Episode 52: Homeless + The Tontine + Examination Day

Weird Way. Welcome to the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller podcast. I'm her honest Mike White joining me, of course, is the rookie mister Christashue. Mike, I have an idea for you. You me, a couple of weirding Way media people.

Let's start a ton team. Are you in? Of course, I'm in, and we get to explain what a tontine is to people that are listening tonight. I thought it was a Jewish thing, but apparently it's a French thing. It's got a great name, tontine.

Those French have a different word for everything. Tonight, we are talking about three episodes of the original Barney Miller show. We are in season eight. We're talking about episodes seven, eight, and nine Homeless, which originally aired December seventeenth, nineteen eighty one. Yes, it's a Christmas episode, The Tontine, which aired January seventh, nineteen eighty two, and Examination Day, which aired originally January fourteenth, nineteen eighty two.

Chris, what did you think of Homeless? I feel like we've seen this before. I feel like we've seen this in the episode where the folks were being displaced by similar reasons, like people being displaced by a building, you remember, and it was like it was I think a Hispanic characters, like overwhelmingly like Hispanic characters in that episode, and there was like a Hispanic woman I think even oh. Yeah, shere's a firebrand. That was one of the few times we left the precinct.

Might be one of the last times that we left the precinct. Yeah, when Bernie went down there was fending off people that were trying to take over that house. It almost would have been nice had we had the return of them, because it's a similar situation. But this episode December seventeenth, nineteen eighty one, Yes, it's a Christmas episode. It starts with the Christmas tree, ends with that.

It's a lot of goodwill towards men. But I swear all the stuff they're talking about here with kicking people out of their places and the price of real estate and all this this is the perfect storm that helped bring about the rise of people like Donald Trump. Mike White. I am so disappointed you're invoking my name. Man now I'm here.

I think it's funny. You know, I see where you're coming from, obviously, and not to be you know, apolitical or you know whatever. I think my feelings on a lot of this are quite well known. I'm not doing a Donald Trump impersonation because I like the guy. Let's put it that way.

It's funny. It felt a lot more prescient than something from nineteen eighty one should given. Yeah, people being kicked out of their houses, being homeless, being kicked out, and just you know, oh well, we have no way to fix it. We'll just take you to the cat skills. You gotta get to yourself.

Though, it's like, oh my chryst almighty like this, it feels too on the nose. And again, yeah, like to your point, obviously, we're talking about New York City. We're talking about people being kicked out of housing, which, like you said, objectively, Donald Trump did in the eighties. So not us like searching for things to drag someone for. This is stuff that he did objectively.

This is not an unknown fact or piece of information. People know this. I know this. Anyone who does a cursory Google search can figure this out. So you know, you want to get upset about fact being used, We're not fact checking here, apparently, No, we are.

I think it's interesting to me ultimately, that this episode has the you know, the homeless are here in the precinct, they don't know what to do. We have everybody at odds with one another, and ultimately it kind of goes nowhere. I mean, we get a couple good bits at the end where we have this kind of closing scene where everyone's saying good night to each other, but it feels so not this show. It feels like another kind of show. And I'm not saying it's not funny.

I think it does work. But this episode feels like there's too much going on. But maybe it's not even a going on thing as much as there's just too many characters in this episode. There are a lot of characters in this episode. I mean we've got Don Kalfa, Stanley Brock, Mary Gorman, David Clennan, Ben Piazza, and then the rest of the people including Levin.

Like it's there's a lot going on in this episode, and it feels like too much all at once, and it doesn't feel again, I don't think this episode that created because we've seen these bits and pieces before, maybe not put together like this, but I mean, Jesus Christ, we've seen Stanley Brock and the show before. We've seen, like, we've seen plenty of these things or people in this show before, and it's like this episode fine, I don't know. I think some of the other episodes we're going to talk about are much better than this one. This is not the better of the three, that's for sure. What did you think?

We actually really liked it a lot. Yeah, a lot of it felt familiar, but I think it was the idea of seeing these very familiar faces. I don't know to your point, I don't know if we needed the b story with the whole thing about the greeting card company salesman who gets fired by by getting a pink slip inside of a sympathy card from Santa Claus. It's great seeing Ben Piazza as his boss. And Ben Piazza we've talked about him before.

He's been on this show before, but for those who may not remember, he is the father of the family and the Blues Brothers at Shay Paul. They smell bad like I love him. He is so snotty, but he really doesn't get his come up ins in this episode, like he something bad should happen to him rather than to the guy who gets fired and Yeah, it doesn't resolve itself very well at all, kind of like the way that the other story with all of the homeless people doesn't resolve itself. Again, great to see Don Kalfa, great to see Walter Yanovitz, great to see David Clennon. And Clinton gets a lot of screen time in this one, especially when he and Barney are talking to Barney's office and he starts talking about, you know, living in Connecticut and how his house is falling apart and all this.

I was like, Okay, this is this kind of good. Like he's he's so concerned about himself, he doesn't care about anybody, and that's kind of the situation at hand, Like we're not showing any sort of sympathy. And I like the Stanley Brock kind of comes around, though it feels very insincere, and really I was kind of hoping that he'd be like, you know what, my store is going to be closed during the holidays. Why doesn't everybody come over and stay at my store or something? Because that's the inciting incident is that he finds Don Kalfa sleeping in his store.

Don Calfu's kind of slow in this episode and holds a job as a dishwasher. Maybe one of these days he'll be moved up to bus boy. But fucking Stanley Brock as Bruno Bender using a cattle prod to torture don Kalfa that gets laughed off so much. And or Marie Gorman as Naomi Bender, his wife, She is in physical fear and we got the laugh track just cackling away. Think that, you know, very uncomfortable.

The laugh track in all three of these episodes is pretty uncomfortable. There are several moments throughout these three episodes that we're gonna be talking about that have weird laugh track moments where I was like, what what it's I mean again, we have had an episode of this show titled rape so and there was a laugh track in that episode. So we're I mean, I'm not saying like, well, I couldn't expect that the show will do that, Like, no, we've already seen it. Do We've already seen it do it way more than I ever would have imagined a show like this would do it, frankly, or any show would do it. But again, like different times, different places, different expectations.

Yeah, a woman being in physical fear of her husband and like him like swatting at her and her like moving back exaggeratedly. So at some points, like Mary Gorman's acting is at times, she's really doing it up, as I would say, But yeah, what the fuck is up with the laugh track in this episode? I mean, physical violence towards women is is just the height of comedy, as we all know. I mean obviously, I mean, I don't think I've a laughed at something so hard. My entire life is a woman being beaten obviously, Like it's just the optics of it are a bit strange.

Yeah, and this is I think her She's been on the show several times before, Yeah, but she seems to be much more. Yeah, she's like really playing it up in this episode. Okay, apparently she'll be back in Landmark Part three, which we'll cap off everything she was in Wow four episodes of season four, between Bugs, Wocho's Problem, Hostage and Evaluation. I want to say, wasn't Hostage another don Kalfa? Yes, it was another don Kalfa episode.

She was one of those replacement cops that was sitting at a Nick's desk or sorry, detectives sitting at Nick's desk, gotcha and I think she might have been the one who thought everybody was hitting on her. And but yeah, something odd with that one too. That sounds about right. Yeah, I U like her. She has a small part in taking a peblem one two three.

I like her voice. You know so much of these character actors. It's so much about the voice for me. And yeah, but yeah when he starts lunging at her, because he lunges at her and sort does the greeting card guy too, and it's like, oh gosh, guys. Yeah, I mean again, physical abuse towards women is funny.

Yeah, I should say he doesn't lunge at her, he lunges at his boss. And again I was kind of hoping for more come up and for this guy. Yeah, that was the part of the episode I actually really didn't understand. Is Ben Piazza's character just getting away with it, just like oak Line and Sinker being an asshole all the way to the end, like no, no, come up and said all none zero. He just walks in and walks out, even.

With Rock like he ends up walking out with his wife. She pays for him to get out. He drops the charges against Don Kalfa's character Don Kalfa has this former heroin addict and part time prostitute that he's kind of in enamored with. They invite her as well to go over for Christmas dinner. But yet, there should have been a moment where Dietrich or somebody and I just immediately think of Dietrich comes over with the cattle prod and is like, you're not getting this back or we're checking this into evidence or something, and some sort of better ending for Brock, Like he still is a dickhead at the end of this episode, even though he's doing the right thing here, I feel like he will do the wrong thing a thousand times.

I agree, No, I one hundred percent agree. It's this is an episode where we have two kind of asshole characters both getting away with it. Yeah, which, really, I mean, I guess that's the way of the world right nineteen eighty one, the assholes are starting to win. I can well, and they haven't. They haven't stopped winning yet, Mike, they haven't stopped winning yet.

I'm gonna get so tired of winning all the time. All we're doing is winning all the time. That's we haven't stopped winning ever since nineteen eighty one. Yeah, So moving on, let's talk about the tontine, which I was completely unfamiliar with this term. So, a tontine is a it's basically like a it's not a pyramid scheme, but it's like a life insurance policy.

It's kind of like a I believe Wikipedia described it as a mortality lottery because it keeps going until the last member is alive, and then the last member basically wins the pot. It's almost like a like an actual winning chain letter, like you know. Obviously those are scams, and this seemed like it could be a scam. Apparently there was a whole thing in March twenty seventeen where tontines were coming back, but there was a part a long time where they were restricted here in the United States. But it sounds like it's, like I said before, a French thing coming over to us.

I would do a tontine in a harp. You know. I don't know, it's an interesting idea. I mean, look, ultimately, it's just like you said, it is just the lottery, right. I don't know.

If you want to be the guy who's live at the end, I guess you get a whole lot of money to spend all right, sure, why not? I don't know. Apparently seven hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, good god. Which in nineteen eighty two, the New Year's episode.

You know, we're a week into the New Year's and we're talking about ton teens and people trying to kill themselves. Yeah, this is an interesting one. So we've got a couple of storylines going on here. We've got the main storyline of the ton Teen, which has our old friend Evor Francis. And then Ian Wolf, who I know has been on this show before.

He's such a great old guy actor. He's been old gosh, like I remember him and being in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur back in nineteen forty two. He wasn't quite old then, but after that, forget about it. Like he's the old man in THHX eleven thirty eight. He's incredibly old.

In Dick Tracy, he's old and almost everything else and he plays an old guy like nobody's business. He's fantastic at it. Just keep going. And then there, oh man, the guy who's taking care of the tontine, Jay Robinson, who I mostly know is being doctor Shrinker from the Old what they call those guys the uh not ranking in bass sid Marty Kroft a TV show called Doctor Shrinker, and he's amazing. He's like the living embodiment of like Conscious Pilot or somebody.

He would be amazing. And I think he's Oh he's played calligulant, that's what it was. But yeah, he played caligularly both The Robe and Demetrius and The Gladiators which was the sequel, But it feels like he could play Conscious Pilot so well. And he was on Chopper the Colchak episode we talked about many moons ago, so long ago. Yeah, he's great, and he's got that great voice again and he does a laugh, especially as Doctor Shrinker, like nobody's business, and yeah, he's great.

He's so oh, just distasteful and you just want to like get yourself away from this guy. And I just love how smug he is about all this and like, oh, sorry, you know, we can't do anything now. And then when the one guy, when Ian ends up having a heart attack, it's like, oh, looks like we're good now, and I'm like, oh my god, like not now, like this is the worst time to beat you. He's a real dickhead. But he's but to your point, he's great.

He was on the show once before, all the way back in season two in the Sniper, which feels like God, I mean, good lord, I don't even I don't even remember that episode in the season two of this show. My god, what a long time ago. Huh m hmm. He's great, He's great. I actually think that the ton Teine might be up for me in terms of the more interesting plotlights that the show has kind of trotted out, because it feels pretty unique from everything else that we've seen.

And again, to your point, it would seem that in the early eighties, as a couple of years ago, tauntings were becoming a thing that people knew about, if not were interested in doing so. You know, I think it's interesting and topical. I don't know how well it works for a lot of people, but for me, I think it works pretty well. This episode has a has a small appearance by one of my favorite character actors, Sam and Graffia, who I actually got to interview a long time ago, well not that long but a few years ago for Welcome Home Brother Charles, where he played a cop. In this he plays an ambulance attendant taking care of one of the old guys that has the heart attack.

He also is in season five as an ambulance attendant. Apparently that's his role. I'm Barney Miller. I'm not sure if he's supposed to be the same ambulance attendant, but I have a feeling he is. Hey, and don't forget because we just talked about him on midnight viewing a podcast that you and I do with our dear friend Fodham alone, Lou could tell is in this episode.

Yes, yeah, I was like, Oh, it's that guy from Thery himself to the terrible episode of Tales from the Dark Side. God. He does such a great job in this though we didn't say in the last episode, Levitt is in plain clothes and I was just like, oh, looks like Levitt got a promotion. Okay, this is amazing. But he's back in Is he back in uniform in this one?

He's definitely back in uniform in one of these episodes. It's this one, okay, and he's talking about like, Hey, how about I get back into playing clothes again. This goes back to I think it was what the last episode of season seven with that whole heroic act that he did, and he's trying to get this metal. I didn't think that Levitt was. I mean, it feels kind of like the Venal Levitt Levitt has come back, you know where it's like, hey, I want this attention.

I want to be in playing clothes. Want, I want, I want, and he wants this medal or whatever it is, and Bartie's like, yeah, there's not enough witnesses for this, so he goes how rounds up the witnesses, including to your point, Luka Tell as mister Roselli and he seems to be a couple well, I think all three of the witnesses that the heat brings in her couple loads short of a full deck here. Yeah, but Luka Tell's the best one, just because again he kind of redeems himself from when we saw him in Tails from the dark Side. Yeah, it is so nice to see him. But what the fuck are they doing, like hanging out in Barney's office.

He comes in and his chair is taking apart. Well, they broke his chair, I guess is what happened. I don't understand. And that's just the way the episode ends. It's like the hell, yeah, oh, by the way, when we were talking about the end of the previous episode, the whole Christmas thing with the good nights that are going on because everybody's stuck there, they're snowed in at the precinct.

We don't get it too part or overnight episode like we did when they were hiding from the plague. But I don't know if you're aware, and please you know, I'm not trying to talk down to you. But that's a homage to the Waltons. I don't know, if you watch. That show, that's what I figured.

I mean, good Night John Boy and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I wasn't that what I figured? Yeah, sure, Oh totally twenty twenty four John Boy is in the popular culture, yep. I just loved him in it to the guys, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did realize that's what it was. And I do you know again, obviously it's gonna work a lot better in eighty one than it would now.

But we're talking a lot about the guest stars in these episodes. What's just pretty typical. But I like that it was Wojo in the previous episode of that called David Klennan, and that that Barnie's trying to wrap that package, and uh, he's you know, wo'd you put your finger here so you can tie the bow and everything, and Woja just keeps talking like, all right, who would you call? Yeah? I love I actually really like Wojo in these episodes, especially this one.

It's again we're back to Wojo giving a shit, which I appreciate. I do really like that. Yeah. And Harris, I'm not sure, man, I don't like this whole thing of him called Levitt Little Levitt. I'm just like, come on.

Guys, I'm I know. Harris feels kind of sideline no in a lot of this. It feels like we got a lot of Harris in the last two seasons, and now they're just like, we don't know what to do with the guy. Right right, So they make them mention, Yeah, they make them mention in Playing Clothes about him directing traffic in the one is that the literary district basically, and he's like, yeah, I might get noticed, I might get seen. And I love how Dietrich's like, oh, you got writer's black, but you know you better get over it basically so you can write some tickets.

I was like, oh, man, that's pretty cold. Dietrich, that's pretty cold. Yeah, but to your oot, that's really in terms of Harris, Like that's really all we get other than the last episode where he interacts with Luger, Like it's I don't know, it's kind of a shame to me that Harris is so I don't know, it feels like it feels like his storyline ended already and now he's just part He's just part of the group riding to the end of the line, do you know what I mean? Like it feels like we already got the conclusion to his story big time. Yeah, yeah, I mean I liked his little opening speech in that Christmas episode where he's talking about those Hessian soldiers and you know, all the craftsmanship.

I mean, he you know, fucking ron Glass can just deliver solid every single time, and that whole monologue that he has, and just watching ron Carey's face as he's reacting to all of these things and getting more and more upset that his package is pretty darn small for little Levitt. But then you know, just the the care that rhyme Glass that Harris gives to that description. I just thought that was wonderful. Yeah, no, I yeah, I love I love Harris and how I mean, he still continues to be up his own ass, which I appreciate. He's still that guy even even after he's been smacked down by kind of existence and the way the world is now kind of really I mean again, his storyline does it does not have a happy ending, like he got screwed like big time.

I mean, this is like, this is a thing that happened over the course of like three or four seasons, and then we just have him offhand getting sued and that's it. Like it, I'm kind of disappointed. It doesn't seem like they have any idea what to do with his character anyway. Yeah, I know, it feels like a real shame and to your point, yeah, it feels like he's just here for the ride now. And they even make mention of it in Examination Days where they talk about because here we are, we're back in uniform.

We had the whole Uniform Days thing, and everybody at the beginning of the episode is like, well, where's Harris. What's going on with him? Some bad that's been going on with Harris. He lost that lawsuit, he lost his ability to write. I mean that's huge.

Yeah, he's just kind of a shell of a character now, and it's a shame. I mean, we have him doing the right thing here in the face of Luger being a complete degenerate piece of shit. Holy moly. But you know, I mean, does that make up for the way that they've treated his character this entire season. I don't really think so.

Me personally, No. I don't think Zoe either. There does feel like they have slighted him. I mean, we've talked in the past about how the show could be, you know, even though it's called Barney Miller, it could be Wojo's show, or for a little bit it felt like it was Harris's show totally. And really, even with Dietrich, it feels like they've kind of sidelined him right now because he just comes in occasionally does a couple jokes.

They're good jokes, they land almost every single one, but like, all right, you know this, he's just there for the nick of it all, just to add those little zingers as we go along, and it's like, no, I want to know a little bit more about d Trick other than he sleeps in the nude. Wow, that's a visual image I needed. Steve Landisburg in the raw Yeah boy, Rob Dog in it, bareback files of Steve Landsberg. I don't dislike Examination Day. I actually think of the three episodes, it's the most interesting because we actually have Barney and Luger going at it and like, you know, not something we've seen a whole lot of Barney really holding Luger accountable for being a shithead.

So I appreciated that. I think outside of that, I mean, I don't think the episode really ever gets going otherwise, Like the Jack Krusian stuff with Lineman Ward is fine, but I think that the stuff with Hal Lindon and James Gregory are much more interesting. Like Luger and Barney is a much more interesting story than some butcher who didn't buy kosher meat or was sold kosher meat by accident, or not kosher meat by accident. I guess he was sold trafed by accident. Yeah, And that whole thing of Lyneman Ward playing the news man.

I liked the little mention of Paraldo Rivera and I laughed, of course, because he says, like, nobody ever assaulted Heraldo Rivera, And yes they did, but that was a few years later. It was kind of that Morton Downey junior questionable. How real was this Heraldo type of thing when you started to realize that Heraldo is actually just all smoke and mirrors. Even after the uh, he still had a little bit of cachet after the embarrassing thing that happened with al Capone's vaults, and then it was you know, it took a few more years for him to completely go off the deep end and just lose all credibility. Al Capone's vaults.

Man, talk about a thing. People my age probably have no idea what you're talking about. I do, but I would think most people my age have no idea what you're talking about. When you mentioned al Capone's vaults. Yeah, the TV event of the century, and my god, did he get egg out his face?

There was nothing in those vaults, right. Some bathtub gin? That was it? Did you know that he sold bathtub gin? I know, crazy, right, that a famous bootlegger.

Yeah, yeah, it's it doesn't really go anywhere. And I again, I appreciate that they're trying to kind of traffic in the real world by you know, name dropping Heraldo, but Lineman Ward's character never really gets there to the level of that, Like if he were more obnoxious and grating. Maybe I would understand, but he's just not given enough to do. I mean, realistically, I think there should have been more Levitt in this episode, and there should have been more of Barney and Luger and well Jehowitz as well. Like there's just I don't know, they don't spend enough time on the story that's interesting, and the story that's interesting is genuinely interesting.

Like I think it's one of the better episodes with character conflict in it that actually feels genuine as opposed to kind of force like this, this conflict makes sense because of the way that we know Luger is as a character, and instead of giving us more of that like they did with the Harris incident where that took up almost the entire episode, this is just kind of like, ah, it's not that big of a deal. It's like, no, it is a big deal, and you should have spent more time on it, as opposed to again, like a fake Heraldo Morton Downey, you know, Jerry Springer type character, which again could have worked. They just didn't go far enough with it. Well it was yeah, I mean, talk about real life. The whole idea of policing the police abusing power.

I really wanted there to be more like Luger feeling betrayed by Harris, like who told you, Barney, and then having more conflict with Harris, and also the idea of this Warren Chappelle character played by Lewis Gmbalbo, who will never get over Macho grande. He just becomes this like obsequious puppy where it's like anything you want, oh, I can help, I can do this. And that's because he was fucking abused by a cop. Yeah, it's it's wild to me. Laugh track.

I know that's the so thank you for mentioning the thing. I was about to say, that's the laugh track in this episode. That's horrifying. It was like ha ha ha, He's gonna watch Luger's car for him, Mike, because he's where he's gonna get his head blown off, Like hilarious. I don't understand what's so funny here.

I don't know if you've ever been threatened by a cop, but I have. Like first running I ever had with a cop was an accident I had when I was sixteen. Auto accident. Basically was told like, hey, we can take you out and beat the shit out of you, and it's going to be your word against ours. That's not a real good way to do community outreach.

And that's what James Gregory was doing in this episode, this whole idea of the abuse of power, and it's the same thing that's going on here in twenty twenty four. So again, you know, here we are talking about the real estate market and two episodes ago, and here we still have police brutality and all these years later talking about you know, I don't want to say prescience, but just tapping into what was going on and still going on. And don't forget. The name of the episode is Examination Day, which I think works in terms of, you know, being kind of a double play on the name, right, because the whole thing with Luger and Barney feels like a little bit of an examination of their friendship because Barney really has to put his foot down so hard, I mean hardcore on Luger because Luger's gone completely off the rails.

Oh yeah, yeah, and Luger thinks everything's fine. You know, he puts on this uniform, he starts thinking about those old days of Brownie in them, and yeah, I really appreciate I don't like that Barney makes up with him at the end of this episode. It feels like water has gone under the bridge. Maybe there's still more to talk about, but I and I like Barney's little thing about how you come down the hardest on the people you love the most. But still, man, it's you should not forget or forget this.

This is for me. This is grounds for dismissal. This is when you get your retirement inspector. Yeah, it's weird that they're kind of throwing hit Luger under the bus in the last season of the show. I mean similarly to what they did in my opinion to Harris, like why are we doing this?

Like I don't there's not enough time left to have this conversation. If you wanted to do this, you should have done this four seasons ago and factored this into his growth as a character. And I get why they didn't, And look different times, different folks, different strokes, different ways of doing things. I get it. However, feels like a missed opportunity and it feels forced here, just like the stuff with Harris not really landing.

The stuff with Barney and Luger feels forced. It's good but it does feel forced, and I don't like what they did with Luger's character period any more than you did clearly. Yeah, it's a real shame. And I know we talked about the uniform thing before that they're in uniform because it is, as you said, examination day, which seems odd because they didn't do this those times that Wojo was going up for his surgeon's exam. But I guess it's like a mass sergeant's exam happening.

And I did like when Wojo's complaining about it and they say, well, we did the same thing for you when you took your exam three times. So that was a nice callback to. An actual callback. Yeah, good on the show. Yeah, I do appreciate now that we seem to be fully into we are doing references to older episodes now and then that's kind of teeing us up the Landmark.

I feel like, Yeah, I mean it's weird. You know, we do have the show building on itself more than I expected. And at the end of the show, when we get to Landmark, I'll be curious how much of their paying off is actually done, because yeah, to your point, like we are seeing stuff paying off finally, stuff that was set up a while ago is having a bit of a payoff. So yeah, But yet some of the things that we wish would pay off a little bit more are kind of being brushed under the rock. Like I would love for Harris to, you know, finally get that movie version of Blood on the Badge or finally be able to write a sequel to it or something like that, because I want more for Harris.

I just I really love that. Character same he feels sidelined, he feels underappreciated, and feels like, oh well, someone else ended his story, so we're good now. And I hope, I hope that that changes before the end of the show. That's my big hope is because that's I mean, Ron Glass is. I think Ron Glass is.

You know, it's a shame he passed away before we did this show, because he would have been just like How Linden and Max Gail and Steve Landsberg for that matter, and Ron Kerry and you know, Jack Sue, like I would have loved to have talked to all of them. But Ron Glass is up there in kind of rarefied air with How Linden and Max Gale. Frankly, I mean they're the three that have been here this whole time, like you know, and that's other than I guess James Gregory, but he's also long gone, so oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a shame because Ron Glass's character, like you said, for as much time as they gave him in the last season, all of a sudden, it's like they might as well just written him out of the show completely, Like at this point, I think I would have actually liked that more if they had a reason for him to not be around, as opposed to kind of kneecapping his character completely.

We get it, he can't write anymore, like whatever, that's not it's a big deal, But he's still a cop like that. This really shouldn't be getting in the way of him being a cop, because that was kind of almost a point of the him being an author was he was able to still do both, and now if he's not able to do both, it doesn't feel like the story ultimately went anywhere. Yeah, Ron Glass would have been a real classy guy to talk to, and plus he had been in so many things, I mean, so many things we've even talked about. I mean his episode of The Twilight Zelle is still one of my favorites of that whole series. Yeah.

Same. I mean we talk about it almost every time we bring up an episode with a devil character, So yeah, no, it it's a shame. It is a shame, but it's fine. I think we'll probably hopefully be singing a little bit of a different tune by the time we get to the end. But who knows, we'll see.

Yeah, what I know, with you being a brown coat and everything, you would have loved to have thought to him about Firefly. So I'm sorry. Take my lamb, take my sea. You can't take the sky from me. Burn the land and burn the sea.

Yeah, you can take the sky from me. Yeah, it's awful, Josh, Josh, I. Do you know? I don't know which is worse, the theme song for that or the one for Enterprise. They are both wretch.

It's been a long road getting from there here. I love that song. It's been a long time, Mike, but my time is finally here. I can feel my dreams come alive again. I can touch the sky.

You mean Star Trek's theme song, Dude wasn't good enough for you? It needed lyrics? Oh god? Well, yeah, you know. Gene Runberry wrote lyrics, he could le royalties for both the music and the lyrics, which they never sang except for like weird award shows, like when Lauren Green would come out and sing the theme song to Bonanza and you're like that had lyrics, sure enough.

Sad Bill Murray doing Star Wars thing right stuff, whos. Yeah, I prefer his Close Encounters theme myself. Yeah, boy, gotta gotta love it well, Chris. When we come back next month, we are going to be covering four episodes, but don't worry, one of them's a two parter. We're gonna be talking about the Clown Chinatown part one and two, which I guess kind of fits in.

I mean, I always picture them being Lower West Side and I want to say Chinatown's I guess yeah, I guess that kind of works anyway. And then hunger strikes that we're gonna be talking about Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell and their whole Temple of the Dog project that they did, so that will be very interesting. I'm not sure how they're gonna work those two guys in there. Man, I'm excited. I mean, I'm a who does love Eddie Vedder.

Huh, I'm going hungry. I'm going hung Yeah, I love that song. My dog sing that. My dog sings that song to me every night. He's like, I'm going home.

I'm like, you're not going hungry. Stop singing that song to me. Better than them singing spoon man. I guess I hope. I hope my singing ends up on the cutting room floor.

But I have a feeling it's Oh, we should do karaoke well these days, Chris. It'll be a fun, fun time. I think I have a good singing voice, and I think you have a good singing voice, Mike. We just aren't using them seriously. We're literally singing the theme songs from TV shows that aren't good.

There's no amount of good singing that I can do to save the enterprise theme song. Okay. I could be Luciano Pavarotti and I couldn't save that thing. All right. I was told once that I'm not a singer.

I'm a vocal stylist. She packed my bags last, not ever pre flying zero hour nine? Am I do? I'm gonna be Oh that's a kite, all right. That's the way you're a vocal stylist.

Okay, I see, I understand now all right, that's just a nice way of saying you sound like the guy from Cake. Yeah. Yeah, I uh. I'll never get over Matcho Grande anyway until we come back. Chris, what are you working on these days, sir?

I am working on audio diversions over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where I spend most of it's not all of my time creating audio content for people to listen to, including the Culture Cast, this show that you and I do together, Colombo Midnight Viewing, which we are co hosts on a whole host of things, and you can find them all Weirdingwaymedia dot com. But to help some of us out, Patreon dot com, Slash, Culturecast, Projection Booth, eightestv Ladies, Father Malone places you can go to support the people that make the content that you listen to. So that's where you can go to help us out. And hey, like rate and review everything you listen to on iTunes, because you know what, everybody deserves a little love, not just us.

What about you, Mike White? You know that's all folks. Thanks to John Walker for our theme song. Thanks to everybody for listening. We appreciate you.

As we wrap up this eighth season of Barney Miller. It has been quite a journey. We're going to be looking back as we go forward. I guess that's one thing you can do. It's kind of like checking the rear view.

Back it up out of the driveway, though. It'll be a lot of fun. Definitely come back next month. Thank you so much for listening.