this vacation, and I was just like, oh, that's pretty funny.

I think I've had in that I have Newton episode. Yeah, I was like, yeah, you know, in a couple of years, you'll be on the other side of this bargain. But yeah, it's like, I am unfamiliar with a lot of Landisburg's other work. Apparently he was in one called Headcase from two thousand and seven to two thousand and nine. He was in twenty eight episodes, but I don't even know that one, So yeah, it's I might like you.

I'm tempted to track down some of these other things, even if it's just watching Ladybugs with the one and only Rodney Dangerfield in it. Oh, somebody step on a duck and on new Dangerfield. Those two on screen together would be kind of insane. Speaking of Dawney Coleman, he was also in one episode of the nine to five TV show which God didn't really even know that that was a thing, guys, so it sure is, and yeah, not good. Sally struggles Valerie Curtain and Rachel Patton Parton George So, I love that there was a Parton in this.

Oh yeah, well playing Dolly Parton's character. I had to watch some of it for eighties TV Ladies because they're covering it on their show. Wow it's not good. Wow shocking. I know.

I'm amazed that you could even find a copy on YouTube. We didn't find copies. It's like, it's like fish, it's that same like it's you know what, Like I don't think people who watch Barney Miller don't understand this, but I think a lot of other people don't. Like, there's so much shit that's just lost, that's so many people spent so much time aching and like, and it's not like, you know, the whatever that Jerry Lee Lewis Weird Clown movie is. It's not like that where it's like hidden away Jerry Lewis.

That Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. Jerry Lewis. I didn't know that those were two different people. Oh no, right, yeah, Jerry Lee Lewis. But they're both problematic in their own special ways.

Unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah, but it's not like that one more year that's fair. It's like it's not like that. It's like, you know, Fish is like impossible to find, like the second and third season of it, and like that nine to five TV show, like a lot of stuff is gone.

So you know, Barney Miller thankfully not part of that group. I mean, it has Shout Factory and one of the more popular TV shows of all time, but there's so much stuff that's just gone. Well, the very first movie that Lindisburg was ever in, You've got to Walk It like you talk it or else you'll lose that beat, is a lost movie from nineteen seventy one. So his whole you know, it's uh first role is gone. That's insane.

That's maybe one of these days we'll be able to find it, but so far nope. It is on the Lost Media Wiki and those guys do a really good job of trying to tract stuff down as well. So and that's one movie that I think has been on my want list for probably over twelve years now. Interesting, that's insane. Yeah, So with this one, we've got we've got our our A story, I would say, is the vacation stuff.

The c story is the stuff with Jack Bernardi as mister Gilman. He is making yeah, you can't say, fake phone calls. He's making these phone calls, making fake, fake claims that there are crimes going on, and he is then monitoring the response of the police emergency services placeth strength testing the system in the most illegal way possible. Yes, yes, I mean I think it's kind of enough sary, but yeah, I agree with you. I actually kind of agree, like I don't under like I understand why they think what he's doing is bad and why it's like not great, but also like someone should be doing that.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And Jack Winery's great. He's got such a great face, Like he's got a face that's good enough that I was like, has this guy been in The Godfather? I mean, he seems like he should be around the table with the heads of the Five Families. Yeah, I agree, he's he's a I mean again, it's it's also like you could say the same thing about Bruno Kirby, right, I guess Bruce Kirby, not Bruce Kirby his son.

Yeah, Bruno Kirby shows up in this same thing, and it's like just like again, like you see him and you immediately know like there you go, like you know who that guy is period that same thing. I'm like, he needs to be around a bunch of other Italians. Oh yeah, it is so funny because his brother, Bruce Bruce Kirby is playing one of the Rossman brothers. His brother is played by Ben Slack, and it's so funny. If you bring up Ben Slack's IMDb profile, there's a picture from Night Court.

Fantastic. Yeah yeah, him and Larry Gellman, another very familiar face. So yeah, it's pretty good. He's great. I love his awful comb over that he's got in this.

It's terrific. Also like that he's trying to get kidney from Wojohoans. He's like, yeah, yeah, give me your kidney, motherfucker, what happened? What happens if my last kidney gives up? You have a brother too, don't you.

It's like Jesus go away. I love Kirby though, it's just like I could have three kidneys and I wouldn't give you one. Even at the end he's like, Okay, fine, I'll give you a kidney. I'm gonna yea. But he might pull a Homer Simpson and just leave him hanging there at the end.

Oh, yeah, I would be fine with that because his brother a room piece of shit. Yeah, he's not characterized in a way where there's any amount of empathy that I feel for him. He's just like, yeah, yeah, Like I understand why your brother's like, I don't want to do anything for you, bro, especially when I give you part of my body right right. And then we end with an N word joke in this episode. I can't believe that we showed there, and I don't know how many people in twenty twenty three are going to realize that they did that, But that's pretty fucking funny to me that when they're trying to work out their schedule going back to that vacation schedule, they go, whoa, we could do emy me he meany mighty bow, and then Harris is just like, hey, let's just do one potato, two potato.

I was going to ask you about that, as well as to whether or not that joke plays anymore. I laughed really hard. Okay, No, like the funniness aside, Like, do you think someone who watched in twenty twenty would get what they mean? I don't know if they would, because Harris's reaction to what they're saying because like, I know, but I also know what the original title of Agatha Christie's and then there were none on rightly exactly. Yeah.

I mean when I was a kid, it was, oh, it's catch a tiger ken a tiger by the toe. But yeah, now it's like, yeah, yeah, to your point, how many people know what those original words were, I'm not even sure people would know the catch a tiger by its toe thing, like, I don't know, true, I don't think. Yeah. I think that that's like the any meani miny mo thing is interesting because people do still say ety MENI miney mo right right, But they don't seem to realize that if there's two things, that whatever you start with will be the opposite for the ending. So if you want to win any MENI many mo, you just point out the person you know any and then off you go.

Man, it all of a suddends odd. I'm mo. Yeah, I like I like the joke. I thought it was funny. I wasn't offended.

I was more just yeah, asking, like would someone in twenty twenty three, No, And I just don't think they would. I think you're probably right, yeah, which is a shame because it is a funny and it's a totally earned joke. It's a fucking funny joke. Like it's funny and it's totally earned. And I think this whole thing with him going skiing is going to come back again later on, so I hope.

So yeah, yeah, I mean, and I do like the surprise of people like, oh, you're a skiing and just like, you know, because it doesn't seem like a urban professional black man would be big into skiing in Wyoming, but more power to you man. That's pretty great. And I love how just pedestrian Barney is where it's just like, oh, okay, yes, that's how fresh and interesting that is. And it feels like Barney's of course, he's probably never hit the slopes. He's like, hey, Jackson, Alabama, right, Wyoming, which cracks me up more because to think about Harris out in Jackson, Wyoming skiing is just like the funniest fucking thing to think about.

Like I thought it was Mississippi. Oh no, yes, Jackson, Mississippi. Ba is it's jack There's Jackson all over, isn't there? Yeah? Yeah, probably yeah, I'm sure he's just like, what are you talking about, Barney, I'm not gonna gonna Mississippi.

Wow. I was like, is that race? Is that a racist thing, Barney or almost Barney? Are you racist? Like?

What the fuck is this Barney? Yeah? Yeah. I just love that Harris suffers no no idiots, even if it's fucking Barney exactly. I just love that, Like, and I love that there's a shot in this episode and it's just like Harris making this face and it just like zooms in on it and then it dissolves too.

It's like zoom in and dissolves on him just going because as only Ron, that's only Ron Glass can do too. So this was probably as much as I enjoyed the first episode, I think I enjoyed the jokes in the second and third episode more because again, the jokes in this episode are pretty good too, and then that final joke is a standout. The one thing I teased earlier, and we'll just talk about this real quick before we wrap, is the idea of And it was a little confusing to me too, as far as is his Levitt now part of the bullpen or is he not part of the bullpen? And it sounds like he's getting jerked around. It sounds like one week on, one week off kind of thing.

I don't think that's very fair to leave it. But if he keeps wearing those awful denim outfits, I'd keep him out of the bullpen completely denim day. Hey, yikes, that was in tuxedo. The Canadian would look at that and be like, oh please, yeah the kid lord, Yeah, that was that was a bit much. I think what I would consider the Levitt character at this point is mister plot contrivance, because it's like, well, he's in he's down there, and now he's back up here whatever, whatever the storyteller wants him to do, that's where he's going to be, and that's what that allows it to do.

It's like, well, we need you sometimes to fill in and sometimes we don't. So it's like, okay, so if you want Levit to fuck off this episode, just have him be, you know, not in playing clothes. If you want him to be around, you could be in playing clothes. Like I get that, Like that makes sense. Is it a cop out?

Yes, but you know what, it's a plot cop out, So I don't know. It's fine. Does any show to have a cop out, it should be Burney Miller. Sorry, that got him. That was awful.

That was a good one, oh, Chris. On the next episode, we're continuing our journey into the depths of season six. We were talking about three episodes, The Brother, the Slave, and Strip Joint. Sounds very spicy until then, Chris, where can people find you and what you are up to? Weird Away Media dot Com is where you can find the show that we kind of mentioned here.

The culture cast also can find eighty CV Ladies, which we also mentioned, Dreams for Sale twice nineteen eighty five, which we also mentioned. All the things that I work on and the things that I work on with you, and I think everything that you work on as well, is all over at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com where we're serving up audio you want to listen to. I don't break network. Also, I'm not any sort of scalv just jumping over to Wonderly or Earwolf for something. It's it's all about Weirdingwaymedia.

Oh man, I would ask you where people could find your work, but you just answered it. Yeah, right there. So if you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, come on over to Weirdingwaymedia dot Com. I do a show. Some people have heard of it called the Projection Booth.

Talk about movies every single week, and sometimes more than once a week. This is one of those crazy times for me. By the time this air is, that'll all be in my rear view. Maybe I've regained a little bit of my sanity, but don't count on it. I'm not regaining my sanity or counting on it.

Oh. I think John Walkerford composing our themes. I want to thank you for listening to this. If you get this over at iTunes, go on over and leave a rating room review. It really helps us out.

Yeah, we're wokesters, we get it. It's twenty twenty three and we're looking at a show from nineteen seventy nine. We talked politics sometimes, especially because Barniey Miller talks politics, so you know, he went, We're talking about the inauguration of presidents and talking about strikes and all this kind of stuff. It's real, actual life out there, folks, So get used to it. And you know what they say, if you can't deal with the fact that the show is bringing it up, it's not really our fault.

Perfect the place to end it