Episode 48: The Vests + The Rainmaker + Liquidation

Welcome to the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast. I'm yourst Mike White. Joining me, of course, is the rookie mister Christassue. I wonder how much longer that title is going to stick, because we're we're this is the this is the last time we're doing this before it's the literal last time we do this. So and coming to us all the way from the Uptown Division, the internal Affairs as it were, mister Otto Bruno.

Jeez, I'd rather be the inspector than scan affairs. Scanley. Yeah, oh man, we're gonna get a lot, a lot of good luger in this episode of the Life and Times. So Captain Barney Miller, I'll tell you that we are talking about the last three episodes of the seventh season. I can't believe we're here already.

Don't worry, folks, there's an eighth season. We're gonna talk about some cliffhangers here, at least i'd consider the last episode of cliffhanger. We are talking about vests, which is gonna be tough to say. That dropped May seventh, nineteen eighty one. The rain Maker, which came out May fourteenth, nineteen eighty one, and Liquidation, which aired May twenty first, nineteen eighty one.

Those are the last three of the seventh season. Of course, we've got our friend Nom Pittlick, who is directed. I think almost every single frickin' episode of this season. I think there were like one or two that he didn't. Yeah, Homer Powell was in there.

But this has been a known season. This has been an interesting season. We've talked about how things are carrying over. These three episodes really play well together. But yeah, Chris, what did you think of the vests?

I thought it was a pretty good episode of the show. I mean again, I think in terms of what we talked about on the last episode, in terms of this being a very typical episode of the show. It felt very typical. It felt like the kinds of storylines that we've seen throughout the run of this show. We have the a plot being the you know, the bulletproof vests or kevlar that they're getting that I guess I didn't realize this, but kevlar looked ridiculous back in the day in terms of the design, and I love that as a plot because again, it kind of begs the question why they didn't have them up until this point.

It's because New York City is is and was having problems with or was not is, But in this show, it's having problems with, you know, clearly police and the police being shot at and being you know, maimed and murdered. So I liked it. I mean, again, it's kind of trafficking in real world ism because this is a show that has never needed to explain and why nobody had pullet proof vests up until this point, even though they've gone out multiple times on multiple calls where there are people with guns, especially this season where we've had people murdered in the first episode of the goddamn season. So I thought it was interesting that we're finally in like the end of the seventh season and we're finally now talking about bulletproof vests.

But I mean, outside of that, I thought it was It was an interesting episode and the luger of it all, I think, is a lot of fun. And Otto, what did you think of the vests? Well, I watched all three again today and I felt, you know, none of these are great classic Barney Miller episodes, But the thing that always impresses me is I laughed at something in every single one, every single one was able to make me laugh. Now, in one like the vests, you have Barney miller favorite don Kalfa, who is on in what is probably his weakest role totally out. Yeah, throughout all the series, he doesn't really get to do much at all in this, so that that particular storyline didn't really go anywhere.

The lady at the end who was who was held up with all her weaponry supposedly in her apartment, I thought was pretty funny at the end, but it's very short. I mean, it's you know, that is more like a C plot, and that really is over and done with in three or four minutes. So the main plot, which is the bulletproof vest, carries the story. And I think is it sounds like all three of us will agree on the best part of that plot was Luger. Oh yeah, yeah, well Luke hurt and then you don't even know for the first like five minutes of the episode may more than that, actually that Dietrich is even in the office.

It takes until Luger comes in and he's talking with the guy and this and that, and then he's like, I'm going to interview all of you, just in case I have to write your obituaries, talk about morbid and then they're like, oh, we'll start with Dietrich. And then he just goes around to Dietrich's desk and Dietrich is sitting there. It's like you didn't even give him a shot at the beginning. It was so oddly directed this episode. And then of course Dietrich, you know, they do cutaway and then come back to him and he's like talking about like what Schopenhauer and all of these things.

He's like, I just asked if you had a dog when you're a kid. So good. Well. I love Dietrich and Dietrich and the Inspector together, I think are always priceless because you know, Dietrich, I mean, this is the whole humor behind Dietrich is that dry delivery. He has dry, sarcastic delivery.

But he's never outwardly disrespectful to the Inspector as Harris can sometimes be. Oh boy, yeah, and there was a lot of that and the right exactly. So I think it's even funnier, you know, because he's you know, he's not being openly hostile, but he's still driving him crazy, so he's getting him in a different way, you know. I like that. And it's kind of interesting too that the lady who was shooting and and that caused them all to wear their vests, that she was a former former mental patient, absolutely no problem apparently getting all these guns.

So you know what was going on in nineteen eighty one, same thing in twenty twenty four. I gotta tell you it's still relevant to show that it is that is the best and the worst part of this series, as how frighteningly relevant. So many of the issues still are. And you know what, if don Kalfa's character was around today, he'd be trying to go on to Shark Tank with his crazy invention that he has that tells you when you're tan enough, which I'm like, okay, that it might actually be a handy device, Probably not, but this whole I am a sucker for these fly by Night companies, and that he gives them all this money, and then that causes him to go He goes a little nuts because he's like, Hey, what the hell's going on with this invention that I paid you all this money for?

And then I love it? Who was it? Is it? Harris or is it Dietrich that looks into the company itself and it is just like, hey, you know, you guys are getting sued all over the place, and just the way that they kind of out the guy who owns the company in front of Calfa, I thought was pretty dark. I think it was Wojo.

Was it was it Wojo? Okay, yeah, it was Wojo. I thought, all right, that. Seems like a good Wojo Wojo in crusader mode, which happens again in another one, and right, yeah, proper Wojo appearance. And then I like his whole thing too, how he's like, I don't want to wear a vest, and then he and Harris are kind of fighting over a vest.

He eventually does wear the vest, and he's just like, no, I'm giving it up because it makes you ill invincible, and I don't need that. I don't want to feel like I'm a superhuman person when I'm in these situations, because I might not value the other person's life as much as I value my own life. Yeah, And I always found that expression of concern for what he might do to a purpose very interesting in the age of Dirty Harry and death Wish, and also. Well that he's a Vietnam Vet and he didn't have a vest on when he was in Vietnam. But you know, he had to do what he had to do.

I'm sure Wojo probably took some lives when he was in the war. Oh. I mean, if if things are to be believed, family friends have told us stories about Vietnam vet's going out in the middle of the night to He'll vi it Kung for fun. So you know, Wojo's probably seems well, that was the worst part. The worst part is he would they would come back with ears on a string around their neck.

Yeah, and that drives people crazy. I mean, what's funny is that we Wojo is so well adjusted it as a character, because now if you wrote him as a character, there would be a lot more to mine. And the show has never gone there, and and we understand why. But I will say, Otto, we have invoked your name plenty of times, and I think we now realize you are not like Beetlejuice. You will not show up if your name is mentioned three times in a row.

Unfortunately, But this season has been interesting, and you talk about it in your book, which can be found a Bear Manner media. By the way, and it's a great pickup if you haven't read it, is this is your least favorite season of the show, right. Yes, it's. I felt it's the weakest season beyond the first because the first season I don't don't count. Yeah, right, I don't count the first season because it was a half.

It was, first of all, it was a mid season replacement. Second of all, they were basically finding their sea legs in the first thirteen episodes, so I don't count that. But yeah, I mean, but you and I, I think have talked about this, and and Mike, it's the for me, it's the weakest season in a series of almost perfectly strong seasons all the way through, So you know, when you're comparing it to everything else, yeah, I think it was the weakest season overall in terms of the stories. But it's still, you know, like I said, even in these three episodes, none of which are super strong except the last one, which Mike hinted towards is certainly certainly an important episode, but there are last to be found in all of them.

And like I said, and I think I said it in the book. I'm sure I said it in the book. The thing about this show that was so for me that I felt stood out from so many of the great sitcoms of the nineteen seventies, because particularly the first half of the seventies was almost like a renaissance of the Golden Age of television in terms of the shows that came out. By the end of the seventies, not so much, but the first half of the seventies. You know, you have Bonnie Miller, All the Family, I mean, right, there is enough for out, Bob Newhart, I mean, it's amazing, yeah, so, But but the two that it always kind of bothered me, although I liked them both and I thought they were both great shows, but it always bothered me that Mash and All in the Family seemed to be held above all other shows.

In that decade, and I thought Barney, quite honestly, was just as good. And I thought Barney was better in the sense of being a sitcom because it never gave up the focus on providing last Right, Okay, so it could do and we're we will see this in the last episode we're going to talk about tonight. It could get very serious, but it could It would always provide the last as I've said, I'm sure I probably said it on the show before, and I think you've already gone past it. There's only one episode I think could be wrong, but I think only one episode in the whole series where you really there's a subject that they just don't allow any laughter on whatsoever. And that was with the the Nazi, the X the Escape Nazi.

Oh yeah, that was this season. Yeah, yeah, yeah, with that that was a powerful episode and that was the only time I ever really remember them. There was nothing. I mean, and think about it. You've had, although it wasn't thought of the same way then as it is now, unfortunately, but you had an episode about a man raping his wife.

It wasn't considered as terrible then because the culture didn't think it was a possible that you know, it was anything. They didn't think you could rape your wife. Obviously we know better, thankfully now. But so you had that, you had a story with a slave, a guy who was still an indentured service. Yeah, I mean you had some really you've had.

We've had some heavy thing, but there was laughter and all these things, even the slave one, which is amazing if you think about it. People, I'm sure there are people who are listening to this who maybe who have never seen that and are already getting angry, but you have to see the episode to understand it. I don't think that episode is offensive because basically the whole rust of the episode is Wojo and Harris trying to get justice for this guy at a time when you know he was the guy who was enslaving him was sort of predicted from the immunity thereunityy. Exactly well, and I mentioned I mentioned your feelings on this season and you kind of already alluded to it otto, which is this season I think has the most in the rape episode, aside which still has a laugh track.

To be fair, this season has had the most serious storylines I think in terms of volume, Like it's been not just one or two episodes, because the rape episodes like one episode in a season of episodes that are not It's not that they're not that serious, but like that's a pretty fucking serious topic, serious episode title alone. But this season we've had a character that has been murdered off screen and then has talked about being shot point blank. That's like the first episode of the season. I think we have the precinct being broken into, which also has not happened up until this point, the violence has never The violence has come into the precinct a couple times, but not like this, which was what was that riot, the one where the guy looks in like a spaceman trying to think of the other I'm trying to think of there were at least one or two.

Well, the Agent Orange episode this season was another kind of hot button issue at the time. And then this is also the season Mike, let's not forget that had fucking Dorsey on top of everything else. This is such a major misstep with that. Oh, I mean, in a lot of ways, like Dorsey ends up feeling like unless season eight just does something absurd, Dorsey is the biggest misstep this show has ever done, other than spinning Fish Off into his own show. But I say all of this because, again, in my mind, this season is so different in the way it approaches the serious topics, because not that they're not funny, but to your point, auto up into this season, there has been some room for comedy in the serious episodes, and this season a lot of the serious episodes have not had a lot of haha, guffaw moments, which feels antithetical to a show like this, which to your point, Ottaw has been funny throughout.

Yeah, it's really In the next episode in The rain Maker, it feels like it's gonna it starts off like it's gonna be a big message thing where they haven't had rain in New York for a while and the reservoirs are getting lower and Wojo comes up to Barney. He's just like, hey, there's you know, we're we're gonna run out of water. And he was trying to make coffee with doctor Pepper, which is just. The fucking worst, by the way, Woe Joe, you psychopath. It's formed doctor Pepper Barney.

Oh yeah, every I guess that was technically a thing in the seventies. That was a that was a thing that people liked. So the number two Bepper its even here in twenty twenty four. Yeah, right behind Coca Cola. Man.

Joan Crawford would be apoplectic if she heard that. I'm a pepper. He's a PE's a pepper, You're a pepper. No, it's all those psychos in Mississippi ordering Doctor Pepper with pickles in it. That's what it is.

That's what's really what are these things? I went, oh yeah, yeah, there's a there's like a trend, I guess in Mississippi of getting a doctor pepper and then then putting pickle slices in on top to the point where Sonic like knows it's a thing and will be like, you're gonna find your pickles on top of your drink. They know that. Yeah, I don't ask me. I was.

I lived in Texas for a long time. That is the South. Technically I have never heard of that shit, so don't ask me about it. But doctor pepper warm was a thing. I know.

It was a thing, like straight up, no, yeah, PEPSI was. But that sounds okay. I mean it's like a it's like a float, but you know, weirder. Well, and then we've got Ron Carey coming in and he has a brick for Barney and I'm like, okay, what is this? And then finally I figured out, oh, yeah, you put in the toilet tank and they explained that, Thank goodness.

As opposed to the opening gag, which is Harris interviewing a person who's going through the mug books, this person is played by Beatrice Colan our old friend Jane Plumb from Colchak, The Night's Doctor Chris the famous in the uh what episode? Was she in the Ripper episode way back way back. She she's one of those crazy dames that Colchak was just couldn't stand all. Those broads, those yeah rods, Damn broad's good. I mean, she was like the one I remember us being like, oh, she should be like a full time person on here, and I must be his his rival or something like, I wanted her one more of her.

Not to wax nostalgically, but Mike. The Ripper was the first episode of Colchak The Nightstalker, which means we talked about it in like twenty fifteen GEZ at this point. Yeah, yeah, fuck is fuck is the only preferred term. Yeah, the Ripper was the first episode of Colchak. Jesus wow yep.

And if I'm not miss and if I'm not mistaken, and I'm not because I just looked it up. If you get the book Binney Miller in the files of the Old One Too Wonderful book, got. It right now on manermedia dot com. These ads are free, by the way. You don't have to poo anything.

But I didn't. I didn't have it in this particular episode, but I know really in the book I write be Trivis Cohen is the granddaughter of George S. Kaufman. Okay, you want to explain that to our audience, and please please, no, I have no idea. No, do not, do not tell me you don't, you too, do not know who Kaufman and Heart are.

Oh, Kaufman and Heart. They were playwrights. Yeah, okay, the greatest playwrights of all time. Okay, sorry, I didn't recognize the Auto of you Can't Take It with You by name the man Dinner, the. Man who came the dinners when look at Auto, assuming that we're smart and well knowledged about pre code things.

I did assume that. I did assume that. Well, you know, Chris, you a little Yeah, you ski a little older than even Mike does. Auto. Don't forget Chris, You're you're, of course the baby in the group.

But you know, I've been figured. Mike's, you know, at least fifty. Now I thought he might know at least fifty, at least fifty. I know he's gotta be fifth. I think he's I think he's eight years.

Younger than not a day eleven years, not a day over twenty five. Oh, he's seven years younger than I am. I thought he was. I thought he was eight years younger than I am. Solf.

You just look that up on Wikipedia, Mike White's age. No, I just remembered now I am. I will say, I'm glad to see Oh God, Violet Beaulregards. Father is the oh Leonard Stone. Yes, Oh okay, I was gonna say, wi from uh from will.

You don't know that? One seventy one We're like, we're right here where I know that. Leonard Stone always played the great Harry bureaucrat on. Yes, and he is wonderful in that role, and he's doing the exact same thing here. This isn't It's an interesting revealed that they find this guy played by j Patt O'Malley, who we seen also on Colcheck to Night's Stalker.

We're really getting in plus major role Chris in the Gumball Rally, which we talked about on the Mercedes team. He's been on this before, been on Barney at least once, if not twice, and. Two other times. Yeah. I think he was in a total of three if I'm not mistaken.

Season two, season five, and season seven. Yeah. Of course, as a growing up with Disney movies. I'm very familiar with him from all of the all of the voices he did. He would be multiple voices in a lot of movies like alse Wonderland, The Jungle Book, one hundred and one Dalmatians, Gosh, I'm trying to remember what else.

Yeah, he was just in a bunch of stuff. He's in the park doing this ritual to try to make it rain. First, you don't know what the ritual is. That there's a weirdo setting a fire in a park and they run and grab him, and then they talk about this ritual that he's doing, and then you find out that he's a rainmaker. And then the twist that continues it is that he was hired by the city, hired by Leonard Stone to help make a rain, and of course Stone is just like, oh my god.

Nobody can find out about this until it then starts to rain, and he runs back in and provides the proof to Barney. You know, he was basically selling out for mister O'Malley and eventually he does the right thing and then he starts talking about how he's going to be the hero at the city hall. Yeah he said, and he says, oh, my god, no one will believe it, and Barney's like, yeah, you're probably right, and then his face, well, I. Would like to see the sequel to this episode. I'd like to see uh because at the very end Beatrice Colan, who uh man, oh man, you can see that joke coming a mile away when she starts talking about how things in the States are so different and YadA, YadA, YadA, and you're just listening to her and you're like, she sounds very American, and of course I'm just like, oh, she's Canadian.

And then when they finally reveal it, and it's just like okay, and then they continue to beat that joke into the fucking ground. Man, Oh my god. Well, Canadians are so different from us, don't you know? It's so different up there, just a couple of miles north, and that's everything's different. She should have given us at least one a boot or about the washroom or something.

Yeah. Sorry, couple stories on there. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, let me check my schedule. Yeah those kinds.

Wow, that's a deep cut shit. Do they use scheduling? I think they do. Yeah. I'm trying to think of some very other canadianisms because tim holes pick them up.

Yeah, tim holes, I'd probably uh have many of them integrated into my own speech pattern, just because I'm so close and she's from Windsor, which I found to be very Yeah. But yeah. At the very end of the episode, she and j Patt O'Malley team up and he's going to teach her the rain making business. That's what I want to see. Where was that as the summer replacement on ABC in nineteen eighty one.

The real question that I have is where did Harris get his fucking outfit this pot Because to quote Jack Black from High Fidelity, that is a Cosby sweater. A Cosby sweater. Oh my god, Harris, who has the best fashioned sense of anybody other than Ja pattle'malley with that fucking bolo tie? Am I right? Am?

I right? Yeah? But he's wearing one of the most hideous sweaters I have. It looks like if you've ever worked or laid down carpet, it looks like it looks like the pad that's underneath the carpet. It's awful.

It's just you should be a I know you're going through some tough times, Harris, but my god, that sweater is atrocious. And before we get away from J. Patt because I'm a big, big fan of J. Patt O'Malley. I love Jay Pattlemanley, one of the great character actors in the three we mentioned.

He played three roles on Barney. Every one of J. Pat O'Malley's roles was a quote unquote criminal that you actually root for. Like, he was never a malevolent it wouldn't be possible for it, right, He's too charming of an old little man right, right, exactly. And I just all of those, all of his role, all of the appearances he made I thought were great.

Though he was very unfamiliar with Ruce mcvittie, who plays the guy who actually ripped off Beatrice Colan, right, And yeah, I mean the guy was in like ninety seven things. I think he just passed away in twenty twenty two, so there are still like shows that are airing now that his episodes are still pretty fresh. But I just didn't recognize him at all. I'm glad that they didn't go back to the well and get Amertinez to come back again to play that same character. But he's basically playing that same kind of scuzzy Mexican Puerto Rican type character that replied people.

Didn't I didn't was he I don't remember what. I didn't even think he was Hispanic? Was he? Well, hope I'm saying the right person's name, Bruce mcvidie. Is he the guy that ripped off?

Was he supposed to be a I don't remember the character's name? Oh? What was the character's name? Gerald Clayton does not sound Hispanic or at all, but well maybe he wasn't. But he just is dressed so much the same with the Jean Jett and everything.

I just assumed maybe that was very racist of me. Oh yeah, I mean I didn't. Yeah, I had note about it. I was expecting it to be Paul Lieberman again just shows up and he's just once again doing the same thing, like why are you here, Dorsey? What are you doing?

By the way, here's something interesting, Mike. It was the first thing he ever did. Oh okay, all right, Well maybe that's why it seems a little green, because he just didn't capture me like some of the other actors do on this show. Feels like everybody that they bring in through those doors is somebody or would be somebody or somebody that I'm familiar with. But this one guy, I'm just like it is.

And he was on something called The Oval, which apparently is still on and I had never heard of it. Is it about the Oval Office? Or assume it's about Ovals? I really like I really like Ovals, guys. It's like the number twenty three where I see Ovals everywhere another Roval.

Newly elected US president. Hunter Franklin and his family move in unuse What you. Saying his laptops? What guns? Felon?

He's what laptop from? How? What? Hunter Franklin? And it's got a four point five rating on IMDb.

It's it's been on, It's they've already made one hundred and thirty three episodes. What and it's creator and it's creator. Do you want to guess who the creator is? I hope it's somebody who's associated with right wing conservative Prophagli Sario. Oh I don't think so.

Tyler Perry, Oh. Wow, Wow? What the fuck? Bro? Is this on the media network?

Is that why we haven't heard of it? I don't know. I don't know. It's bizarre. I guess there's just so much shit on TV now.

I don't I haven't had cable for years now, So you know, if it's not on one of the platforms that I that I have, I don't know anything about it. One of the multiple platforms that exist out there. I mean that's the other thing about Barney is this feels like a thing that obviously was like you would talk about this with people at your job. Now it's like, what the hell do you talk about? There's so many things, And I mean, look, the fact that this show is still relevant in twenty twenty four, I think speaks more to an idea that I've I don't think I've seen a cop show done as well as this show in terms of actually speaking to the idea of like what it would be like to be a police officer at a certain time in a certain place.

And yeah, maybe we're not out on the streets with all the grittiness, but I mean this resonated with I mean, we're doing the show for a reason obviously, But to your point, Otto like the seventies were such a golden time for television that you really had to be operating at peek. Because Gregory Sierra left the show to go to his own show, that show didn't pan out A Vagoda went to his own show spun off from this show. It had two seasons, yes it did, but I mean again didn't have eight seasons. So I think it's interesting. Like Barney Miller, I think stands the test of time because at the end of the day, like you've already alluded to it, it's so funny.

But I think the comedy just like all the stuff in this episode with the rain Maker and like you could see that still today, those kinds of ideas like again paranoids with roof quote unquote right, but this, I mean, the show's just basic premise. I think no other show has really done this as well other than and What's Funny Is? And I saw it with our dear friend Richard had him because him and his family are huge fans of it. And when I was watching it, I was like, this kind of reminds me of Barney Miller. Was Brooklyn nine to nine?

Yeah, definitely, which. I don't think it's that much of a stretch, but it's interesting because a lot of it takes place in the precinct, the Bullpen as it were, And all I could think when we were watching it was like, man, this just feels like Barney Miller for people my age, like and I'm not saying like people y'all's age couldn't get into it. Far from it. It's just the kinds of jokes and the way they're being told seem a little bit more contemporary. But I think the timelessness of Barney Miller is what works for it ultimately in terms of like why it's still relevant.

Why to your point, Auto, it's still mentioned with other shows that are considered I mean, this is one of the best shows of all time period. I mean, it's in the top twenty five best shows of all time for reason, and it's not a surprise we're talking about it. But I think that I appreciate the way that this show handles its subplots for the most part, because even when they don't hit, like in this episode with the thing you were talking about, Mike, there's still enough there. It doesn't just and sometimes shows just don't give you enough throughout every episode, And like you said, Otto, with the amount of jokes that do come through in this show, I feel like, I don't know, I feel like this this show still works where a contemporary audience is what I'm trying to get at, which I don't think you can say about I think mash and all in the family.

But like, there are plenty of shows from the seventies that do not work with contemporary audiences. Barney Miller, I think, is still one of them, even if people want to claim it's quote coppaganda unquote, which I mean boom, I mean that. Yeah, Copaganda is a term thrown around in terms of, like you know, obviously glorifying what police do. Often it comes with shooting bad guys, which Barney Miller's never really been about anyways. But that's the other thing is like so much of cop shows now are that kind of like papaganda, where it's you know, cops going out and shooting people or defusing situations.

And it's not that we don't see it in Barney Miller, but Barney Miller was never really about that, which I think is why it's just a show that is as important, like you said, as important then as it is now. Well, let me put on my old old man hat for a minute, because you know, I love donning that hat and say that. I actually watch a Brooklyn nine nine. My daughter and I used to watch it together because she liked it a lot and I did like it. I watched it regularly, But if if nothing else, I think it shows you the difference between the level of right from this show to Brooklyn nine nine.

Now I'm being serious. I enjoyed Brooklyn nine nine and watched it regularly. However, the Brooklyn nine nine characters were almost all caricatures, whereas Barney Miller. You know, they all have their idiosyncrasies, but they're all real people, right, And that I think was part of the magic of the nineteen seventies in the best of the sitcom. Let the people who walk in and out of the precinct be the stereotypes and the weirdos.

But yeah, leave our main characters, let them be, like you're saying, real. People, well exactly. And I think I've said this to you guys before, because I always said this about Fish. The whole story the whole storyline they gave for the Fish spinoff was nonsensical to me. Like why I always used to say if I was going to create, if I was going to spin Fish off, I would have put him.

He was forcibly retired from the police force, right, Okay, fine, now go get a job as like a security guard. Somewhere where you're going to have a bunch of goofy people to come in and play off. Of send him to Boca Raton, like I never understood why they didn't just send him to Florida, Like send him somewhere else, like you know what, a bagoda couldn't have worked into his contract. I want to go film somewhere other than New York. Like I had.

I don't know, like you know, we kind of we didn't mention it. We didn't talk about it before we turned the recorder on, and I wanted to talk about it. Now. What a fucking bizarre episode we were subjected to where Fish just comes back out of nowhere. And I want your take on at Otto because as the person who wrote the book on the goddamn thing for us, it was Mike and I had the same reaction, what the fuck?

And still I still questioned that choice because it was a poor choice to say the least, especially the way he walked out of the episode, showing his true colors as the asshole he always was. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't miss him. Is what I realized in that episode is that his comedy stylings had the show had evolved past what a Vagoda brought to the show, which I think is a testament to the show. I think it definitely had evolved beyond and beyond. Yes, that's that's true.

Uh, yeah, it was an odd It was an odd appearance. That was the one with Oh God, I love that lady. Who was it, Peggy Pope? Yeah, the bomb but the bomb, right, Yeah, I mean I I certainly don't hate Fish's character. I think there was talk, you know, after his show failed, there was talk about, you know, people were saying, oh, well, we will Fish come back to Barney Miller.

Now, as I know I've mentioned on this show before in previous episodes, by the time Fish laughed, there was not a super great relationship with Danny Arnold, the producer, right, so that was never going to have he was never going to have even never gonna come back to Barney. And how would he anyway, because he was forcibly retired, So I don't know how he would have come back anyway. Uh, he could have you know, worked for the inspector in the in the you know, uh public relations office or so I don't know, but you know, Fish wouldn't have done that anyway. So it would have made sense. So I don't know if this was just to kind of throw him a bone or or what it was, but it does because it is so late too, it seems a little uh, you know, a little strange.

But it was also a way, I guess to tie up his storyline because you know, he mentions that the city ran out of funding and closed up the you know, he and Bernice were running the house for the Foster house. And the children get really dark outcomes for their stories too, which was like, yeah, we get it, you hated the show. Fuck it, fine, Well look what was it? They found that little the little guy in a dead and a ditch and the girl that turned to prostitution right. Or she got pregnant or she's like fourteen and fourteen and pregnant or something.

It's like it's like. Was forced to carry it to term. Yeah, yeah, look at here's the thing. Uh, it was Fish's baby all along? Really dark whow they were shut down for a reason.

Wow, I did some sort of satanic panic thing from. The House of the Fish by Ty West. I capturing the Fishes. I spoke with uh, Frank Dungan, Jeff Stein, and Tony Sheen, who were the main writers in seasons six and seven. And I'm pretty well maybe I never talked about this because we were up to that episode, but look at Chris you alluded to it a few minutes ago, the two parter that opens this season, the homicide episodes.

Yeah, I talked to Tony Sheen about this and said that from the day I saw in nineteen eighty it enraged me. I was angry. I felt betrayed. Okay, they didn't kill off a cop, but they killed off a recurring character who we had all come to know and love, and like you said, they did it in a very brutal way for. This show, for any show, even like it's not even just for Barney Millers.

This guy was murdered off screen by a shot at close range to his head. Barney, what like, right. And we're I mean, that is the worst part of it, but then also the not great part of it. And even though I was just saying earlier that you know, you always they always try to find humor, but when that was over, then it was like over and it was like it wasn't you know, it wasn't something that hung on with them. And I said to Tony, I'm like, and he said, he said something to me to the effect like, well, we thought it might be funny, you know, we thought because it was so I write, you know, they thought the irony might be funny because they were homicide and they couldn't you know when they said, well now we can help him.

Sure, and I what a hilarious joke to play. But what I but what I write in the book was would it would it taught me which I have learned a little bit over the years, and I'm sure Mike and Chris you probably have too. I don't know how. I don't know if you've interviewed as many you know, actors or actors as Mike had, but I assume you have. You you learn when you interviewed these people that it really is a job for them, and while they obviously get invested in a certain way, it's not the same way that the viewer gets invested in it.

Not at all. And that was a real revelation to me because I thought it was the biggest misstep of the entire series. Was that episode where he where he gets killed and I'm trying blanking on his name, is. It mister Fetterman? Or something to that, mister.

Thank you, mister Cotterman. Yeah, I thought that. Now. I always said that. I thought that Wojo's Girl was the least funny episode, but the worst episode.

The biggest mistake of an episode was the one where Codderman gets killed. Uh, it just totally totally misses missus the mark. So so they did, you know they could go darker. Maybe it was because they were younger guys than Danny was, and maybe Danny was more rooted in and you know, the traditional borsch bell sketch comedy or something like that. I don't know, but I mean, because you know, to be to be fair to them.

They also did a two parter in this season which I loved and has always been one of my favorite ones, and that was the movie uh porn. Oh yeah, that Harris makes I saw. I thought the I thought the viewing of the portal was one of the best scenes in the in the series. Yeah, agreed. I think they even said as much on the episode, like it's it's a standout from this season, but I think from the show overall, Yes, definitely, And honestly, it feels like a missed opportunity that they didn't do more things like that where it's like everybody kind of interacting with one thing specifically.

Well, it was probably money too, Remember you're paying more actors, so it's true, but but it was and it doesn't hurt that. It also had my all time favorite Barney Miller Purp in it, mister Roth, so he was never gonna come back, and when he does come back in this episode, it is kind of it's an odd, uh, an odd interaction with them. All of them. It's weird. It's weird, and it again it almost strikes me as like like the people that used to know how to write this character don't write for the show anymore, and it's being written by people that are like, it would be a lark to bring him back.

I mean, the thing that's weird to me as we're sitting here about to talk about the final episode of the seventh season of the show is Fish doesn't come back for the end of the show, which is like the that's the moment where like we're conditioned as film or film watchers TV watchers, depending on how you want to interpret it, either as a final film and a trilogy, or the final episode of a season or finale. You're gonna pull out all the stops and bring as much back and do as much pandury fan service nonsense as possible. And it's shocking to me that Avagoda shows up in just an episode in the seventh season. It's just an episode. There's no fan fair given to it even.

I mean, he just walks in and it's like, what did I transport back to twenty nineteen or something all of a sudden, Yeah, that's the That was like twenty twenty nineteen. Twenty twenty was the last time we talked about a Vagoda really in terms of like his presence on the show being really felt so well. He had another he had another guest. It was when he was doing the fish yeah, kind of setting up the stuff. It was fish Yeah.

It was pretty close to when he spun off, So it wasn't it wasn't like this where years had gone by. No, it was like the next season or something. I think it like if Gregory Sierra had walked through the door, we were like, what what the actual fuck? Yeah, it would have been really where Jack Sue comes back. Which is that would be break out the Weedia boy boys.

All you young kids have very dark senses. Of humor. Very dark people. We do all you kids, very dark. It was dark people.

No, not dark people, but just dark. Let's talk about the lasts of this season. Let's talk about Liquidation, which I thought when I saw liquidation that was going to have something to do with liquidating the police department or liquid funds or something. Oh boy, it definitely not Harris dropping the N word, that's for sure. Oh my god.

I was like, I thought that's why you were alluding to here, Like, oh, the show goes, the show finally went there. Season seven final episode, it finally did it. I couldn't believe that N word. I was shocked. I was shot.

I mean, I remember, just a few months ago some friends of mine were sending me clips from Sanford and Son. It was just like, right, Sanford said the N word a lot on the show. I couldn't I don't remember that. And like now when I you know, when I watch those clips and when I think about it, I'm like, yeah, I guess he did, and that kind of makes sense. But at the same time, it just doesn't feel like a prime time word, you know.

And yeah, and then Harri's just kind of dropping it out of nowhere though, he spends what is it like half an half of this episode between being sober and being drunk. And I'm never a big fan of drunk acting, but I was okay with Harris doing this. I thought they run Glass at a pretty daring good job of being not only drunk but just disgruntled, super angry. I mean, he's pissed. You know how important his bank account is to him.

We have talked since some of the first episodes that he was even on about the stockbroker, you know, the futures. I mean, he's always like investing in things, the gold coins, you know, talking with Richard Libertini about the zinc in the future. You know, it's all of these things. Yeah, the the the futures, the eggs that he had and all of these things. You know how Wally likes to dress and all of this to be wiped out financially has to be the worst thing in the world for him.

He's gonna have to start dressing at like freaking kmart, now, man. Is that worse than having to listen to Walter Olkowitz sing? Is that worse? Wow? Before we get the rock renault himself phone.

Yes, before geting because I think that part is hilarious personally, but yeah, I mean, I you know, the the obvious thunder in the episode is Harris's dropping of the N word. But I say in the book, guys like me, we grew up in the seventies hearing that word I used all the family in good times, but I forgot Yeah, Fred used it all the time as well. And Fred in fact, he might have used it the most now that you say that. So it was so it wasn't as shocking in terms of the time period like it would now on anything, but it was very shocking for this show. One of the other things I've talked about in the book that you and you know you guys and I have talked about in previous episodes was, as we kind of hinted at earlier in this episode, you know, it took that first season for them to kind of find their characters, and Harris was much more.

I don't even know if I'm allowed to say, yes, thank you. That was exactly the word. I wasn't sure if I could use. Okay, we know auto you don't speak jib fine, we'll get you a jive interpreter. Didn't rain no dummy.

Jack exactly right. So yes, it was very And what's interesting, Mike is I have to be someone who loves drunk and high uh scenes in shows if they're done well. I never thought he was that great as a drunk, but I always allowed it because I felt that, yes, he had to be enraged, but he couldn't come in as just sober. Harris being enraged was it was easier to take it this way, you know what I mean? Yeah, very true.

It's a very wise choice that they need to have him drunk through this, and even after he sleeps for a little bit, he's still drunk. But I think he's more angry at that point than he's drunk. Well, and you can't get the joke of him pretending to look for his gun to shoot the guy with him sober either, but just like, oh shit, if he is just gonna murder this poor bastard. And of course that's the whole that's exactly what I've been talking about in this whole episode, that last part of it, those last few minutes or whatever, that Harris is just pouring all this stuff out and you're, you know, you're just your heart's breaking for him whatever, and it's it's really sad and dark and serious, and then you have what Danny Thomas used to call all the treacle Cutter, where he puts his head down on the table and and he's just discussing he's on the verge of tears, and the guy who who you know sings to overcome his anxiety starts singing High Hopes from the jail cells.

As however much you could have anticipated that coming, I don't care. It's still funny. I knew it was coming and I still laughed. So it's it's very funny. And that I mean, that whole whoops goes just the way that it goes on.

They think they repeat that three or four times in that end of that song. Yeah, it's great. I'm trying to remember that was used in a movie to great effect as well. And just how weird of a song that is, too. Yeah, don't don't tell that yet that he can't get that rubber treet plant man, because you know he's going to have that High Hopes and eventually he's a little engine or the little ant that could.

So yeah, I guess it's way more than half this episode, because it's about six seven minutes into this that Harris comes in completely blotto, very quick, that he has lost his case and that he is going to have to pay all of the money to that sister. Get old Rmner. Oh, oh my god. He comes in drumping and drunk, and he says, remember those two bottles of the feet nineteen. So the beauty of that where you.

Now immediately right is great choke. Immediately we all assume he's he's not going to allow Ripner to get those two bottles of wine. So he's going to get drunk on these two bottles of wine. And he pours, he pours him down the city and got drunk on what was it that he got? Yes, oh my god, Oh.

He's gonna have the worst hangover in the world too. No everything about And like Chris said earlier, you know when he when he is drunk, before he goes to lie down, Barney takes his pearl handled revolver phone so that when when Old Gwitz does start seeing he immediately but. That moment when Barney has him laid down. I mean, this is such a This this episode encapsulates so many of the things that I love about this show, which is so much of the camaraderie between these guys, he lays him down on his couch in his office and then he goes and he gets a fricking blanket out of the bottom drawer of that filing cabinet. I love that.

And then I also love that, you know, he's talking I think with Wojo barely any Dietrich in this episode, but talking with Wojo, and he's like, yeah, I got to rate him up, but nobody's going to see the rapport, you. Know, right right. I appreciate that that they're looking out for their friend who is desperately in need in this episode. Yeah, and it's actually one of the interactions between Barney and Harris that feels that doesn't feel as tense because they've been pretty tense since since suits or uniform unifor yes, yeah, yees, since uniform days, and they actually like it's actually, I mean, you know, again, Harris has a point here, obviously, I mean, look, three three white guys shouldn't have to tell you.

But Harris does. Like the the racial politics of what's going on is like it goes back to the idea of the Harris incident all over again, where it's like this guy who is African American cannot get it across to the other white guys of the precinct what it is like to be him, and no one ever will be able to because that is not something that any of us can live or experience. It really has to be lived. And I like that they even go into that territory again in this episode, because again it just goes back to reinforcing some of the themes that the show has been playing with essentially the whole time, really probably since like second season, maybe not the first season, but definitely definitely the second season.

But I love what they do how they have this very serious moment with him talking about, you know, being kept down by the system, and then they serve to talk about his dad and lays out what his dad was doing, and then he talks about his mom and that what was doing, and then he just goes, you know, I am a damn good writer. He's been making that stuff up whole cloth, absolute bullshit, And I just like that is great that they're able to take something so serious and then put the joke on it without cheapening the experience. It's like in any other show, it'd be like, well, how much of that was real? Was it? Even the stuff about him being kept down because he's black.

No, at a certain point he switches gears and it is bullshit, but the rest of it is so real that he almost has to switch into bullshit mode into it to be able to soften it and to be able to live with it. Right, he wrote, he wrote his book, and then he got it taken away from him. Yeah. Yeah, Well but so Barney says to him, very softly, after he gives him that story, He's like, I didn't know that. And then and then he's like, I've made that.

Which which is that moment of antagonism between. Right and the like? And he says, I'm damn good writer. But then again, Barney, the Solomon of the twelve, he says, when was the last time you wrote anything? Yeah?

And I love that. And they waited enough time too that he can say that. It's not like, you know, like hitting him with that right away his tongue at him exactly and be like, oh, well, you got to pull yourself up from by your bootstraps now, And it's like, no, he takes the time, and he says it the right way. You've heard that phrase too, pull up by your bootstep I fucking hate that shit. I mean, that was just it's one of those things that's said all the time, right, And yeah, like you said, they give it enough time so it doesn't seem patronizing, which is how it could totally sound.

And that's that's the other thing Barney has never I don't think Barney has really ever come off as patronizing with anybody. But that's a very narrow line to walk, because that kind of character in this kind of show can seem extremely patronizing, if not just like the most like tongue clucking shree asshole who looks down at everybody else. And Barney's never been that. And here's another moment showing again people who write the show know how to write it, and they write it well, and they give it that beat, that moment to breathe, so that it isn't again him seeming like a dickhead talking down to Harris, which the optics of that aren't great either, so I'm glad that they didn't go there well. And in terms of Mike's reference to how this episode is something of a cliffhanger, I will just tell you from my omniscient viewpoint that you'll you'll see kind of the answers to some of these things.

In the beginning of season eight, kind. Of glad for that because I was afraid it was going to do the old sitcom thing that we've talked about before and just drop it and maybe make a little mention, but then, you know, just carry on and not have anything. In this particular case. No, it will not, isn't that right? Armand Tam'sarian what you will never speak this again, they don't, Armin Tamzarian.

Blood on the Badge, which is good, well, because it's been such a big part of this season. I mean, this season has almost been the Blood on the Badge season. If there has been a an arc, a story arc to this season like you would expect from a contemporary TV show, that is the story arc. The over arching story of this season is the Blood on the Badge, the book coming out, then him getting sued, then him having to appeal, and then ultimately at the end of the season, it's like shit out of luck. But to the point that Barney makes, it's like there is some looking up because Harris still has the ability to be creative, to do creative things, especially on the fly.

Yeah, this is this is a good episode. We haven't even talked about the Rollo Tamasi of it all yet. No, No, which is funny because back in the episode Vests that we talked about oh so long ago, I was saying, oh, was that who was looking up that information? Who was helping out you know, the guy in the cage, And then I was I think he was Dietrich, But no, it's Dietrich in this one because we have the guy in the cage, and the guy in the cage in this case is Martin Gardner's Martin Golden just because he wanted to remember his name. Walter Olkowitz plays Walter Cushing, so he wanted to remember his name.

But James Cromwell plays Jason Parrish, so he had range. You know, Cromwell is almost up to two hundred credits on IMDb right now, which is amazing to be that MOFO is still making stuff. He's got like five things in development right now. It's amazing. And he's back playing basically the character that he's played before, like dipshit government type official.

I don't think he's working for the government, but he's working for other governments, some overseas governments. Because he's a lawyer. He's a counsel for the Liberty Bell Holdings, which is Saudi or Kuwaiti and German and French holding would never have known by the name, which is one of the best gags in the entire the entire season. Yeah, Martin Garner, who likes to walk to from his apartment to his place of business, Sea burns up what newspapers. Stand Yeah, and then uh yeah he uh.

It's basically arrested because he's trespassing across the property of Liberty Holdings with their new construction. But I was really surprised that they didn't get into because towards the end they start making you know, after Petrich does his digging, and it's like, oh no, he's well within his rights to sue you like this. He could basically have your building destroyed if he wanted to. It's basically amazing legal somersaults are doing. Here right because he because he walked that same route for twenty years, he has created an easement in the eyes of the law.

So that technically speaking, you know, I mean, it's a little fet but it was the law. I mean, it was by the book literally, because Ras looked it up in the in the law book, and of course Garner ends up garnering some well good one, some nice goodies out of it for him. He gets a new stand inside the new building, he gets a trip to Europe and a female companion. The thing that I was going to say is this idea of him getting space inside of the building is really interesting to me because I know in New York City a lot of buildings have more public areas for the first floor, and that that almost feels like that is coming out of something like this where we are not you know, you you can walk through the building.

You can walk you know, like you're not barred from being in the building if you walk through the bottom floor because it's open and it's there for people. And it feels like kind of a result of something like this where it's like you can't just create these massive structures and that allow people to walk through rather than always having to walk around. Well, you know something that it's interesting that you say that because years back, I was in New York in eighty six. I was there for a few months when I did an internship, and yes, there were those new stands inside the buildings, some of the buildings and just the other day, I think it was. I don't know if it was on Facebook or on something else I was reading, but someone did one of those photos where they took a picture from the opening credits of the television show The Odd Couple, when Felis and Oscar are sitting on the bench in the park eating or something, and they took another picture currently from the same vantage point, although obviously Felix and Oscar aren't there anymore.

And what was amazing. I mean, it shouldn't be amazing to me, but it was kind of amazing to me. That show ran from seventy to seventy five. That particular shot was not from the first season. I know that, so I don't know when it was taken.

But so the the picture was taken sometime in the early seventies. There are a lot more building there now than there was even in nineteen seventies, and by the seventies the skyscraper age was well under way. So it's just it's they just keep like you're saying, they used up so much of the of the space on the street, because if you if you watch all the old movies and stuff, or see pictures in life magazines, Yeah, all these new stands were on the street before. Yeah, oh yeah, well, and that's still you look at Superman two or even Superman one when you've got the but especially in Superman two with the big fight with Zodnan and Ursa, that's all the news stands just being blown away and stuff. So that might have also been the thing they might have said, like, we can't afford another Kryptonian attack.

We need to be inside of these buildings now. Well that you're probably right, that makes more sense. We can ill afford another Kryptonian attack. Yeah, that ends up being a pretty interesting best story. I mean, obviously the A story Harris all the way, and then I don't remember if we really have a C story in this particular.

I don't think, oh no, no, it's it's Walter. It's Walter's a singing guy, right right right, right, right right, Yeah. But it integrates so well that it doesn't feel it feels like all three of these stories touch each other. I mean, the Garner stuff and the harrw stuff are a little separate, but they're tied together by the Walter stuff, I suppose. And another thing about the Walter stuff, where he's, you know, he explains he's in a therapy, a type of therapy now where they have him sing.

Basically it's to help overcome anxiety and meet people and you know, like a social anxiety thing, so he sings to overcome it. The other thing I really liked there is that singing where he's coming back I think from pictures in prints or something, and he's staying the well, you know, people used to sing in the movies, but now and everyone would join in. No one does that anymore, blah blah blah. So he starts singing again. I think it's the Hills are Alive with the sound of music.

And at one point he starts to step in because Wojo is tutting him into the cage and he starts. When he starts singing the Hills Alive sound of music, he puts his arm around Martin Garner trying to get him to join in, and he then he steps back out of the cage. Wojo doesn't do anything, and he's singing to all of them. Barney comes out and nobody says anything, and then he just like quietly backs himself into the cage. I thought that was wonderful because they're not like pushing them into the cage and saying the shut up.

The other thing that I thought was a little unfair is I always remember how Barney didn't like is has this happened yet? Or is it in season eight? Maybe I shouldn't. Has the guy who's played his hands happened yet? No?

Not yet? Like oh, Magic Mike from a Weird Al's band is does he make an appearance? No? No, no, no, no, okay, so it must be in season eight and it's a fun episode two. But yeah, I just like the fact that they again it's the it's the the Kinder Gentler police Force.

Yeah. So yeah, I'm very curious to see how they wrap up this hair of stuff or what they do in season eight because, like I said, this is the first time we've had a season with a real cliffhanger, Like we talked about all these two parter episodes. It's not like the Old Star Treks the Next Generation Days, where it was Part one is the final epics, you know, part the final episode of the season is the part one of the two part episode. Right, We're waiting to find out what happens after Riker says fire on the board cube that's being piloted by locutas. Barn cutus of Miller.

That's yeh, there's none of that. Wojo's like placed it on the screen. And how Linda just turns around and he's just a board. There's none of that, right, and there's I like. The laser, it's the camera right there.

Missed opportunity. Really we are barn cutis resistance is futile. And then you got that you got Luger in the back there. Yeah, yeah, I would listen to what he said. You end up like Brownie.

I will just say this, and that is, in my opinion, Harris has one of the very best storylines in this entire series in terms of how it comes full circle uh in that season. Well, it feels very organic the way that this is played out in a way that feels more like a the way a contemporary sitcom would have this kind of story. You have it based on what he's already doing, and then they've laid the track, and they lay the track a little bit more and then they're just off to the races. And this season is what it feels like. And it's been really the last three seasons, I mean six, seven to and AID because six is where the idea starts originally, but it's it's surprising because I would not have expected this kind kind of thing in this kind of show, based solely not on the writing, but based on the time and the other kinds of writing practices that everybody was observing.

Six is wear what started blood? They mentioned it, don't they. He starts the book before that, though, doesn't he. I'm not sure how far back it goes. It feels like he was writing more magazine stories before and getting it was tough for him to get copies in the magazines and these kind of things.

I don't think he was doing blood. Yeah. To Christ's point, I think it was later than four. I think it was five, yeah. Because there was that There was that scene that was very similar to the X Files with the cigarette smoking man thing where it's like, oh, your story is in you know, a a NUDI mag essentially the Romanic Left thing like that.

They they even did that, but I don't think it I think was it. I don't was it serialized Blood on the Badge Baby, because that was the thing, Like, I don't know he's been writing this whole time, or they've been alluding to him wanting, you know, having higher aspirations. That's the thing. I think it's actually surprising. For the most part, he is the only one who has really gotten a hold over story because the wojohow it's getting promoted, like it's been fucking a season at least since we've seen him even mention that he got the promotion, and is that what it is?

Okay, so there's no episode. It's it's Barney that never got the promotion, right right. Which he is also very angry about in this episode. Thank you, Chris, I forgot all about that that whole like, because it's he's talking about God, I forgot this whole storyline. No, I don't think it was in the previous episode.

Okay, well, gosh, we missed that with Ves this whole thing. That's right, God, that was the most important part of the whole episode, is that they he posts that position to what is advice? It wasn't even Vess, it was the rain Baker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, because he posts that position and everybody's trying for it, and who is it that comes out?

It's Wojo that comes in last. But he doesn't know that he's last. He thinks he's the only person that it's applying for this, but I was, and I was glad that live. It's just like, well, you know, if people move on, keep me in mind. And I mean, it's still banging that drum, but he's banging it in such a better tune in these days that he was the first few times he was signed, was like, get rid of this guy.

Wait a minute. It had it has to be invests because it was when Luger was trying to get their bio that really talks about Barney being having so much of life. You know, I don't have anybody I really had much of a life. I don't have any kids. I don't have any I think I thought that's.

Why it was it split up. They split it up into the two episodes. It isn't Wow because the rain Maker. We we talked about the rain Maker part of it. But yeah, the idea that like we're already seeing them trying to leave, like.

No, no, no, I know what it was. I know what it was. It's in it's in vast that he says, I can't even I can't even get what do you call the to be inspector or deputy inspector or something like that, I've turned down three times or something like that. And then in the rain Maker, when the three of them put in for a transfer device, he says, well, what does it matter because you're all gonna leave and I not gonna be stuck here anyway. So right, they kind of split it up.

You know, the feeling of anger is kind of split, which. Is surprising with this show because again, that's that's something tracking from episode to episode, which again the show. It's not that the show hasn't done it. But one of our longest running in jokes on this podcast is where's Mike? Because that again, like they never hang a lantern on the fact that hey, my guide and this fucking guy never comes back.

Oh my god, let it go, Chris, I refuse. I refuse. It was like the second season, Well, I could talk about how they mismanaged Barbara Barry some more, but since she's not on the show at all, who cares, right, clearly nobody other than me. Yeah, by the way, Mike was, Oh god, who is that great character actor's named? My friend Timrono?

Tim Madigan. Yeah, I'm gonna say Tim Maddigan is going to be angry at me. I'm forgetting art patrons. But again that's just, you know, again to point out that we don't expect this show to have carry over from episode episode. I mean, sometimes the names on the board are names of people we've seen before.

Sometimes they're not. But it is interesting this season and the last season there definitely feels like more of a concerted effort to have something through lining through the season, which again feels a little bit more contemporary, which I appreciate. Well again, and I you know, obviously, obviously if you read the book, I think Danny Arnold was a genius, but here again, he's not here in season six and seven, and you have younger men writing it. All of those guys learned most of what they knew from Danny, but they were still you know, it was still coming through a different lens, and Danny was more old school comedy writing. So that could be that could be an explanation for that, you know.

So as much as they missed the mark with homicide, you know, they made up for it in other areas maybe well. And again, like I think, you know, it's interesting because Harris ends up getting that story that ends up being the story, And I mean, look at all the characters in the show, I think it would be not even unfair to say it, but I think he has shown the most growth as a character, like really like wo jehow it's kind of stagnated around the end of season five midway through season six, like he's kind of not been as important of a character to the show as some of the other characters have, and especially Harris. But Harris has had a lot of time devoted to his storylines throughout a lot of the show, but definitely this season, I mean whole episodes have been about him pretty much.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. It really I really thought when we were first talking about this show back in the early seasons, I really thought and had remembered it being much more of Barney being a father figure to Wojo and Wojo growing through this whole thing. But yeah, I would say you're right. For the last season and a half or more, it has been more I don't want to say the Harris show because it's definitely just shivered, but he has really come to prominence in a fantastic way. Yeah, he's I mean, look, Ron Glass is an amazing actor, so they picked the right person.

But if they had picked any of the characters. You know, there was a lot of ron carry there for a while, and that was not unwelcome either. I mean there was a season, was it Season two or three that was like all fish. It was like Abe the gooda heavy every joke went through a Vagoda's character. So and I think what season five was Landisburg when he would like every joke was like punctuated by him doing something.

So this for sure has definitely been Harris' season. I guess the question that I have is as we bring this season to a close, what will the last season look like? Because God, I can't believe we're here already, Like it is kind of insane. I mean, this is the longest show you and I have ever done together, Mike. I mean, this is seven seasons of television that we've worked.

Well, that may be the case, but I'll tell you what that, especially in the last year of Twilight's only eighty five Dreams for Sale, felt like the longest show we ever did together. That's fair in terms of the quality of what we were watching versus the quality of the conversation. You're right, that show didn't deserve nearly as much time as we gave it. That's the thing Barney Miller is more than deserving for. Even like you've alluded to, auto this being kind of a season that maybe doesn't succeed as much as the others, still a great season of television.

Yeah, that really threw out. I mean, this show is just great. I mean, for the most part, every episode of this show is good. I mean, even the bad episodes. The bad episodes are few and far between.

To be fair, though, the bad episodes of this show are really bad. Wojo's Girl being like the the absolute bottom of the barrel, if not subterranean. But I'm curious where season eight goes because I don't know. I feel like I'm already kind of bittersweet with the show, given that we're moving into the last season, but I'm so invested in the characters. I really want to see where this show kind of sends everybody, because it's gonna.

Be it's gonna be. Weird to watch the final episode of this show. And like I kind of alluded to in the opening, this is the last time before the actual last time that we get to talk about in entire season of the show, because next time we do it, there will be nothing else to talk about, so. Well, I'll just tell you that while you were, while you will know for the most part, not entirely, but while while you'll certainly get a good idea of where they're all going, you won't really see them. So I hope you're not expecting that.

No, I don't know. I don't expect any of that. Right you, But you will know for the most part where they're all going. And I don't want to be too presumptious, but if you guys want to invite me back for the final trilogy because it ends the show and on a trilogy. Oh, I like how you're like if if if?

Yeah, you're already on the schedule, So. Yeah, we were probably thinking about having you and Richard had him on the same episode because this has kind of been when it's the only other guest we've had on this show other than you is is Richard, So and it's kind of been at the end of the season for you and at the beginning of the season for him. So it's like, why don't we just bring the best of both worlds as it? Speaking of Star Trek. Well, we'll talk off the air about any other possibilities.

But yeah, I'm excited to see what the eighth season brings because again, we've never spent as much time with characters on a show as we have with this show. So I will tell you right now, you being the listener, not Chris Sonado. I'll tell you right now that we have seven more episodes of Barney Miller Discussion ahead of us. Wow, though we have an eighth episode in the hopper. Well that's in the hopper yet, but it's in the works.

Let's say we're gonna come back next month and we're going to talk about fish oh feared. It's been enough time. We're gonna have to do it. We happened upon the second season of the show, so it's now available to us. So I don't know how we're going to do this, Chris.

It might be some thumb wrestling or something, but we are I'm not going to watch all the episodes. You're not going to watch all the episodes. We hold on now, hold on now, don't presume that I won't. You, on the other end, have made a case that you're not going to if I watch all of them. I I you know, I might show up and I'm just here, just my eyes have glazed over.

Do you watch Fish? I have driven insane, but the cosmic or of Fish. As someone who has seen all the episodes, let me just say this to you, Chris, if you do watch all the episodes, you might want to think about getting some mental health counsel for masochism, because you'll you'll definitely have a deep masochistic streak in you if you're able to watch all of them. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, I already alluded to it, like Abevagoda's comedic stylings have moved so far out, Like I know Otto, when I said he was an asshole, I probably should have clarified why I don't want to hear about how much you hate your wife anymore, dude, Like give it a rest, like Henny Youngman did it better than you.

Come on, like Henny Youngman did it best. And Abagoat that's like, that's the thing. It was like they didn't understand what made Fish funny, so they just went to the barrel of he hates his wife, and it's like we are well aware if anything there. Motherfucker's just gone about every other sentence saying I hate my wife. Seriously.

First serious, wait, a minute, Wait a minute, you're wrong. Oh, here we go. He doesn't hate his wife. He loves his wife. He speaks horribly about his wife, right, he doesn't.

He doesn't hate her. Again, and I know this is you know, this goes back to the beginning for you and I. Chris, Uh, it's of its time. Oh, I get it. Oh, I appreciate.

That's why I said, Henny Youngman did it better because like it is of a it is of a time, like. It's of a time. Because I only used to say I never like, uh, what's her name? Joan Rivers? Because all the jokes were like, were about her husband, and I didn't really care for that that much.

About all the comics who made jokes just about their wife. You know, it's just it's not a great It's a vein. It's a vein that gets over done. Really yeah right, No, I mean I get what they're getting at, but it. Doesn't hate his wife Spernees.

Sure, but again I get sure. The service goes a little too far. Yeah, yeah, I get I get it, bro, But like, fucking come on, like, look, let me put it this way. While I appreciate he probably loves his wife, if I met someone who talked about their spouse that way, I'd be like, why are you fucking still married? You seem like a miserable asshole, Like and your spouse might make you a miserable asshole even so, I mean again, it's just there.

There was so much more comedy to mine in the show, and on top of everything else, it goes back to something that I have talked about plenty of times, which is the spouses and the kids and the romantic interests. Ain't got a soul to fucking go to bat for them on this show about it, Like, nobody cares about that With this show, I don't care about it. You don't care about it, Mike doesn't care about it. Nobody cares about their lives outside of the precinct. And it was made apparent that that was the case because anytime they have people who are family or related or again significant others, when they show up, it's like the show grinds to a halt because I don't care what they're like outside of the precinct, because they haven't done enough to justify They've never even gone about really showing it.

The amount of times they've shown the outside of the precinct can be counted on probably two hands at this point. Shit, the amount of times we've seen anything other than the same two or three shots in the precinct can be counted on one hand, because we've seen the inside of the bathroom one time in eight seasons, one time, the same time we found out they apparently have a cleaning lady at the same time, So you know, don't forget that it is. They don't bother themselves with bullshit. They don't need to, which helps with this show's approach and the timelessness. It's like, I don't care about the sex lives of people in the seventies, and the show doesn't care either.

Right, you said it. The writers didn't care about everyone else's family. It was only a workplace comedy, and one of the best workplace comedies ever. I'll say the one thing though about the bathroom, Why do we only see the bathroom once? Simple?

Again, this goes back to really early comedy writing. This goes back to radio comedy writing. Because what we imagine in our mind the bathroom to be is far funnier than whatever we could seem when we see the bathroom. So they kind of you kind of they kind of broke that for us, because of course Fish. Fish's humor was not just about his wife.

What else was it about. It was about his age and being old and being old, yeah, and all his and all his sickness and ailments and all that stuff. So yeah, which they did. They did kind of even go there. I mean they they went there in that episode.

Even they had those moments too, right of like, oh, I'm old like wee. But I got bad news for you, Chris. If you don't like, oh. I know, right, don't watch more of Fish. I was like, this doesn't bode well for the guy who said he's gonna watch all of Fish, does it not?

Who he's going now? He's going home. He's living with Bernice. Yeah, twenty four to seven. Boy children too.

I hope there's a dog in that show. Even god kids and animals in the same show. Yeah, it's rough. It's rough. Boy.

Well, until we come back with that, Chris, what are you working on these days? Well? Working on apparently finding a new brain. If I'm going to spend any amount of time with Fish when I'm not torturing myself with the Godo spinoff TV shows, you can find uh, the Culture Cast and so many other audio delicacies at weirdingwaymedia dot com, including this show. Uh col check the Colchac tapes, which is what this show originally was.

The show that's gonna come after this one and everything Mike and I work on can be found at weirdingwaymedia dot com. What about you, Auto Bruno, Well, I'm gonna be on an upcoming episode of Film Foundation. Actually it's already out. Oh it is, came out on Monday, came out two days ago. Yeah, oh thanks, thanks Chris, because you didn't send me that either.

Yeah, I didn't. I forgot. You're right that that is on me. You're right, Mike, how did you train this guy? Come on, it's not a matter of training.

Uh so? Yeah? You notice today when I messaged you can't wait to talk with you guys tonight. Is to say, who's throwing the spurs ins here? I knew we were recording tonight A yeah.

But I was showing. I was showing young Chris that was teaching him a very important lesson that you can't count on us ulsters to remember shit if it's on our even if it's on our calendar. It was professional enough to send out the reminder. I have a guy with the gray Beard. I have three reminders on all of my events that I send on the calendar, three days ahead of time, twenty four hours ahead of time, and ten minutes ahead of time.

But again, one would know that if they saw it on their calendar. Again, I'm not casting a spersions, just I'm just asking questions as they would say. You know. Anyway, I had a wonderful time with Chris and Ryan on Film Foundations. We talked about the thin Men, the Thin Man series, and actually within the within the week, I will be sending in my second man, the manuscript for my second book, which is a baseball book that at this point is entitled Reunion at Home and should be out next year from McFarland.

And then I'm working. I'm working on some other things that I don't know yet. What about you, Mike? What about you? Mike?

For me? Everything is available at weirdingwaymedia dot com, where, Yeah, you can listen to this show. You can listen to a lot of shows, Chris's show, my show. I don't know, if you had a show, we'd hope that you would find out home here at weirdingwaymedia dot com instead of being too big for your bitches and going off to another podcast network. Oh you know he's gonna hear this, right, I mean fair?

Would I ever this show? Right? Would I ever go to another network no more famous than us? You might, that's probably true if they paid me something, But I don't think that. I don't think you're allowed to make any money if you're in podcasting, are.

You, well? Not enough money to claim with the I R S, that's for sure. I mean, what, who else is listening. To this show? James Cromwell, yes.

Zach Gallifanakis. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, thank you so much to everybody for listening. Thanks to John Walker for our opening theme song, and uh yeah, just keep going out there pounding the bag. Come on back in a month when you'll hear us talk about some fish