Episode 50: Paternity + Advancement + The Car

Weird. We Welcome to the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast. I'm your host, Mike White trem Me, of course, is the rookie christ issue. You are in fact not the father because you shoot blanks, your big bitch. Wow, he's just talking to me.

By wait, this is. Talking ahead him. Yeah, I'm talking to had him everybody. Yeah. By the way, Richard Adams here as well.

Sorry, Hey, I may I just say, Mike, you're looking very preppy today. Wow. On this episode, we are diving into the first three episodes of Barney Miller season eight. We have our ends sites in mind here. We are just about there.

Most of these episodes this season, while a lot of them directed by Danny Arnold, including these first two Paternity and Advancement. Paternity came out October twenty ninth, nineteen eighty one, starting this season a little bit late here, guys, come on, thought we started in September. What are you doing? It's almost November here. Second one, Advancement, came out November fifth, nineteen eighty one, and the third episode, directed by our old friend Bruce Bilson, The Car, came out November twelfth, nineteen eighty one.

Yeah, net Maudlin Mauldin, Sorry not Maudlin Malden writing a few of these linter old friends Frank Dugan and Jeff Steinan here as well. Paternity. You know, after all that fucking around that Woa Joe has done, it's finally coming back to haunum is being sued for a paternity suit and find out that he's actually shooting blank. So boy, what a twist. Chris, what did you think of paternity.

You know, as a man who also likes to shoot likes. I'm just I'm ciddou I'm kidding. It's it. Look, Wojohowitz is a character who felt like we felt like he kind of got in sidelined up until this point for a while, and for this to be a Wojohowits centric episode was interesting. I mean, look, I don't think any one of us thought that, oh yeah, by the end of this episode, Wojo's gonna have a baby, Like I don't think so, It's not that kind of show.

But I like where they went with it overall. I think, uh, I don't know. I mean, look the show at this point, first episode of the final season, it's hard not to feel a little sad about everything. Because we don't have a whole lot of episodes left of the show. We don't have a whole lot of episodes of this together.

I mean, we're going to continue to work on something afterwards. But Barney Miller is just one of those things where you know we're coming to the end of the road with it, and it's it's interesting to see how much the characters have grown because eight seasons ago, you know, the first or second season of the show, there would never have been a paternity storyline. But now that we have seen these characters fully formed and we're kind of at the end game, as it were, to cup a pilance from Marvel, now we're getting i think some more interesting storylines, at least in these first three episodes in this one, because again there are some stakes to it. I mean, ultimately, this is a sitcom, so we know nothing will ultimately come of it, but it's an interesting situational approach to trying to up the stakes of Wo Jaho.

It's finally getting some sort of hume Uppins for all the fucking around he's been doing for Barney, essentially calling him out all the time. Barney's just not a man who likes sex nless it's with his wife with the condom on as well. Richard with digit thing of paternity. I really like this episode. I like it a lot.

Now you guys have probably, I mean you've been watching more. I took a bit of a break since the last time we spoke, and I've been watching other things, and so I was sort of cleared my palette a little bit for Barney Miller and then came back. Really liked this episode. Didn't remember it particularly so. The fact that he was like being sued for paternity.

I thought was going to be the whole plot of the episode, and I figured, like you say, it might end with us. It's like, Okay, it turns out I'm not the father at the end. But it made me start thinking about the future or something. I thought it was going to go in that direction. You know.

It's made me start thinking of maybe I'm not the one night stand guy, and maybe I do want to be a dad. Doesn't go that way at all. He goes to a urologist to prove, you know, to get evidence about whether or not he is genetically the father of the child. Makes a different discovery he's sterile, which is a great reversal for the Wojo character. I mean, it's like, I love it.

I'm sure they were doing backflips in the writer's room when they thought of it, because it's like, it's a way for us to tell a story that's very Wojo centric, and it works perfectly. It ends a little not so great. The story ends with him sort of catching the eye of a young woman who is a beauty contest excuse me, a beauty contest contestant. Uh, And she's been following all this as she's looking for her mugger in the mug books. She's hearing all this stuff, and she's commenting every once in a while.

But at the end she's sort of like, well, you know, maybe we could go out tonight and I could help you get your confidence back. She doesn't say that, but she practically does, and it's sort of like, oh, okay, I guess that's the way this is going to end for Wojo. I didn't particularly love that, but it did the sitcom thing where it brings everything back to normal at the end. By the time it ends, it's like, Okay, Wojo's back to his old. Tricks and now he can have as much sex as he wants because he's also sterile thanks to more than likely his time spent in Vietnam.

Yeah. Yeah, they didn't bring that up, did they. I mean, is that not what some of the payoff is here? They just never say it, but that's my assumption. Well, but they don't say it, so, I mean, it doesn't become if it's if they don't talk about it, then it's just head canon.

This whole thing of him finding out that he sterile causes him to go a little over zealous when it comes to apprehending of Purp, which does not surprise me at all that he feels that his manhood is being questioned, so he's going to be even more malely and really kind of abuse this poor perpetrator here, the guy with the shotgun, which is like almost a deep plot. I can't remember if that ties into any of the other ones, because we've got really the A plot is this thing with Wojo. Now we've got the B plot with the guy who goes up to the projection booth sounds like a good name for podcast, goes up there and starts trashing the place because he doesn't agree with the quality of the films that's being shown.

There, and I love when the guy who runs the place comes in, he's just like, where were you when I was showing this? And I was showing this and there's like all these great art house movies. And the guy's just like, oh oh, I'm like, dude, you're just complaining to complain. Basically, you're not going to put your money where your mouth is. And I do like that he's completely broke, so they're going to make him basically be an usher for the rest of his life.

It sounds like, Yeah, it was another one of these classic Barney Miller, you know, paranoid with proof and commentary on modern times because by the early nineteen eighties, Friday the thirteenth had come out, we were seeing that that sort of the dawn of the teenage slasher movie, which this is clearly referencing, calling it Arbor Day. It's like, okay, because by then there had been Halloween probably other holiday themed slasher movies. So this was in a lot of ways a classic Barney Miller episode. Yeah, the guy who trashed the projection booth. And typically when I say that sentence, it's not a compliment, but this guy who trashed the projection booth was great.

Yeah, I thought he was really good, very high strung. I thought that was nice. Yeah, and then you've got her the beauty contestant. She's like the C plot and then the DP plot is the guy for me that wo you apprehends. I don't think that that ties in to her or anybody else really, unless I have forgotten.

So yeah, Fana Gladstone was the name of the guy who played the guy who was triggered by the slasher movie. And I'm surprised that this episode didn't go right into Harris and his lawsuit because when we ended the seventh season before we took that horrible cul de sac into fish Land last month, but when we were talking about the end of the seventh season, we were talking about how the lawyer had won the libel case and that Harris was going to have to pay what like millions of dollars over to this guy. So I think, right sure, this was going to pick right off from that, and instead we don't really even get that in the next couple episodes. It's more about Harris now having writer's block, which I don't think that he ties to the case that he was involved with.

Yeah, I don't know if we're sort of doing a time jump and it's assumed that that's already been taken care of, it doesn't get referenced. And it's weird because we watch these in fairly rapid order, or we can we can binge them now because they're either streaming or we have them on DVD. But for anyone watching this, it's been months and months and months since they've seen that episode. Even if it was in reruns, I'm not sure those were the episodes that got reran, So they probably could not depend unless they made a huge effort to reintroduce it and re explain it and then explain a further reaction to the fact that he's been sued. Didn't impact him financial?

Is he wearing different clothes that are you know, non Harris like clothing. Anyway, they don't do that, but they do sort of advance his story as a writer, and it doesn't happen in this episode. You're right. It's in episode two, the next one that we're going to talk about, that introduces the idea that he may have a new project and he's excited about it. But Barney puts the kai bog on his important launch.

Well, yeah, in that next episode called Advancement, we get the return of something that we were just talking about as we were discussing Tales from the Dark Side. Mark Mario Ricuzzo, who plays Ed Brotzki here. We had seen him before this on Barney Miller, and that we saw him in that episode where he and aunt Agatha I think from Bewitched. We're cooking up shoot one of my a friend of mine who I actually talked to online fairly often, Diane try Or, I believe it was was being cooked up in a big old hot tub. But in this one it is uh.

He is mister Brotsky and he is a the male half of a couple who sold a lottery ticket to am Am. I correcting this, Sorry, guys, it feels like forever since I watched these episodes. Yeah. The notion is that you in the New York lottery and it works differently. Now you sort of buy computer generated numbers, but you you would you would go into a store and you would give them a slip of paper, almost like parimutual betting at a horse at a track.

If you're betting an exact or something, you sort of write down what you're betting. Anyway, he wrote down the numbers he wanted, and then it's the responsibility of the store owner to then send that information into the lottery to complete the transaction. So what's happened here is this guy has written down his numbers, paid his money, handed over his slip of paper, but mister Buckman forgot to mail it in and the numbers win, but the bet was never placed, and so this guy goes nuts and wants to kill Bachmann and his wife and is threatening them. So they come into the twelfth Precinct saying, there's this guy who's threatening to kill me, and they're very much on his side until he explains what's going on, and then even the cops are like, oh, well that makes sense they should of course, if you got murdered, we'd understand it.

I'm so sorry I was mixing up mister Brotsky with mister Buckman, and yeah, yeah, Mario is playing Ed Brotsky, the owner of Ed's House of Mugs, which gets right right. Yeah, So it took me a few minutes to remember that one, especially his incredible mug, and he wants to give Harris a mug by the end of this as well. But I think Harris is going to pass on. That, Yeah, Harris is not and the mugs are so bad. They're just white mugs with this really boring font that just says ed and even if you saw your name on this mud, you would hate your name.

He even says like, I could have one of these built for you, and it's like built right me. No, it's a white mug with some really boring black lettering that's totally uninspiring, that says your name. Who cares, just so nobody steals it? Well, that's right. I wanted to mention something.

We mentioned this once already. I wanted to mention this again, Max Scale's wig. Oh boy, different than last season but still really bad. Yeah, different than last season, but still a very much a choice that yeah, he's gotten more hair as the show's gone on. If I didn't mention that season eight has the exact same credits to season seven, which I think we're the same as season six.

I mean we once we got to this core group, we did not change it, and we don't have the little Luger plug anymore. So I that bumps me out, actually, but I'm glad that Luger is in this episode and has Barniey basically writing covered letters to Asian women who want to get married to lonely American men. Oh boy, how much things have changed over the years. Yeah, or have they? You know?

Yeah? Yeah, this is uh, this is the beginning of a storyline. It will not be dropped, and it is. It is cringe worthy even as it's happening within the context of the show. The show acknowledges that this is really pretty sleazy behavior, even for the inspector, but it's not unbelievable, it's not out of character totally.

And of course the punchline is that Barney says, look, this is not the thing to do. You don't know these women, you know, you really, if you were going to do this, you would have to write a letter that was really, you know, carefully crafted, that you know, would reach out to someone where you could show off your best self, you could find out about them. And the Inspector's like, okay, Bonnie, Okay do it. And of course the episode ends with Barney, who's such a great guy, He's like, all right, look, I gotta do this because if I don't, something terrible is going to happen. So this doesn't this this persists throughout the entire season.

There's more. I don't know if it persists throughout the entire season, but but but there are other episodes that reference this. So I will say that the that the story of the the lottery player whose numbers aren't sent in and then and then flies into a rage. And he's great. I mean, that character is hilarious.

But but what's nice about it is it goes a little step deeper. He says, you know, he didn't want the money to you know, I don't know, quit his job or go, you know, buy a car. He wants to get his mom out of a really terrible you know, rest home and send her to floor. He wants to do something nice for his mom. And this is what sort of gets the Buckmans to go, you know what, maybe there's some way we can you know, we don't have ten thousand dollars, but maybe we can do something to help him get his mom out of that place.

And they once again it's that great Barney Miller thing where where you know, criminal and victim find a middle ground and find a way to work it out on their own so that we don't have to clog the courts with this problem. It's very King Solomon, which is nice. It's kind of like it is. It's a bit of a return to classic Barney Miller. An old date or Howard honig Evan back again for like the final time, the five times in the show.

He's been in there as well. Oh yeah, right as mister Yeager, the the the enraged lottery player. Or are you talking about the guy that owns the store. No, that's Martin Garner, Okay, because he's been in here a ton as well. This is like his.

Fifth time, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. First I thought he got murdered and a bunch of acidic juice came for revenge for him. But it was a different guy. It was a different and another random person on this. Show, yet another character actor that we have.

Yeah, this is a pretty solid episode. This does feel all the episodes that we've seen so far in season eight have been very solid. I mean, of course, we're only three episodes in, but this does feel very in keeping with what we like about Barney Miller. I did like, especially what you mentioned before, the whole thing of Barney refusing to let Harris go to this meeting, which causes this rift between these two guys and like, oh shit, here we go. We're back in uniform days kind of thing.

I thought we had worked out a lot of the animosity between these guys, but I was glad that it's all smoking mirrors that you see in the third episode where it'ss like, oh, actually it's better that I didn't go to that. I mean, it's he's I think he would have been sunk had he gone to that meeting, and really very thankful to Barnie for keeping him away from it. Well, Barney Barney's point of view, like at first you're frustrated. It's like Barney, come on, who cares? Just what the guy do whatever he wants.

But it's interesting when he says, look, basically, I went through an entire season maybe two, of the meetings and the agents and the this and the that, and the books and the book signings and all this stuff that really is your personal life. You're a cop and this has to be first and I'm not going to go through it again. So I don't really care about your book deal. You do that on your own time, and no, you can't have an extra hour to do a business launch. And predictably, Harris is passive aggressive and Okay, Barney, then I'm not going to do anything that is in business.

I'm not even going to talk to you, you know. And at the end of the episode, when Barney's like, look, do you want to talk about this? Aha, no, walks out, it's like, you want to be all business? Will be all business? And again it makes sense.

I mean if that was the storyline, that would make sense. It feels like we've seen it, which is why it's so great. In the third episode that we're discussing. As you said, they turn another card. It has nothing to do.

Yes, he's pretending that he's angry that Barney lowered the boom and isn't letting him do it. But really, what's fueling his angst isn't that Barney isn't allowing him to pursue his career. It's that he feels that he cannot pursue his career. He's hit a terrible case of writer's block. He's tried, nothing's working.

And what's funny about it is that everyone else, Dietrich, Wojo, even Levitt to a certain extent, are experiencing the blowback of Harris's bad mood. And in this third episode when they discover what it's really about, they go directly at something that is a core element of the show and that Atto Bruno talked about in the last episode you guys did, which is we've got to be there for each other. We've got to articulate what's bothering us. Wojo's like, look, you know, I mean everyone in this office knew two weeks ago that I'm sterile. You know that's what's going on with me.

So whether you can help or not, at least you know what I'm going through, so you know if I'm in a shitty mood. And now you know, Harris, we all thought you were just sort of being heresy when you were, like, you know, being upset with Barney for not letting you go to the meeting, but really he was being motivated by something else, and you need to be able to feel comfortable telling us that. It was a little on the nose. For me. It was a little like, hey, let's all join hands.

But the fact of the matter is that is what this show is about ultimately, and so it was kind of nice to see it articulated. This one is rife, the episode of the Car is Rife with again amazing character actors. But of course the name of the episode is the Car, and that's because of Larry Gelman as Joseph Hyler, who has stolen a car. He's stole in what. He fifty six I think it was.

It's a fifty seven ackered. I want to say it was a DeSoto, a DESOTOA it's right here. I'm paging through auto's book right now. There you go. He steals this car and treats it better than the owner would have.

We get to see her and she is pretty clueless about cars, whereas he is just all about this car. And Larry Gelman, he is just so good. I just loved every single time he would show up in anything. Of course, one of my favorite roles he was in a Dreamscape, which I don't know, Chris, if you've ever seen Dreamscape, but that is one hel of a movie. I was.

I thought you were going to call him out for his continuing role as doctor Bernie Tupperman in The Bob Newhart Show, The Urologist. Yes, yeah, he's great. He's great, He's and you're right. It is a nineteen fifty seven Soto Fireflight is the is the you know, model of car it is. Well, it's interesting because this one we talked about how there was an actual D story in the first episode of this season, whereas with this one, very solid ABC type structure.

What though, the I guess it's the C story is the sanitation officers who really disliked being called trash men. That was great just to see Joey I can't remember his last name, joe rue Regel Bhutto, who I mostly know well, he's been at a ton of stuff, but mostly know him from Murphy Brown though he is also in a favorite of mine and I think Chris is raw Deal, the Ernold Schwarzenegger. Film Darren mcgon Yes, with. Darren mcgammon, So going back to our cool check roots yet again. But yeah, he's wonderful.

In this as this sanitation office who really is mad with power, pulls out his gun and shoots at people when they litter, which is which is not a good look, no, especially. In New York. Even Barney is like, why are you guys even carrying guns? And he's like, because we're cops. You're like you just like you guys, we're cops, and it's like we are not the same.

Yeah, at all? This is the time for Levitt to shine where it can just be like, uh, I carry a batch and I carry a gun. You shouldn't carry either. Oh. Speaking of Levitt shining, he gets a great little runner in this episode three.

He's a call comes in and Barney's taking it, you know, getting the information, but everyone's out on an assignment, and Levitt is like, I'm right here, yeah, do this, not doing anything else. Treat me like a cop. So Barney looks at him and he's like okay. So they hang up and it's like, okay, so what's the big assignment? Some kids are playing at a construction.

We need someone in uniform to go chase him off, and levit's like great, so he goes off. But then, of course we discover that things developed from there. The kids were like on the tenth floor of some building that's under construction, and they're playing on the scaffolding and one of the kids kind of gets stuck out there, and Levitt, you know, swings out on a rope and grabs the kid. I mean, he does some real Indiana Jones shit and then and then saves the kid's life and then almost falls but doesn't fall all the way off the building but gets a little bit injured. But by the time the paramedics bring him down, there's a crowd.

They're all applauding. Levitt tips his hat. You know, it's a great moment for Levitt, and it really is kind of I don't know, I'm it was so gratifying that he got a good moment. And we didn't get to see it. No, didn't get to see anything.

We just get to hear all about it, which is great. Which I found really funny. Yeah, in my mind, I had him like, you know, back flipping off of this board, almost doing a triple India his way down or something. I was gonna say. I know we've talked about this, but especially Chris, it feels like years ago I predicted that your general annoyance with the character of Levitt would evolve.

Would you care to comment? Oh, yeah, hear some crow. Yeah, I guess you want me to eat it on air? Motherfucker. Thanks, HadAM, You're welcome.

Look, I mean, but we've we've already had this conversation multiple times as far as I'm concerned, like realist. You can always have it again. Go ahead, Okay, Yeah, all right, how do you feel about Levitt, Now go fuck yourself had him, I. Will take everyone everyone. I think that is arousing a chorus of I used to hate Levitt and now I love that character.

I don't know if I love him, but he's definitely been used better in more recent times than he was before. And we both know that he's still never treated the way he should be treated. But that's a different story. That's kind of the biggest missed opportunity. Yeally that his face on those discs.

Hey, season eight, guess who gets featured? Yeah, of course, surprise. He's fine. I mean, he's a lot better. But at the same time, he's not the gag character that he used to be.

He used to be kind of just like a one bit character as well, And it's. Funny that he is still that character. I mean, up through and including this episode, he's still the guy who's like, you're not respecting me, you're not treating me like a cop, Why don't you send me out? Why don't you treat me like an equal? And it and it leads to this moment, which is really nice.

You know, can I say something else because you mentioned Max Gale's to pay As long as we're on the physical appearance of the cast. Does it look like everyone went on a diet. It looks like everyone lost about twenty pounds or something. I mean, Ron Carey looks dramatically thinner, almost to the point where it's like is he okay? And it looks like wojo.

I mean, everyone just looks like they're in They spent the summer doing the Jane fond Of workout. I haven't really picked up on that, but I will try to pay attention for the next one. Maybe that detour into Fish was a little too dangerous for us. We're changed now, you. Can never I wonder if go to Lost Weight, why.

Didn't you join us for that episode? Richard? You missed out on some really great quality TV programming. Are you clearly going to watch all episodes of Fish? No, we only watched a couple.

Yeah, you could have picked up some tips there though. What I'm writing from. Oh yeah, on some structure and some jokes, I mean, real quality jokes. It was really good. I watched Fish when it was on originally.

Guys, so it's amazed do you live to tell about it? Don't come at me. I sat through those episodes because I love you know, Uh, you know the guy. You know the kid, Oh god, what's his name? Victor?

Yeah, yeah, that guy's great. I can watch that guy. He should be the star of every show. We won't have Victor back for a next episode, and we won't have Richard back for next episode either, unfortunately, but we Chris and I, we're gonna be talking about three episodes of Barney Miller. On the next episode of the Life Andtimes of Captain Barney Miller, where we talk about Possession, where our good friends Stefan Kopecney is back from the werewolf episode.

I thought he already was possessed in an episode or was that somebody else I was doing a possession thing. Also, we're gonna be talking about Stress Analyzer as well as the episode Games, which is directed by Gennaro Montanino, who I think is the first time that he's directed one of these episodes. We're gonna in some weird territory here. There's this guy Lee Lockhead, Homer Powell. Yeah, I thought this is all Danny Arnold all the time.

But there's definitely a lot of special guest directors in this season. So let's hope they can hold the ship together as it were. But until then, Chris, what are you working on these days? Sir? Just keeping it the real over a Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where everything I work on can be found, including hopefully a return to weekly culture cast episodes.

It's been fun two months, let's put it that way. So I haven't really necessarily been able to do the output that I want, But in terms of everything that I still am working on, it can be found at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. What about you, Richard HadAM. You can find me on Richard Hadam's paranormal bookshelf. Come for the books, stay for the over sharing.

Stay for the shelfy, come. For the book, Stay for the shelf by you. What about you? Mike White, Same. Thing as you, Chris, talking all about movies over at Weirdowaymedia dot com as well as some TV shows.

We do one on the Detective who is Very Shabby That is Colombo and the episode or sorry, the podcast is called the chebby Detective and get to that at Shabby Detective dot com or Wordowaymedia dot com, where you can also find Richard's wife. She hangs out with us more than Richard does. She's over there at the eighties TV Lady So Waitingwabia dot com all for that as well. And then if you want to hear Chris Richard and I talk all about James Bond, come on over to our patreons. That's patreon dot com, slash culturecastpatreon dot com, slash Projection Booth patreon dot com slash Richard had him.

I don't think so, but those first two are real. So come on over there and give us your money ten dollars an up. You get to listen to those episodes where we talk about mister Kisskiss, Bang Bang until we depart. I want to thank John Walker for our theme music, and I want to thank all y'all for listening. Please be sure to come on back next month as we talk about Wore Burney Miller and in the betime.

Leave us a rating in review about this show or any of the shows that we do, would really help us out of more In