Episode 56: Landmark

Weird. Welcome to the Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller Podcast. I'm your host. Mike White joined me. Of course.

Is the rookie Chris Statue. And somehow yet at the end of this show, I am still the rookie. How am I still the rookie? Nobody else in the precinct is still what they were at the everyone else got promo? Does Richard have to give me the information?

Does from somebody else? Okay? His congratulations, Levine, here you go. You didn't evolve like everyone else. Oh yeah, sorry, that's so far from the truth.

As you may have guests. We are joined by two guests. It is our frequent co host, while semi frequent we've got Richard had him in the house. You've come so far? Is that what Harris says about Wojo at the very end?

I think it is you've come so he come so far? So far? I give that, Chris, I give that to you. And Resident Bertie Miller expert Otto Bruno. Glad to be here, Michael, though it's interesting that I'm the resident expert and yet I haven't been on the show as much as Richard had him.

But that's okay. Now, Heat immediately, I just I just got invited to a party, and I just that I'd go don't be fair, though, Auto, that worked. To be fair, Auto, you became involved with us because of your expertise with Barney Miller. Richard became involved with us by his own choice. He made the mistake one day of reaching out to Mike and I and going, hey, I really like your Colchak podcast, and then it was like that that was the last time Richard had him had a sleep at a at a sleepless night or a good sleep night.

That's oh, I was. Like a mastodon stumbling into the dar pits. I should say that it was Max Gale that introduced us to Auto Bruno. When I was reaching out to Max and he said, oh, you should talk to my friend Auto. He's doing a book all about Barney Miller.

And I was like, what what what a book about Barney Miller? And it then took how long for us to get to talk to Max Gale. It was like, hey, let me introduce you to my pal Auto. Later, by the way, yeah, five years later. You did talk to him.

That's happened. That is our our previous episode. Yes, you are killing my body, but but was it amazing? Yeah, it was amazing. Yes, oh good.

I'm very happy. He was such a nice person. It's not even like I can't eat Richard. Yeah, yes, yes, I'll be listening along. With the rest of America.

The thing that won't come through on the interview is that when we started talking with him, he was on his iPhone. He couldn't keep his iPhone straight. It just kept moving around. Gave me a little bit of motion sickness, But it was okay. But he started talking to us probably about what five o'clock in the afternoon by California time.

He lives around the Bay. You know, had to cancel because he was having some transmission problems. But we talked with him, and as we're talking to him, the sun is going down. So by the time we were done talking with him, it was just the light of the iPhone lighting his face in complete darkness. It was beautiful.

We got we got Magic Hour with Max Gale and everything. Yeah, and so you recorded the video with but. Just the add we we just provided the audience. But yeah, I mean if if if, if you were, if you were nice enough to us, Richard had it, we might provide you. Yeah, you know I beg you guys to just be a blank screen.

I would just lurk. I would technically the same thing. No, I mean it technically is was he? And I'm sorry? I know we're talking about an episode that I guess you just aired or something, But was he?

Uh? In the you said he's in the Bay Area in LA. He moved away from l A thankfully. Yeah, he's in San fran now. Yeah, okay, got.

Because I don't like LA or anything. As Randy Newman once said, I do in fact love l A. Wow. LA's fine. The sunshines most of the time, and the feeling is laid back.

Yeah. On this episode, we're talking about the three parter Landmark Part one, Part two, and Part three. The original Landmark Part one aired May sixth nineteen eighty two. Landmark Part two came out May thirteenth, nineteen eighty two, and Landmark Part three came out May twentieth, nineteen eighty two. These are the final three episodes of Barney Miller.

It's interesting we've had two parters, but I don't think we've had any three parters before. We've not had good luck with two parters. But I have to say that these three, they don't necessarily connect as much as you might think. They're definitely not as connected as some of the two parters that we've had. It's just kind of kind of like we've been doing for the last couple seasons here where we actually are speaking to the previous episodes as we move into the current episode, and then we just wrap it all up with Landmark Part three.

So Landmark Part one is mostly talking about the way that the station is being sold. Some stuff has happened between last episode and this episode. Last episode they found the rifle that belonged to Teddy Roosevelt, and now we are kind of having a regular episode with occasional appearances by Al Russico. Is Jack Norrall, who is coming in and taking a look at the place, kicking the tires, talking about maybe buying this place. I think he's talking with Victoria Haffein, who's played by Susan Tolski.

And then yeah, along the way, we are actually doing a regular episode of this. We've got Phil Sterling in here as Howard Spangler, a fantastic name, and this is a really interesting and sad story for me. This guy who was taken prisoner by does he ever say which country it is, which rebel group. I'm thinking it's got to be like Sandinista's or something, but it's he's kind of put out because he's a hostage, but not one of the big fifty from the Iran Contra hostage deal that we had. So yeah, he was more on the Contra side, I guess than the Iran side of that.

Yeah, it was you know that. I know you talk with Max in the last episode, so he, I assume told you that the whole thing that gets the started about the the American Indian who was arrested because they were stealing the bones of his people. That was Max's idea because he had he had he had been told by them that they would do some storylines about American Indians, Right, he told you that, right, Yeah, yep, yeah, because Max was always very involved, was very involved with that. And yeah, and then the only other thing, which maybe he didn't tell you was season six and seven had been taken over by Tony Sheen. And we've talked about this before because Danny was out for health reasons because of his heart and Danny comes back to produce season eight, the final season, and Tony he left but then when they got to the ending of this season and they were going to, you know, try to wrap it up, they actually asked Tony to come back.

So it was Danny, Tony Shean, Frank Dungan, and Mike Stein who all worked on I mean they were all. I think the credits were split up the way it comes out on I believe his. Name is Jeff Stein. I don't mean to correct the expert. I'm sorry, what did I say?

You said, Mike Stein. Oh no, you're right, Jeff Stein. I'm sorry, You're right, all right? Wise ass had him? Okay, Wow, Well I think I saw rolling Kibby's name in these.

Is enrolling Kibby as who is Danny's you know, longtime friend. Actually, before we got on the air, I was going to we were talking about the the sort of off Mike rivalry between Richard had him and Otto Bruno, even though we have never met or seen each other, because, as I said, he's been on more than I have. And the first episode he was on. That first statement was a dig at me and you Mike, by the way. Yeah, and.

On that first episode that Richard was on, he verbally attacked me viciously and verbally viciously attacked me, and. I'm going to attack Yeah, yeah, so my dad would. Say, and he was. He was ready to rip me a new one until Chris mentioned that I was the guy who was writing the book about him, and then all of a sudden, I became like this exalted figure. I mean, I can understand now it makes more sense why he's a successful Hollywood writer and producer.

Obviously he knows how to turn on a dime. And you know. It's it's it's uh, it's what we call. Let me finish. He didn't let me make my point yet.

Okay, I can see you're getting upsets, so I'm just gonna pivot halfway through. But the one thing I did like about Richard had him in that whole first episode I listened to and in his second episode because this ticked me off about Chris to Richard, I'm just gonna tell you, is that what is it? What did you take him? This is your last chance to be on the show. So it's like, let me air my grievance.

Is that a lot of problems with you people? Direct? What do you mean you people? Podcast? Just Chris who attacked Lovitt from day one, and would not give Levitt any props from day one, and you know, I do believe he finally can.

Have I was about to say, I'm not gonna throw Mike under the bus because I know Mike is going to say the same thing like we both did. Like it was you know, otto, if you had listened to the show, you would know it wasn't just me. Well, but how your voice was more indelible. Chris is the thing. Chris, You're the youngest one out of all of us, which means a A.

It means I bring you're the most judgmental, because young people are the most judgmental. WHOA. And backing up there, Buster. You your you and you're woke. WHOA, it's it's causing airplane crashes now and forest fires and the dwarf is, oh no, it's it's woke that.

It's crashing off planes. Yeah. The other person that I should mention is James Gallery as Christopher Galt, and he really sets up this episode because we have the opening with Harris talking to his stockbroker, I believe, on the phone talking about how he's getting this ten thousand dollars advance for a book. You know, because that's what you do. You know, very easy to get ten thousand dollars book.

That's why Otto is sitting on the golden throne over there and he's talking about how he wants to start investing back in the market. I guess we've solved the whole problem of the two episodes ago with the lawyer and just all that. Yeah, we weren't a big what was that one called the incident or the I can't remember what that one was off, I don't know. Let me check this book. Yeah, bycation, I'm sorry, there's a book.

There is a book. I'm not going to give him. There's a there's a book. But there's also this thing called Wikipedia, which is just good. Oh yeah, oh god.

Why don't you just go tell us to check in with AI about Barnie Miller. Oh there is. For me too. When I read that intro, but that the computer wrote, yes, where Bernie Miller was a sailor, Bernie Miller Captain Barney Miller. Suddenly Richard had him has now become my favorite person on this podcast.

Well, I can't believe it took nine minutes. But yeah, it feels like that whole thing with Ripner is over now because Harris is about to collect ten thousand dollars for his book. And meanwhile, this poor guy who I'm trying to remember what was his job was he was it wasn't air traffic control, but he got fired from his job. He got fired from the job, which I don't know if he said what he did. But he wants money.

He wants money to go to Bartending School. Right, okay, but but listen to this. He said he was fired on the first day of the administration. Thank you new administration, the new. This is not a thing.

To yes years ago. It sounds like it was written yesterday, yes, exactly. And then he goes, yeah, the way things are going, I think people are going to be really drinking a lot. Yes, so might as well go to Bartender school. It cost me one hundred and fifty three dollars to enroll, and the mugger took my last one hundred and fifty three dollars from the ATM, which made me realize just how old ATMs are.

Yeah, and how and how unique and novel this was. I remember I was in excuse me, I was in high school, and within a year or two my dad got me an ATM card and had an account that I had access to, and he's like, okay, here's how much you're allowed to take. And it was magic. It was like a slot machine. Wow it We'll just walk up, put a card in, do a couple of things on a computer screen, which was its own like science fiction concept to be interacting with something like that, and then money comes out that I did not earn and I walk away and it's like, hello, I've got money now it You don't realize the first days of the ATM, you felt like you were robbing a bank.

Oh yeah, I remember going to college. This was nineteen ninety and there was a little camerica on the corner of a couple streets and had my account set up that my folks could put money into if they needed to, and I could put my earnings from the movie theater and then eventually Blockbuster in there. And they were the first branch to start firing tellers that I knew of, start firing tellers and just saying like, well, go to the ATM, Go to the ATM. They just wanted everybody to start using the ATM and just fuck all these poor people. And it was the tellers that were telling me to do that.

I'm like, yeah, you know, I would. Rather interact with a real person. They could walk into the bank and they'd say, well, just go outside and use it. I can't imagine Jesus Christ. Well, if anything, it tells us this has been going on a long time.

The computers are stealing our jobs. Yes, and I know it feels new, and I know it's terrible, but I'm just here to reassure you it's been terrible forever. Yes. Now I'm starting to think Richard and I were separated at birth. Now are you also Celebanese?

Richard? I say this to Mike. I have said this to my kids for. Years and years and years, because they get you know, they're very sensitive and they get depressed, and they're very you know, we raise them to be very left leaning and all this stuff. And I say, yes, but remember, it's always been terrible.

The world has always been terrible. The species is a horrible species. There are wonderful people within it, but mankind in general is deeply, deeply flawed. So they're a great parent. Yes, by the way, are you are you Lebanese?

I am Lebanese. I'm half Lebanese. You know, I wrote I wrote an article once about Danny Thomas, or actually Danny Williams, being the first Italian father I ever saw on TV. Even though I knew he was an Italian, I knew he was Lebanese. But because he was a parent who was on television in the fifties who yelled at their children and yet also hugged and kissed his children, even his son, I said that I related.

To all of that when I was a little kid. Well, representation matters, Yeah, heard talk about that. There you go. I never The only Lebanese person I saw as a child was a clingery far in address. So I was proud.

There you go. Well you should have watched Danny. You should have seen Danny Thomas show in reruns because you would have had Danny Williams. You would have had his uncle to neose uncle. Okay, not knowing that Danny Thomas was Lebanese.

Can I explain my lifelong erotic attachment to Marlow Thomas. I'm in great detail, and then later I'm like, I'm like, wait, you mean she is one of my people? And then I and then I grew a terrible hatred for Phil Donahue. Oh, now now we know what happened to Phil Donahue. Yeah that's right, Yeah, that's right, Mike.

Mike, do you feel like maybe we should have had a separate show with just eating. I think it might have been good. And then like, I mean, I don't know why you guys aren't doing a rockcord file show. What time is it? Let's go man to say, before we started this recording, mics like we getting on with this, and I was like, we're gonna get into it, but I'm not sure they're gonna stop.

I've got time right after this, so I'm not ready to jump into the Kirk. Hold hands and everything. I love it. He's gonna pin He's gonna pinato wh his text top five before we're. All right, I'll never hear from us again.

I'll bring us back. Mike, you're talking about James Gallery and the guy who is guilting Harris because he's heard that he's getting to ten thousand advanced and he needs one hundred and seventy dollars for bartending school. And as as empathetic a person as I like to believe I am, let me just say that that guy's character. Was about as annoying as Norman de Luca. Okay, he really annoyed me.

Wait a second, guys, guys, according to this book I have in front of me, the character's name is mister Dozer and it was played by Keith Langsdale. Richard Adams. This book is called uh, it's by Auto Bruno. It's called Barney Miller in the files of the Old one two and it is listen here, here's my advice when you need a gift for your dad. This is it.

I'll take it. I don't know. Uh, you know, that's an interesting thing, which I'm sure Mike doesn't want us to get into right now. So let me just say it. Is an interesting thing that it does seem to be a I probably shouldn't say this, but it does seem to be a man's show.

Okay, yes it I think in a way it is. I think at the time it wasn't. I think it is now. It had an opportunity to not be as well, and the show point and the show points that out at the end of the show, which as much as I was watching it through tears in my eyes for halving hour, yeah, I didn't need to see that because that was a little bit of like a you know show, this is the one thing you fucked up on. Like, well, I know that, I know that you guys are in contact with Linda Lavin's people you might want to do.

Just not worry about that right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well you know, Linda Lavin was the person who said she would talk to me and then pulled out at the last second for whatever reason. Oh, we don't know why. No, we don't know why. I got the guy who was her piano player, a very talented gentleman named Billy Stritch.

I was in contact with him via Facebook, and he said, oh, he goes, I think she'd probably be willing to talk to you. Let me ask her. So he asked her, and he said she said she'd be more than happy to talk to you. She's flying out to do a gig somewhere. I don't know because she was singing somewhere.

And then he said she'll contact her when she gets back. So then I'm trying to remember if she contacted me or fight, or if he did, or maybe I hadn't heard from either of them. So I contacted him again and he says, oh, I'm I thought she would have talked to you by now. He says, let me reach out to her again, and then when he came back to me, he said, she said she can't do it right now. If you want, you can call her people and they'll decide whether they can make time or something like that.

And at that point, as a hot blood at Sicilian, I said, well the hell of it, then forget it. Man. She first she says she was going to do it, and now she's not going to do it. So fine, she won't be I mean, she's represented. But you know I could have talked to her.

Yeah, and I deeply, deeply wish that that had been able to happen. I'm sorry she didn't do it. You know, she was working up until the very end, which is right literally I saw her. There's a Netflix show, and you know how Netflix, when you go through the queue, if you rest on any title for more than one second, they just start playing a trailer for it. So there's a show with Ray Romano and Lisa Coudreaux called No Good Deed, and I hadn't watched it, but I rested on that title for one second and they began showing a little scene and the scene was between Lisa Kudrou and Linda.

This is a show that just premiered this year, twenty twenty fourth show, and Linda Lavin was into playing like a crazy neighbor something and she was hilarious, and I'm like, oh my god. So it's not like she's been at the Motion Picture Home for twenty years or something. She's she's doing it and and I'm that's what makes me even more sort of like, you know, I wish somehow that interview could have taken place, because she was one of the last three how Linden mex and Linda. Lan I was very frustrated because I really did want to talk to her, And yeah, I was. I was watching her again somehow.

I was Facebook friends with Billy Stritch and they were doing like zoom shows during COVID because they were neighbors. They lived in the same building, I guess in New York, and she would go upstairs to his apartment and he would play they'd set up a camera and he'd play the piano and she would sing and she was still sounding great. She was in her I don't know, eighties, late eighties or something. Well, of the people that sort of came in and you sort of got the feeling, Oh, they're trying to add this person as a regular. I really think that Wentworth was the one that would have worked this sort of hyper aggressive New York woman, and of course played by Linda Lavin, who was so funny and so great in the episodes that she was in, and I can see that, I can see that personality working in the mix of people, and it's not I mean, that was not what Fish was.

It wasn't what Yamana was, it wasn't what greg Orycierro, you know, it was its own thing that made sense. You know, a woman who's kind of a little sort of hyper motivated because she's in a profession that is not typically a woman's profession, but she's a New Yorker, so you kind of instantly get her. And so, man, the regrets pile up, first that she was not on the show more, and then second that we we we you guys didn't get to talk to her and kind of find out behind the scenes what happened because I don't know auto, do you. Well, basically it was they there were different stories, but excuse me, Supposedly she wanted a little more money and they were dragging their feet on giving her more money, and then she got the offer to do Alice.

And once she got the offer to do Alice, well obviously forget it. Then it was her own. It was her own show, and as we know, that went on for a what something like eight years, I think. So the you know, the other person who was really I thought was good and was interesting was that June Gable, who played the Hispanic officer. And she was one of the very first people I talked to when I started interviewing people for the book.

June Gable. She was very nice and her thing. Was that Danny had seen her in a play in New York. I think it was The Ritz or what was is that the name of it, The Rits. It had like a Hispanic cast to it with that, is that right?

Anyway, it was something like that. But I think it was called West Side Story. But go on, no, it wasn't West Side Story. But she did this this play. Danny saw her, and he hired her to play Batista, detective Batista.

So in the first or second episode, if you remember how Gregory Sierra when he would get angry, he would start spewing out the Spanish really fast. So Danny said to June Gable. He says, oh, when you get to this point, just start, you know, like swearing or saying something in Spanish really fast. And she said okay. She says, are you gonna write it out for me to like, you know, to do it fanatically And he says, no, no speak Spanish and she says, well, I don't speak Spanish.

And he said, what do you mean. He says, aren't you Puerto Rican? She says no. He said, but I saw you in that play. It's called acting gone.

You should try it sometime. So she got in a sense she was she got hired on a false promise because he assumed that she was Hispanic. And and you know, going back to what Richard said about how so many things that we think are new that are just happening now and never happened before. According to June Gable, there was an issue because there was a group then that was starting and they were they were protesting shows that were doing Hispanic characters but weren't hiring Hispanic actors to play those characters. So Danny said that I'm really sorry, but I'm getting pressure and I'm going to have to let you go.

So she was only on for I think only two maybe three episodes, but I think it was only two, So. That's why her character didn't work out. You know, from a production standpoint, it's kind of the perfect show to bring on characters, sort of audition them in real time, see how it works, see how the audience reacts, see how the network studio everyone reacts, and then be able to like, Okay, it's not really working out, and then you know, send them on their way, which they did. Uh, there's not a lot of shows that can do that because they're just not set up that way. It's a family, you know, or it's or it's a more stable environment where if you bring someone on, you've got to be sure it's like they're on now and we're we're we're pushing all of our money onto the table, and this is how we're doing it.

Am I bored? Cousin Oliver? Yeah, just like drop a cousin or a brother in some place. Well, I guess you could if you're on Buffy. What if Mike, what if you're just that that detective Mike Mike.

Flushing Meadows. But you guys, certainly Chris maybe too young to remember. Chuck Cunningham I'm happy. Oh, I remember Chuck. Do you know what the story was with Chuck?

Yeah, he went upstairs and was never heard from again. He died in Vietnam. Oh, is that what it was? Went to Vietnam, just died. Yeah, Well, what really happened was Gavin O'Hurley.

Kevin O'Hurley, right. I think he was pretty put out because they had this whole subtext in there where he had actually molested the sister Jony Aaron Morn. Yeah, because like that whole thing of Jenny Piccolo was just like she had fractured her personality after the abuse happened, and she would blame everything on Jenny Piccolo and just talk about how Jenny Piccolo was the slut and doing all these things, and it was really Jony all along. She couldn't face it. So and meanwhile, there's this whole other thing where Phonsie started sleeping with Miriam Cunningham because he's right upstairs and there's always that sexual tension between them.

It got real bad, real quick, and he's like, I don't need this. I'm out of here, right, Richard. I know you're only a couple of years younger than I am. Richard. But these these young people have no respect for the sanctity of television history.

They don't understand that Gary Marshall was the genius who would come in do a single camera show for a season or two and then turn it into a multi cam and it would run for eight more years. You mean, the Devil from You did it with Happy Days. The man was a genius. Although his funniest show ever in the history of television was his first show, which was The Odd Couple. Yeah, oh yeah, no, Odd Couple was great, but Odd Couple is weird when you watch those early episodes that are like the movie you know, and it's like.

Yes, well, you know, you're right. I never thought of it. But he did the exact same thing with The Odd Couple as he did with I never. Even thought about it. He did it with both of them.

And I think he learned from one. I mean, I think, you know, I don't know. He's a filmmaker. He went on to make films that single camera. He he can do it and it can be funny.

But I think he sensed there was a change from the single camera with laugh track. He I think he sensed. I think I think that is becoming dear Ragueur and we have to move on from Brady Bunch Partridge Family, and we got to do a three camera and he had, look, he had cast members who could do it, who were very used to being live on stage, Jack Klugman, Tony Randall, and then I guess he sort of checked in with Ron Howard and Henry Winkler and all the rest and was like, can you you were gonna do this? You guys can do it, and he felt that they could, and then they could and they did well. Of course, Barney started live in front of a studio audience and then went the other way because Danny could never finish the scripts in time.

So when did that flip over? When when was that change made? It depends who you talk to. Hal always said they only shot in front of a live studio audience the first few shows. I really, really really don't think that is true.

Between talking to Tony and some of the other actors who appeared on the show, I think it happened maybe near the middle or end of the second season, maybe even a little later. The problem was. It probably felt like it started sooner because they did so they used to film and then they do so many pickups, and they were doing so many pickups that sometimes Danny would decide that he didn't like the ending, and then he would completely rewrite the ending. And that's how they ended up getting the reputation for shooting until three or four in the morning, because they would all sit around on set while Danny went upstairs and rewrote the last scene or something, you know. So it was really it was really crazy.

But so they got used to doing like it'd be in front of an audience, but then throughout the week they'd be called back to the stage to do stuff not in front of an audience, and the idea maybe is that hell Lindon is conflating that thing. So that's when we started were already not doing it. Yeah, I think that's what happened. Yeah, I remember talking with Chris. As far as you could hear, some of the scenes sounded like they were sweetened with laughter, and some of the laughter, I think, to your point in the second season started to feel more like a laugh track than an actual studio audience.

I mean, it wasn't that repetitive laugh track that you get for something like mash where it felt like they had maybe five cues and they would just play those over and over again, right, But yeah, you could definitely tell like, oh, yeah, this is no longer in front of a studio audience, no matter how hard they're trying to do that. And then some of those angles that we've pointed out before where it's like suddenly cutting to a real close shot like a die trick or wojo and you're like, yeah, that's not a typical three camera setup that they're doing right now. No, that was definitely a drop in, you know, something that they had picked up and dropped in. But the guy I spoke with, his name was Perry Krause, and he was the editor for a number of years, and he claimed that even when they were in front of a live studio audience, as you know, to your point, Mike, that he said, we would there would always be moments where we might sweeten it here or there.

So, according to him, they were doing they were sweetening even before they were just shooting without an audience. On Landmark Part two, We've got we were continuing this whole story of the sale of the station, and with this one, again very typical episode. Even though we're kind of carrying on with this whole subplot of what's going on here. Especially, I would say the crime school where we were in introduced to two little old ladies. And I believe we've seen both of these ladies before.

Definitely Florence Hallup we've seen before. She's got the best voice, she's the best little old lady. Who's ever little old lady? And these two are criminals. And then they start to talk about how they were taught by one of the best criminal teachers in the business, Professor Vincent Thorndyke, played by the one and only Robert Costanzo, who is just always so good.

And I really like this whole subplot that they have, this story that they have going through here. Well, it's like the character was described as being greasy or slimy, and then he literally is. You can see the lights shining off the gel in his hair. There's just like dripping onto his neck. Now, it's a great first of all, for your audience members who might be eighty or older.

Florence Hallip was the sister of Billy Hallip, who was one of the original dead End Kids at Warner Brothers Studios back in the nineteen thirty and of course she went on. After Selma Diamond died on Night Court, Florence Hallip came in and took her place, and then she died sadly after a year. So but she was hilarious. But this Helen Verbitt was the other lady who played a Stelle Bobus And yes she had done more than one Barney Miller as well, and they were just so so funny. I love Hallip's line where Casanzo says to them, you know that check you two wrote me it bounced, and Florence Hallip said, we thought you'd be proud.

So good. But I love how the other one is so into Dietrich and just that sexual chemistry there when he's letting her out of the cage. Who give me the vapor? Okay? So so timeline wise, this episode's in nineteen eighty two, and then and then the question is was Nike?

When did Night Court go on the air with by rhinhold Wiggy who was a writer on Barney Miller, who then. Is actually actually Richard is correct? This whole time. Richard had him everybody he pronounced it reinhold Wiggy. Yes, wow, if I may continue, Wow, Richard had him.

Ladies and gentlemen, go. Right, thank you ahead, Atomn. We'll talk about this later anyway. So, uh so, then Selma Diamond was of course on night Court and then is then replaced when she tragically passes away by this, So like, what how many years now our suparate all this or did I see? I don't know.

I think night Court had four Yeah, January of eighty four, right, so Selma Diamond must have lasted from eighty four, so she must have died sometime in eighty five. So so that means Nightcourt was exactly like Barney Miller. It started off as a mid season replacement, then they did one full year, and then Selma Diamond died of lung cancer. And I think she was like sixty two or sixty four something like that. And then they bring Florence hallip In and I don't remember if she lasted one or two seasons, but then she died of one cancer at almost the exact same age as Salma Diamond.

Yeah, very sad, right, exactly, Marshall Warfield. Would you agree that people were older back then? Definitely. James Gregory's only forty two in this role. James Gregory's funny you should say that I checked it up.

In that last episode Landmark Part three, James Gregory was sixty. Nine years old. Wow, so when he started doing that role he was basically pretty much my age right now. When he started that. Role, he looks like he's eighty five, right, that's an old looking guy.

Yeah. So amazing though, and I was very surprised to see him and to get the male order bride back in here and Lucer's just being such a rick. Oh my god, talk about an awkward, awkward relationship that these two have. And I'm so surprised that it actually seems to work out in Landmark Park three, because it does not look good in Landmark Part two. It's funny got in Landmark Part three though, My god, me.

I wouldn't want to be in that in that show. As I watched it this time, Mike, I have to say I agree. I was. It was so uncomfortable. And I mean, I love Inspector Lueger.

I love Luger, but yes, he on one hand, he is being kind of a dick. But on the other hand, you have to remember the guy was a life long bachelor and he had you know there maybe. Well, according to Chris, he was a confirmed bachelor. Yes, well we know what Chris meant when he said that, but wow, I feel personally attacked. I don't know if the audience knows, but Chris identifies as gay.

I am gay, as as Mike would always say, thanks for letting us know. Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, it's obvious headphones, guys, it's. Obvious that he's gay because he's sitting there holding a chihuahua. But anyway, you have no idea, you know what, you know what. You joke on him.

But since the last time Otto and I spoke, my life situation has changed a lot. And in one of those moments to those last like nine months, I literally picked up my dog and I went, oh great, No, I'm just and I can say this no one else can. Oh great Now, I'm just a fagget with a little dog. I'm not in stereotype now or anything. Chris, Seriously, all you need is a bucket of confetti and your ripped tailor.

I know, Oh, I look, I made the joke about him being being gay, but like, I mean, look he is. Look at the way he treats his male order bride. Why was she there? Why is the logic that he's suddenly afraid that he I mean, that he cannot perform sexually or what I don't get it thesis of his sudden cold feet, his sudden what is that? I mean agonist over at the shop, right, she was really getting him hot to try it a few, you know, seasons ago, I was getting married in the morning.

But yeah, this time, I think Richard has hit it though. I mean, that's the impression I get is that he's afraid he's. Too old and she'll be too much for him to handle. Whether it's just her general energy level because she's so much younger them, or whether it's her sexual energy. Either one.

I do think that's I do think that's his his fear, because he said, doesn't he make some line when they talk about going on his honeymoon. He says, I'll see you when I get back from my honeymoon. Then he says if I get back, Yeah, that's right. There's this it is. You know, earlier on we were sort of saying, is this a guy shows?

Is just to show that guys like Because the cast is overwhelmingly male and the point of view of every story is so overwhelmingly straight male and mostly straight white male. But we do have some Harris episodes, but all that having been said, in that era, all of these I mean, look, even in the third of the Landmark episodes, when Binder is back and his wife is literally, god how cowering with her hands over her head, as if she's going to be hit by him, We're oh is clearly he hits her a lot, so every time she says something that bugs him, she's got a duck. I mean, it feels like in this era there was there, it was still acceptable to find comedy in either an abusive situation or in the case of Luger, this sort of weird like I'm I'm horny, but I don't know if my you know, Dick can cash the checks.

My mouth is right, you know, I it's that's where it's coming from, and and it really rings sour. Years later, Yeah, I think look at I think that this is nineteen. I think it's safe to say we are at the very end, even though even though fucking Bob Hopewood would carry on for another fifteen goddamn years. But but I think you can, yes, you're right, I think we can safely say we're at the end of the Vaudeville influenced television comedy. Take My Life, Please Take My Live.

Exactly, and that go that kind of stuff goes all the way back to Vaudeville and to radio, and and we're all enlightened people now, so we can say, well, they're making jokes. They're making jokes about wife beating basically, but sad to say wife beating jokes. More or less, they weren't called that. We're pretty common back in vaudeville on radio. Uh, you know, even.

Although I never you know, you always knew Alice was the boss. But everyone likes to bring up, you know, young people. There's there's there's young people sometimes to say, oh my god, he's he's gonna hit his wife. Well, you know when he threatens, oh to the moon Alice. But if you were really watching the show, clearly she was in control and he was the child, so it wasn't you know, he was never really gonna hurt her.

But yeah, it's an. Old it's a it's a it's a what do you call it, a ah, it's something that's that's hanging on but definitely on. I mean it's hanging through like I mean, we get it. The whole like that. And look, that was the thing that I really really detested about a Vagoda's character with Bernice was just like, my wife is such a fucking ball and chain, like, then leave her dick head, like then fucking go, because you know what, by the end of Ayva Gooda's run on this show, it was literally one note.

And then oh, by the way, we had to be reminded of that at the end of the show that oh he had all of one note the entire time that he became a popular character on the show. Well, I never understood why al Bundy wasn't thinking his lucky stary teg because she was the most horny and beautiful woman on television. And I'm just like, what is your fucking problem. Recently she's still beautiful, but like, what are you complaining about that, asshole? Go back and sell some fucking shoes.

I'll take this brought out. Come on, Well, these are these are very old comedy forms, and this show was considered and by the way, still considered by me and all of you guys and a lot of people to be an example of really good comedy of the era, Like like it's funny because you had shows on concurrently with Barney Miller like Taxi, which didn't traffic in that sort of humor. And then even before that, you had the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which, when you go back and watch that was, you know, pretty pretty out front feminist. I mean you there was a little lou grant, you know, old fashioned ness, but clearly the the thrust of that show was about women in the modern age. So so this one, by coming from a real different place, still manages to put across a level of humanity that that in its self defined universe is I think still pretty effective and still emotionally affecting.

Yeah, you know, Richard, once again, Richard brings up a brilliant point, and. I think I think I'm going to get an a. You know, the final is going to make up for a lot of homework I missed. And that is yes, Like now you you you used both Taxi and Mary Tyler Moore. Well those were both Jimmy Burrows shows.

And Burrows was a young Brooks, James James Brooks, I'm James and then. And then and bur they were both yeah, I know they yes. But James Brooks at that time was a young Turk. He was one of he was new on the you know, well he had he had already done Room two twenty two. But still he was a younger guy.

Danny went all the way back. Danny started his career at Columbia Pictures in the late forties. Okay, so Danny was old school. Danny started writing for Who Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis And Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis is essentially about a man who's beating his wife, except that the wife is the monkey, and the monkey is Jerry Lewis, and Dean Martin is the you know, the suave guy who's in control. So yes, his his stuff.

And by the way, Danny got interested in show business because he had an uncle who played the Mountains, the Mountain Comedy Circuit in the Cat Skills, the Cat Skills in the twenties and thirties. So yeah, so that is where Danny came from. And yet despite these these uncomfortable moments in Barney Miller, yet it was still an unusually sophisticated comedy for that period. I mean, you named the couple of the I mean again, when you're talking about Barney, ra about Mary Tyler Moore and taxi. You're obviously not talking about the typical fair of that era.

They they were the cream of the crop of that time, just like in my opinion Barney was. But they came from two different generational influences. So so, okay, I do this class at UCLA. I teach a class and it's sort of like a pre it's not even TV writing, it's like pre TV writing. And there's a woman in my class right now who is our age, and something coming came up the other night and I made a reference to I'm like, well, none of you are gonna know what this is, but there was a show called Barney Miller and she's like, I love that, And I'm like, right, because you're my age.

Now everyone else in the room is twenty right. But the idea that it's a man's show back then in nineteen eighty two, women watched that show and loved it a They probably loved it because these men weren't horrible assholes like and there's an appeal to Hell Lindon, there's an appeal to Ron Class, there's an appeal to Max Gale and and I think because we were not seeing these men in like abusive or horrible relationships with their female counterparts. Fish is probably the worst we got that scale. Almost spin off was not awesome. Barbara Barry is fantastic, and for what we saw of her, that relationship is like, Okay, then Barney's nice to her.

They're nice to each other. They just you know, grew apart or ran into problems because he's a cop and she isn't whatever. Right. But but women could watch this show and go, I like those men and I and I like to believe that they are they are kind and and you know, equitable to their female life partners if they have them. Well you've got pure sex appeal here with Hal Linden, I mean that kind of And then we got Ron Glass and Steve Landisburg and Max Gaiale, and you know, some people were probably into Ron Carry as well.

I'm not going to shame anybody, but yeah, I definitely couldn't see that. And my wife absolutely laughed quite a few times as while we were watching these shows together, and I, you know, I felt it's the. Funny thing, you know, you don't you look at this cast and you know how Linden was a star on Broadway. I think the others were fairly unknown. Jack Sue was known sort of within his community, but.

Well he was in Flower Drum Song and for other things. Yeah, these people were not being cast because they were the hot CW you know, ripped ab hot guy. These were regular looking men. And when you know, I mentioned Mary Tyler Moore earlier, and it's so funny. I show I show that in my class and I'm like, now, I want you to look at the men in this show.

How many of them are bald. It's like there's three men, two of them are bald and one has gray hair. The day you see them, the very first day and they start in the first season, they start talking about how old they are, and when they say they're in their forties, I fell off the couch. I'm like, I guess, of course they are, like, it couldn't be that they're not, but Jesus Christ, they look. These men were not cast because they were hot and sexy in a in a traditional or modern sense.

They were cast because they were right for the role once they were cast. Believe me, there were women who are like lou Grant, I'll do it. Well. In the case of in the case of at Asthra, I mean, who wouldn't. But but no, I mean that's a great that's a great point.

And I've talked about that in UH. I of course don't teach at a fancy university. I just teach. Yeah, well that's what I that's the kind of stuff I teach. And when the real teachers leave, and.

That's what I teach. And I'm always saying to people, I'm like, these were real, real character actors. You don't have them anymore because if you watch television now, everybody is thirty or younger. As you said, everybody is in great shape. Everybody looks like they came out of a catalog.

Well there aren't catalogs anymore. But you know what I mean, they're all models. They all look like models instead of looking like exactly what you said, real people. And the other thing is, yes, I don't think none of those men were misogynists. Some might have.

They might have betrayed some male chauvinism at times, but that was very reflective of the time, even you know, the fish thing is similar to again hearkening back to the nineteen fifties, is similar to Ralph Cramdon and add Norton complaining about their wives. But they obviously loved their wives, and yeah, Fish could be a little harsh, but they always had to make sure you knew that he loved Bernice as well. So I don't know, I didn't I didn't listen to this episode yet, but I know Mike and Chris and I and I applaud them for their bravery. I believe they watched some episodes of Fish spin off, which is which is a horrible, horrible show. Yes it is, but you know, like any shows at that time, they did have to show that deep down Fish did love Bernice.

But I think you're right, Richard, they did. These were men who they might not have been quite as forward thinking as James L. Brooks, but they certainly respected women right. And it was just it was a different show. I mean, it was I mean overwhelmingly male cast and overwhelmingly male of production staff, writers, directors.

There were no you know, Jim Brooks made an effort early on on Mary Tyler Moore to hire women writers. Weirdly, that sort of died off in the last two three seasons. It was predominantly men. But that's kind of what we were talking about. It's like, well, if there's not a lot of women in the cast, and there's not a lot of women writing the show or directing the show or producing the show.

That's not the point of view you're going to get. And I think we were lucky to get what we got, which was a ethnically diverse show about men trying to learn how to emotionally interact with each other. I mean, you know, these last three episodes kind of went up and went down in terms of our modern sensibility. But that last episode where they all say goodbye, then they leave the guys, and then they come back in like, yes, try this again. Yeah, that's amazing.

It's interesting that the end Landmark Part two with this whole thing of Barniey basically being like, look at how shitty this place is, look at how awful this place is, and just really trying to rally them that way. Like they're gonna be somewhere else. They're moving us somewhere else. Together exactly right, It's gonna be better. And then we get to Landmark Part three and again they try to start it like a regular episode.

We've got this whole case of the missing manhole covers and I don't know, twelve bucks for a manhole cover in nineteen eighty two. Sounds like a pretty good deal. I mean around here, like copper would disappear. My wife went to work, and this is only a few years ago, went to work and somebody had cut the entire power box off of the outside of the building where she worked at, took it through it over the fence to the scrapyard that was right behind there, and then sold that shit for I don't know how much, but you know, it was a real thing. Like catalytic converters have a little bit of platinum in them, so people would rip off the catalytic converters.

So manhole covers twelve bucks piece sounds great. And yeah, that's like one of the very few other stories that we get because so much of this, Like when we start off Landmark Part three, they are literally packing up, packing up the roll station, and that becomes the whole thrust of this episode. And I'm actually surprised that they don't have more callbacks to the past. Well, I take it back real quick here. There's one other thing, which is this the thing that you pointed out forever ago Otto, which is the whole paranoid of proof kind of the story of guy who's got the cure for a disease, and the drug company doesn't want them to sell it because it's not that big of a.

Disease, right. But you know, the other thing is, and I did write this in the book, I think that never in the history of Barney Miller have the cases that came into the precinct that day been so unimportant. Oh yeah, and so literally unimportant, right, and so wrapped up so quickly. Yeah, if there's a weakness to the pharmaceutical story, it's that that guy came in, you know, and and they well, baby, we won't press charges, and then they turn him around so quickly, I mean like in a heartbeat, Like really, that's all it took. So why did you know, why does this guy have to steal his culture to begin with?

By the way, that was one of the few things I really laughed out loud at. Was when he said Harris closed the door. He says, he says, my culture is dying, and Harrison is like. Tell me me about it. I laughed out loud at that.

But yeah, it's it's really, it's so so unimportant in this episode, the actual case part of it, and. They just wrapped it up so fast. And you know, it's funny. I've heard other people that I've talked to over the years complain about the fact that they didn't do, like you just said, Mike, more callbacks, or that they didn't bring Abe the Goda back for that last episode. And as I'm more, Barbara Barry, that's who I kept waiting to come through the.

Door or Barbara Barry. Yeah, and ages, I mean. At this point he talked to her on the phone for a second. Right, but we but I've talked to you guys about this before, and that is that Abe did not aband did not exactly end. Well no, so well you talk.

About it in the book, but you're available at Manner Media. By the way, guys, if you want to pick it up. That was a freebiato. You don't know me, Thank you for it. So so there was so it was you know, I wasn't that I was not.

You know, it was obvious that he wasn't going to come back. And Barbara Barry, although they you know, he didn't want to have any hard feelings with her, but she she was a little put off, not by how she was treated, but just by you know, she was basically hired when as as you guys both know very well when the show was going to be the life and times of Barney Miller, and they were going to talk about his home life as well. So when they immediately decided to go another way, her character became obsolete fairly quickly. And so she was, you know, sort. Of proud of what she did, and she liked some of those people, but she was also kind of, you know, put off by by kind of being hired and then and all of a sudden, the role that she was being hired for.

They decided not to not to let it evolve the way she thought it was going to, you know, they do. I thought it was nice that they do the callbacks to all the guys in the squadroom who were no longer there. You know, they didn't necessarily have to do that. And I will say, of course, I've seen it so many times, so I wasn't crying at the end. And of course, for me, I always I feel like I'll always be part of the twelfth now, so I don't I don't, you know, have any really emotional response to the ending.

I will say this though. The one thing that always gets me is the type on the screen at the very end when it says all we you know, thank you, goodbye and goodbye you and goodbye and thank you to all of us from the old one too. That always gets me. And yeah, and again and again. That's the whole thing about I have to say again, I don't think these three episodes were necessarily I mean, well, I definitely don't think they were the three greatest episodes of the series by any stretch.

But I do think it was brilliant that the end of the series comes about because of the end of this building. Because again I think I wrote this in the book too, that building was a character in the series. You know that, because they talked about it so much from season one all the way through the end, and I thought that as being the way they what they tied on, tied this trilogy to the building. I thought that was brilliant, the way that building looked. There was somebody you atto, I think you're East Coast.

Are you in New York? I'm in New York State. I'm not in New York City. There was a thing in la which was the only place I've ever lived where in the seventies, I remember going into buildings and off and things on the West Coast that were very kind of run down and old and felt old. And I was a little kid, and I was very aware of it.

And then something and then in the eighties, it's like that all went away. It's like old stuff got torn down. And especially in La there was that a very specific sort of white walls and you know, uh aqua and pink neon, you know, almost like Miami Vice, like like a lot of cheap sort of condos and apartment buildings got put up and and it felt like, oh, all the old stuff is gone, and it's only looking at this and sort of feeling like, yeah, I bet that did change. And I don't know if it changed as much in New York as fast, or if that feeling exists, but it's like, oh, all the kind of old, kind of creaky, you know, a little bit not great buildings, they're all gone and now it's all clean. Oh yeah.

Well, it feels like this was probably a four or five story building where it was just low enough that they didn't have to put in an elevator, and you know, and you just kind of picture these guys trudging up these stairs every single morning to get up to the precinct or every late afternoon, because it feels like more and more as we've watched these later episodes, I've realized that they tend to work the afternoon slash evening shift than any other point of the day because there are a lot of late nights had at this precinct. Right right, Well, Richard, I have never been to LA, but I've read enough and seen enough that I always got the feeling that LA and Hollywood in particular, never really had a lot of respect for their monuments, their monument buildings and things like that, like New York, like a city like New York or Boston did.

Yeah. No, it's so weird if you think that. If you think of popular entertainment as being the product that we produce here in LA, the the respect and regard for it is minimal. It's miniscule, it's vanishing because the very nature of the product is we're done with that. We're done with that, We're done with that.

Don't look backward. You look backward, you're out of a job. That's why we don't have films preserved from the silent era, and so many things are missing because it's like, yeah, just tape over it. Throw it in a landfill. We don't give a shit.

It's weird, Like you can find things like you can go into Echo Park and find plaques on exterior staircases. It's like Laurel and Hardy filmed a film here in the Three Stooges and you know, and you're like, oh wow, there'll be a plaque every once in a while somewhere. But mostly that's like ooh, you can feel a goose walking over your grave. If you start talking about the past, only talk about the future, Africa, get the past. Well, how about all the famous houses that they've just droid and raided there were that the movie stars built, or the movie producers or whoever built these very famous homes, and then now these new developers come in and just plow them over and put up a eight well ten million monstrosity.

And like we were talking about earlier, you know, the fires that we've had, they specifically hit two communities that actually had community history where where homes were built over a course of decades. It wasn't just you know, suddenly we built Ensino. You know, it was like, no, the Palisades and Altadena were you know, Palisades obviously very very wealthy Alta Dina millionaires and just working people, all within the same two or three miles ethnic diversity throughout the decades, and you you moved to Alta Dina for that reason. That's why you wanted to be in Altadena. You wanted to be in a place where your neighbor had lamas and your other neighbor was a famous novelist, you know, And it's like, whoa, this is like cool, it's gone.

It's gone, and it won't come back. You can't. How do you bring that back? You don't. It'll take one hundred years, you know, and it won't be there, It'll be somewhere else.

I'm very surprised that in Landmark Part three, the news about them being split up comes pretty early in the episode. I think it's about five minutes in when they start, when they get the call of who's going where, and then it becomes the question of who's going to tell Harris that he's going to Flushing Meadows. But they are taking these guys and just scattering them to the Four Wins, and it's just awful. That's the one thing that they had to hold on to was that don't worry at least we'll be together. And it's just so sad, you know, and it just it makes me think of all the coworkers that I've had over the years where you're just like stuck in an office with the same few people and you see them day in and day out, and then once the job is over, you just touch and you you know, there are certain people where I'm like, rather than having a class reunion, I'd rather have a reunion with all of my old cool coworkers, people that I haven't seen in forever.

And it's just like there are some people that I still maintain contact with from like my earliest jobs, and then other people just have completely gone other places. They just ghosted, I mean, fuck LinkedIn. It's just like, oh, okay, yeah, I guess you're doing good, but thanks for never return to my text, asshole. But anyway, it's just I feel so bad for these guys because here they are, day in day out, they have these other people that they rely on. I mean, they put their lives in each other's hands literally every single day, and now we've got them going off every single which way, and you kind of feel like they might not ever see each other again.

Maybe they'll grab a drink once in a while, but I don't see Harris calling out Dietrich and saying, hey, yeah, let's go hit the town. I think the thing that makes me really sad about this entire part of the show, and it's the thing that you just kind of alluded to, Mike, is and this is I mean work or life or other things. Like one day you're just not gonna get online and game with your friends anymore. You're not gonna know what day that is, but it's just gonna happen. And with the guys in the precinct, like one day was just gonna be the last day and they didn't even know when it was coming.

Like I mean, Dietrich said it in the last episode he goes, good job finding that gun, like and like that was that was it? Like literally like that that's the end of the Precinct, right there, is Wojeho it's finding that gun, and then then you know that one thing leads to another leads to another, and then the Precinct is gone. Like it's it's crazy to me that this is the way the show ends, because it's such like parts of the end of this show they don't make me upset. But they're a real fucking bummer and I don't understand why. See.

But now, as a kid, it obviously it bothered me a lot when they were all going someplace different and everything you're saying, Chris really bothered me when I first saw it. You know, however many years ago that was now when. You and Jesus were sitting on a rock together. Oh yeah, exactly exactly. And but again it goes to Danny's ability to not talk down to an audience.

That's reality. That's what happens. Mike just said it. It's happened to all of us. We have worked with people and we've gone to lunch with them every day, and we've done this, and we've done that, and then we go our own separate ways.

Now. But does it happen overnight, though, because that's what happens in the show, And that's the thing that's the hard thing here. Right, It's like sometimes there's warning and you see it coming. But this is like Wojo found the gun a month later, it's over right, Well. No, technically, no, technically he found the gun.

And then Rustio's character there norell he in that I can't remember if if it was at the end of Landmark one. Yeah, it must have been at the end of Landmark one where he wasn't sure if he was going to buy it, and then in the beginning of Landmark two Byroney says, oh, we haven't seen you for a month or two, right, yeah, and then. Right so it's so so I'm off by a month, so it's two months and then they're out. Well okay, so I'll tell you. In my line of work as a TV writer, this happens all the time.

And it's funny that he's sort of reflecting that where you're an incredibly tight family, working long hours for a year, two years, maybe if you're lucky, then for eight years, and then you get and then one day the call comes from the network and it's like, we're done. And sometimes you're done right away. I've been in those situations where it's like you're done. Filming stops tonight, you're done, You're out at the office next week and it's over. And because of the way my career in television has gone, it has been predominantly one season gigs.

For a course of twenty some years. You work on a show for six nine months, it ends, you know, it's the first season doesn't work out, show gets canceled. You're onto the next and then you try to get another gig and another gig and another gig. And it's funny because we do well a couple things modern times, cell phones, computers, Internet, it's easier to keep in touch. We're in la we all have cars.

It's very easy to say, hey, let's all have a little reunion over at Laurel Tavern, you know, outside Bradford, and you know, on Ventura, and let's grab a drink and you can keep in touch. And sometimes you're on a show with somebody and then that show ends, and then three four, five, six, seven years later you're back in a room with that same person. It's like, where have you been? Oh my god, you have to work again. And that's happened to me a few times.

So it is. It is weirdly reminiscent of a writing staff, where it's like, well, you're going on to that show and you're going on to this other show and you're out of a job, and you'll be lucky to get something and catch you someday down the road. And that's how this one ended. And maybe maybe that's emotionally what he was drawing from. Yeah, I think the only thing different here is that everybody is breaking apart and going somewhere.

But when, at least in my experience, when you've worked places, someone you know gives a two week notice and then in two weeks are gone and they're working somewhere else. So it's just one person at a time, maybe who is left, but everybody all at once. Right, And let me tell you the number of shows I've been on that have just been canceled and everyone loses their job at the same time. I don't know if it's because of me. I don't know if I'm the typhoid Mary of the TV industry, But man is the number of goodbye parties.

And yet I will say that there's been a couple three four shows where we have kept in touch, and we have done the hey couple times a year. Let's all meet up down at the place and get appetizers and hang out on the patio all night and drink and eat wings and catch up. And and I've been lucky that there have been a handful of shows that have worked out that way. I mean, I'm a survivor of the dot bomb back in the early two thousands where yeah, whole companies would just close up, close the doors, or the time where I went into work and they said, okay, you go up to this person's office, and then they had us all marched down to senor Frogs down the street and they said, Okay, take a look around. Everybody who's here still has a job.

You're coming back tomorrow. Everybody who's not here will not be back in the office tomorrow. So we lost eighty percent of our workforce that day. That was traumatizing. Yeah, I guess so, well, well, Mike, you've talked to well, you sort of talked.

You listened to Saleviscuzzo, my friend Salviscuzo. Yes, and Sale always like. One of the first stories Sale ever told me was that the first show that brought him out to LA was The Montafuscos, which was Bill Persky. And Sam Dunoff. And on the Monafuscos, by the way, was Ron carry Candy a Zara, you know, people that would crop up on Barney Miller later on.

But he said he found out that they got canceled because he was watching the Tonight Show one night and Lee Grant was on and at that time her show, she was doing a show called Fay and it was the lead in to the montafuscos or vice versa, the monafuscos let in the Fae one or the other. And she came on the Tonight show that night and she was pissed because she had just gotten word that her show was canceled, and she said on the air, they just canceled us in the show that precedes us and Sal was watching the show with his wife. That's how I found out I was out of a job. That's how I found out our show was canceled live on. Well, yeah, I guess the other way is when Scanlon comes and visits the precinct to rub everyboppy's nose and let's it drop that Barney's gotten his big promotion that we've been talking about for the last five or six episodes here.

So that was kind of nice. I have to say that I was really happy to see Ray show up in this. I was really really happy to see Marty and mister Driscoll show up, though I thought they were supposed to be in California. I started crying when he walked in. I literally lost it.

I literally lost it. I was like, oh my god, Like. The reappearance of Marty really really touched me. Yep. Same And they also had my all time favorite character in the Twelve Precincts, and that is mister Roth played by Ralph Manza.

Oh yeah, good yeah. Godzilla nineteen ninety nine's own Ralph Bonds. Oh, I was thought you were going to go for banitcheck. Yeah. Ran away from Godzilla at the beginning of Godzilla.

Go watch what happened. I saw that once at the theater. I've never gone back. Every time we bring up Ralph Bonds, that's all I can think of is him fishing at the end of a pier and then Godzilla chasing after him underwater. In the trailer for the movie.

I hate to shock you, but I've never seen that movie live. In New York State. I don't understand. So yeah, it's it's There were multiple moments where I was at the edge or past tears with this because we get like, you know, them coming in, all the people coming in, and then they all leave, and then we've got you know, Luger's wife coming in. I'm like, okay, or soon to be wife.

I'm like, I don't really care about the storyline whatsoever. But then yeah, like you were saying, out of when they say their goodbyes and we've got Barney left alone in that room, and we get those little flashbacks of Chano and then Fish, and then I was surprised Wentworth showed up. I was like, holy shit, so glad, Yes, super happy. And then when they hit Nick. When they hit Nick, I was just like because I was thinking to myself, Okay, at this point in the real world, obviously, Gregory Sierra is still alive, was with us until just a few years ago.

Ava Gooda was still alive, was with us until just a few years ago. Linda Lavin has you know, at the time of this recording, passed away pretty recently. So that really started to hit me. And then when they showed Yomana and I just said, oh fuck, Nick has been gone for a few years now, and he was such a major part of those first three seasons, three four seasons. I can't remember.

I just said, oh, man, and that really hit me. I just I kind of lost it there. And then yeah, when they come back in and they do the proper goodbye, and like you said, man, the on screen text just killed me. Yeah, because you know the I thought of this years and years ago. But the first, the first show I had to say goodbye to was again the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

That's the first one I remember that like that. I had to say goodbye to Mary Tyler Moore show. And the Mary Tyler Moore Show ended in a very similar way if you recall where Mary's the last one out and she just kind of gives a winsome look back and then turns off the lights and it goes dark. But when Barney did that and then put the text. Up, it was almost like a final nail in the coffin.

You know what really got me though, was when Bernie kept talking about how there was a chicken on the bus and you know he needed that chicken to be quiet, and then you found out that it was a baby. Oh my god. That really tore the hot out of me. No, no, no, Mash fans hear what he was going on with this world. I was not, you said Barney, so, but I was not.

I know, I like that's conflating them. Yeah. No, the end of Mash was the one for me. That was that was my landmark when it was just like okay, this is really bad for. A long time.

That was the highest rated episode of television. Oh yeah, you know you talk about the Mary Tyler Moore Show. It didn't occur to me. It is the exact same ending. It's the turning out the light, but the hallway light shining through the frosted glass of the door, which same thing happened on Mary Tyler Moore with a W JM.

And And so I guess subconsciously I was like, oh, are they going to do a thing where whereas they run the final credits, maybe the cast comes back out because I'd forgotten I haven't seen the final episodes of Barney Miller in so long. I'm like, are they going to come out and take a bow? But then I'm like, well, I don't want to make any sense because there was no live audience, So they just run the credits over. They don't run the music. They just run the credits over the dark office with the lit frosted glass that says, you know, detectives, and they just run the credits.

Yeah, it was kind of too bad because I'm Mary Tyler Moore. They all come out and they all take a curtain call basically in front of whatever, you know, whatever that live audience was. Did they really did they actually do that in nineteen seventy seven or they did? They did? And if you had the DVDs, yeah, because I know it's on the DVDs.

I couldn't remember if they. If that was something they added on the DVDs, or if it actually happened. I think it actually happened. I think I think, Wow, it was something they could do because they have those people. I think when you go see a live, when you go see a show being taped, they do that.

There's a lot of interaction between the cast and the studio audience and the er, and they do a little at the end. Because I as a kid, I saw a difference strokes being recorded live and I saw a company and they would they would come out and do a they would do a bow. And then in college I worked for the newspaper at USC and I covered a a a taping of Family Ties. Oh wow, what's amazing about? All I can tell you about Family Ties was Michael J.

Fox's bedroom was built almost not quite but almost at three quarter scale. Because he was so short. Yeah, yeah, as he moved because I'm like, wow, why, what's that cramp is that the attic, like almost until he came in, and then it's like, wait what, I'm like? Oh, And and of course when you're watching it, they have monitors because some some scenes get filmed at an angle or on a set that's not exactly in your eye line, so they have monitors up and so that you just glance up. And now you're just watching the show.

And I glanced up and I'm like, oh, yeah, he looks totally cool. He's fine in that room. Wow, playing with perspective. Mm hmm. That's funny, like his own little hobitant.

Right yeah, Michael Gross had to duck to come in. Right. Oh yeah, I am not here to that's only the stuff. I'm here to help you, little alex Peaheaton. I'm also ashamed that I let the opportunity get by when when Richard said that he had been to a taping of Different Strokes that I didn't say what you talking about?

Richard? Uh? Well, was it the Bicycle Man episodes? Why did I know that's where you were going to go? Just because I'm a sicky fuck and that episode was completely horrible for me and I especially to see that kind old man from w k RP in Cincinnati being a pediast.

Oh yeah, Gordon Trump. Yeah, now keep this between you and me, Duncan. Yeah, I've been living in that world because my wife, Susan Lambert, who does a show for weirding Way called Eighties TV Ladies, a look back at television from the eighties from a female perspective in front of him behind the camera. We've been watching so much Facts of Life. Oh my god, so much Facts of Life.

And so I'm living in that world of you know, Charlotte Ray and suddenly Conrad Baine is the hair, and you know Todd Bridges and Dana Plato and of course Gerry Coleman. So anyway, yeah, all the different strokes Facts of Life verse is very fresh in my mind. You have my deepest sympathies. Yeah. What was the girl that had with a cerebral palsy on that show?

Jerry Jewel? Jerry Jewel. Yeah, I really liked Jerry and I liked her interaction and yeah, but I was not a fan of that show overall. Look, you take the good, you take the bad. There you go, Yeah, you take them both, and there you have.

That's a life. So this has been a journey. We've been doing this for five years, five years, five years, five whole years. And five years, Mike. So even though we didn't watch this over an eight year period of time, it was still really affecting to watch this finale and to think, this is it.

This is the last time I'm watching Barney Miller for this show. Because this has been a treat for me every month, getting together with Chris, occasionally with Otto, more with Richard, just because we like Richard Moore. Sure rub it rub that salt right into the world. Oh yeah, yeah, So yeah, it's been quite a trip going through this and to see these years go by over the last five years, to live those eight years between the late seventies and the early eighties, and just see all these political things that have happened, how've affected the show, to get those you know, like the whole the President has to drop dead to New York type of things, all the way into now Reaganomics and seeing people losing their job here in the early eighties.

And yeah, but to have this time capsule has been so valuable and to spend this time together, I've just I can't thank you guys enough because this has been a real trip for me, just re experiencing this show that I saw originally when I was not even ten years old. Well, let me let me talk about it. Let me just say, in the words of another show that I that hurt me when I had to say goodbye to it. I'm so glad we had this time together. Richard.

Do you remember Carol verna show? Of course? Oh my god, dude, I mean not to keep name tracking my wife, but I've also been watching a lot of Mama's Family. Oh, oh god, that shoe sucked. How was seventy's television so good and eighties so bad?

Oh god? It's funny because well, there was this little thing called syndication. So certain shows like nine to five and Mama's Family would be on network for a year, maybe two, and then be canceled, and then syndication would go, oh no, but see people want to still see this, so we're bringing your ass back. That happened to both those shows. But yeah, it's saying goodbye to shows is weird back then.

Now you're lucky if you fucking get you know, it's like exactly, it's like, oh, we well there was let's see, we got six episodes, and then two years later we got eight more, and then I think in another eighteen or twenty months, I think they're gonna give us eight more. Maybe the relationship people have to television now is very, very different. Oh, you know, we're wrapping up, so I'm not going to get into that discuss. All I'm gonna say is I am so so honored. First of all, I'll always get to talk to Chris and Mike, which I've been honored to talk to them on various shows and in various podcasts for the last handful of years.

And then and then finally on this final episode, to get to meet on Zoom Auto Bruno. What a thrill. Well, I I hate to ever get serious. I like to always be cracking jokes. But yes, this has been great for me because I did get to meet Mike and Chris, and now I Chris is had Chris used to have me on a couple of his shows, but he hasn't had me for a while.

I I haven't even done my shows that. He's dropped. You know, you know you know what depression is cut I do. All too well. Yeah, that's actually why I do anything, is so I don't have to think about the things.

That would otherwise beat them. Fair, I get it. But yeah, I'm so glad because and I go on projection booth now and now I've met the I will now say the famous had him. Now that I've met him, he's not infamous anymore. And I don't him clearly.

I you know, our our past rivalry isn't the past. It's dead. It's dead. We're it's dead. Yeah, we're fast friends, but no, it really it really, I mean like I because I just I do a radio show on a public station that I volunteer at and I've done it for twenty five years, and I always say I don't get paid for it, but I've gotten paid in so many other ways by the people I've met and things like that.

Well, I know I'm going to shock the three of you now, but writing a book on Barney Miller is not as financially rewarding as you might think. It would be. What I know, shocking turn of events. Today. We're learning that writing books doesn't in fact make you money.

I know, when you sell the rights to Blood on the Badge, that's kind of met you so much. Why instead of writing a book about Barney Miller. Did you not write a book, a like a slash fiction book about Barney Miller where it's like, oh, Bojo and Barney are like having a thing together. Like that might have sold. There's a crowd for that, Chris.

All the things I'm interested in, Chris will never make any money, Okay, I mean. The show ran for eight seasons, baby, I don't know if that's technically true. I know, actually i've been I've been surprised that as many people have been have been interested in it as as have been, So that's great. I'm happy that just people are still interested in the show because I love the show so much. But I really getting to meet guys like you has really it's made it made it worthwhile.

That's it. I won't ever say anything nice about you too. Again, it's too it's too treakely, too painful, I'm sure. Yeah. Does that hurt you?

Does that hurt you from your inner core? You talked about the one book. When is your new book coming out? Oh? The new book is supposed to be out sometime this summer, but they have not given me a date on it yet.

It's a book. It's going to be a baseball book called Italian American baseball profiles from nineteen twenty to nineteen eighty. And it's coming out with McFarland Publishing. And it's not called Spaghetti Swingers. No.

Actually, I had a very creative title, but they didn't want that, so they gave it the most boring title you could imagine. What did you want it to be? Called? Grind that organ monkeys? O?

God, you said Italian Americans. I'm Italian. I can make that joke. Actually, church fucking fakes. Actually I wanted to call it Reunion at Home, which was lifted from a writing by Bart Giamatti, who is in the book and so that I thought it was very clever Reunion at Home, but they didn't like it because it didn't tell people immediately.

You know. I don't know if you're aware of this, but our society is being dumb down every day, so you really have to make things pretty plain to people. So well, you need those those keywords for the search engine exactly. Yes, that's what somebody told me. What the people who might be buying it for libraries want to know exactly what it is when they type it in so and plug.

Yes, yeah, the things of the past. Hopefully they'll stay around the couple more years. And Richard, do you pluged Susan's show a few times? Why don't you plug your own? Sir?

Are you talking about Richard Haddam's paranormal Bookshelf? I am talking about Richard Haddams's paranormal bookshelf. Richard hadams Paranormal Bookshelf is available wherever you find podcasts, Spotify, Apple, Good Pods, anywhere you want to find it. You'll hear about me talking about a book off my shelf and a story from my life every couple of weeks. And I'm working hard keeping those stories coming.

Wow, one of the few podcasts I actually listened to. So I was going to say, I'll have to listen now that you're not in company, now that you're not on my. Enemy's list, Richard, I'll have to I'll have to listen. To it, Thank God. Okay, And look what I have on under my sweatshirt, Mike, Oh.

Nice projection, new shirt. Well, look at the merch just coming out everywhere. Dang Otto, are you gonna write now that you've gotten that that baseball book out of your system? Will there be another television show you write. About I'm I'm.

I have like about a half dozen ideas in the beginning stages right now, and I was writing a book on Dean Martin. Then I decided I wasn't writing a book on Dean Martin. And now I'm not sure if I'm going to go back to the book on de so but there I do have about about four or five other things, so we'll have to see what comes out. But no, I'm not going to stop writing. I mean, you know, what else is there to do?

And I love film and I love television, so I'm going. To look at it. Well. I'm looking forward to whatever you do. Now.

Next big project is a book all about Victor Pono. Oh my god. He's prepping for it this year on the Projection booth. But we'll talk about that in a moment. Yeah, yeah, by all means.

And Chris, when you're not here podcasting with me for the last five years, what are you working on that about? To say, Mike, I feel like, while we've given these two jokers a moment to say their piece about this show, I think I think we should be given each of us a moment to say our piece about this because this is the first time we've ever done that. We're I mean, we're done. There's nothing else to watch. There's no more Barney Miller with Colchak.

It was effectively ended out of nowhere. They didn't prepare for the end of that show. It just kind of happened. And I feel like before we plug our respective shows, I feel like you and I should at least say something about the last Like you said five the years that we've spent on this show together, because we're ending a show for the first time together. We've never ended a show because this cold Chat ended, but colcheck just kind of stopped.

Yeah, and we ended. I'm gonna make a liar out of you. We also ended Twilight to eighty five, but not. Really because midnight view but midnight viewing is still going well. And it wasn't it for sale though, but it's I mean, midnight viewing is still going.

It's the same. This is it. This, in my mind is like the first time we've ever like, there's nothing else, there's nothing left. Barney Miller is done. If you want to listen to us talk about the whole thing from start to finish, and the show knew it was ending.

They were aware it was coming to a close, they went out on their own terms. Auto mentioned it, Mike, you talked about it. The thing at the end of the show, like at the end of Colchack that didn't say thanks for watching Colchack. Everybody like the way this ended felt different because this is different. This show has been a massive part of our lives.

I didn't get to talk about this really last episode when we talked about Max Gale, but getting to talk to Max Gale was and will be, honestly one of the strangest things that's ever happened, because we spent so much time with him in this show. We spent I spent more time with him than I think I've spent with most actors I've ever talked to. The amount of time Mike, that you and I spent with this show talking about this show, I think is more than anything else we've talked about. Isn't it five years, fifty plus episodes? I mean it, This show has left an indelible mark on me because, to the point of Richard and Auto, the characters in this show act the way you wish people would act.

Let alone police officer. But just and again, I hate to say this only because I don't want to say like, well, all of the people of a certain type or this way, but you wish more men were like this, because there are so many men that aren't, and they're so terrible and miserable human being. And like, I'm not saying all cops are men, but a lot of cops are men, and a lot of cops are terrible men who treat people poorly. And you look at the characters in this show and you wish you could be pulled over by somebody like Barney Miller or wo Jehowitz or even Ron or even Ron Kerry, even Levitt, Like you wish you could be treated by them the way that they treat even the craziest people that come into the precinct, even the Kenneth Tigars of the world, screaming about how they are possessed by ghosts or aliens or something else.

It's not idealized, because idealized as something that should never exist. It's what people in the law enforcement field should strive for, but I think it's what people in general should strive for. And I think, you know, if we got to talk to how Lindon, I don't think I would have been able to do it. I genuinely think I would have said, Mike, you need to do it. I can't do it because how Lindon I think for me and Otto.

I didn't get a chance to show you. But I recently purchased this at Christmas time. It's a Hal Linden one of one signed card that sits on my desk now and that gap and it sits on my desk for a couple reasons. It's on my desk obviously because of the undelible mark that Barney Miller has left on me as someone who has watched the show, but also because Barney Miller is the kind of person that I think we should all strive to be, which is at the end of the day, everybody left at the end of the show, but then they all came back in because they knew they couldn't leave Barney in the room by himself right there without saying something. And it's what Wojohowitz said, where he's like, you know, we're going to carry a little bit of each other with us beyond here.

And I say that now in a way because there's a possibility that the four of us never podcasts together again. About Barney Miller and we probably won't. This is it. We're never going to talk about Barney Miller again in the same context that we spent the last five years talking about. We never will.

This is it. We'll talk about Oh I remember the Barney Miller show that we did together. Oh yeah, how we had Richard on more frequently than Otto, like you know, and like, again, I don't think that was intentional. I don't know what. Here's the thing, Otto, We've known Richard since two thousand and sixteen, known you.

We've known you for a long time, Richard. That's Ryan and I, like I said, I came looking for this. I know this is but I knocked on your door. But that's but in reality, like I watched the end of this show and I'm not kidding, Like from the moment everybody from the moment Barney comes out and everybody's in the precinct to the end of the show, I was essentially unable to stop crying. And my girlfriend is sitting in the room next to me and looks over at me and she's like, are you okay?

What are you crying about? I was like, I was like, I'm crying about this show. And she was like, oh, okay, and like, cause she had but I had to. I had already explained to her everything about like what we were recording today and everything, so she understood. Wait, you didn't say shut up woman, No, right, Bernie, Yeah, no.

And but she understood why and like it's it's because Mike. I didn't cry at the end of Colcheck. I didn't cry at the end of Twilight Zone. I cried at the end of this because this is a journey that we have taken together, that we have involved Richard In, who we became friends with because of Colchak, which I think as much as we work together on Colchak and Rankin and Bass, which obviously is more R three like thing, like this show is really the extension of Colchak because this show carried on from Colchak and then getting to meet and be friends with Otto, who again like and I think also earning Auto's respect in the process, which I know he may not think matters to me as much as he thinks it does, but it does because again, like I know, I am the odd man out here.

I literally was was not alive when the show was on. People my age don't even know what this show is. I told my girlfriend's dad. I was like, you've heard of Barney Miller, right, and he was like, yeah, I watched it growing up and I was like I told him. I was like, yeah, I interviewed Max Scale and he was like really, and I was like yeah really.

So I know that I am the odd man out here, but this show has left an indelible mark on me, and getting to work with y'all is something that I appreciate more than I could ever tell y'all because, again, given my personal experiences in the last five years, where we were when we started this show, pre pandemic, mind you. Episode one of this show aired in February of twenty twenty, pre fucking Pandemic. We recorded it in twenty nineteen, on top of everything else, because it's you know, that's it's just I think in my mind, this show is going to be a show that I probably will put on in the background from here on out to enjoy and just be a comfort show. Because the show has shown me the ways the way you would expect and help people to act, and especially people who are involved directly in escalation of violence and learning how to de escalate it in a positive way.

And I didn't want to wax poetically for too long, but I wanted to say something about the show because there was no way we were going to just end the show without I think both Mike and I getting an opportunity to say something. If you want to hear me talk about stuff that isn't this weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's where you can find everything that I work on. So, Mike, what about you? Any any final thoughts on Marnie Ball.

Wait a minute before before Mike goes Chris, I want to just give you this should make you feel better. But I think Danny Arnold would be very pleased, specifically with. One thing you said, and that was about. People, because you said, these are this is the kind of These are the people I would want if they pulled me over for a speeding ticket, or he used to say to the actors, if you were walking into the precinct looking for help from these officers, what would you want to encounter? Who are the people you would want to encounter?

That's what I want you to be. So you so he achieved that, and you recognize it, and I think he would appreciate that. I just wanted to throw that in. I just wanted to acknowledge that we found out that t Trick was raised by wolves the last episode, so. That straight faced by the way I was raised by wolves.

That was so good. Yeah, this show has brought so much joy over the last five years, and I'm so glad that I was able to revisit it, you know, thinking about you know, I was watching some Quincy the other day and I'm just like, how crazy is it that I can watch episodes of these old TV shows and just they're there for us to enjoy. Of course, there's so many shows that aren't available for us to enjoy. I had to search hell and high water to find the Casablanca TV show that it was five episodes out there. My boy, Hector Alisondo's in there is frenchie, I believe.

But yeah, just crazy that we're able to watch these shows and enjoy these things from all these years ago, before you were born, Chris to your point, and you know, it's it's wonderful and to be able to connect and to be able to have these conversations with friends, you know, so many years later, and to be able to look at these things and you know, otto obviously you know, finding a huge tons worth of information about this. Just doing all that digging and being able to put things in perspective from a show that is just, you know, so groundbreaking in so many ways. It's just been a real wonderful thing for me to enjoy this for the last few years. So yeah, also the same thing, weirdingwaymedia dot com to find out what I'm working on.

The only thing that you can't hear there is something that's available on Patreon, which is at patreon dot com, slash Projection booth in patreon com slash culture cast, and that is when we get together with Richard and we talk about James Bond, which has also been a real treat for me talking about all of these Bond films. And I'm excited to get to that Timothy Dalton era otto, are you what. Is that face? For nothing? I'm just sitting here thinking of and listening and hearing all the real Now It's okay, It's okay.

I guess you guys just assume I'm a one trick pony. Nobody assumes anything, at least not me. I can't speak for Mike, though. I guess Richard and I'll have to start working on the rock for podcast, and. As long as it's hosted on weirding Way Media, we're fine.

But working with Richard had him, there's a slight possibility it won't be. Can you imagine that every show would start with that Answering Machine message, and then it would be an Answering Machine message from one of you guys where it'd be like a quote from the show later on that you say, and you bring it forward, make it I'm real, Timmy, like it's on the Answering Machine, and then you go. You have to do this show. Now you've signed yourselves up for it, just like Ring on Bass. You ever at the end of the col Check show, remember at the end of the col Check show how Ranking on Bass was created.

You're welcome Richard has Richard has the power of Hollywood behind him, so I'll do whatever he wants. It's true. Well, you know, there has been a really great Rock for Files podcast that just concluded. There seems like there's a space in the world for another one. Huh, well, I will you know.

You know, I'm not sure if there's been a Mary Tyler Moore show podcast I love. As As a matter of fact, my family and I we have been watching Mary Tyler Moore over. Again, saying it's too bad at Asner's passed away. But technically Mike and I have both interviewed him, so yeah. Wow, yeah, there's literally nobody left problem John Amos, Lisa Garretson.

No, John Amos died, didn't he dead? It was very quiet with his death. Yeah, it was just Lisa Garritson best. Yeah, that's right. Well okay, I mean now we're just getting into weird ship.

But Susan and I just finished rewatching Mary Tyler Moore and then the only way we could do it was by buying all five seasons on DVD of Lou Grant. Oh yeah, made the right choice, made the right choice. Nice and that is mind blowing to watch Lou Grant. But anyway, well, this will all get talked about. We'll do.

So. No, he it's a no. But that's the thing. The other show that we'd always talked about, and I don't remember who that. Who wasn't where we were talking about I love Lucy ad nauseum for so long?

Who was that? It was Mike? You and I Mike, because we were talking about Lucille Ball. Right, and that was an episode of something well was it the Rich Richard On and we're talking about the Lemon Drop Kid, because. Yes, that's right, we did talking about Lemon Drop Kid.

We talked about Lucille Ball. I think that's what it was. And I've heard a lot to talk about. There's a lot to talk about. Still, Yeah, Chriss and I will be back in a few months.

We're going to be talking about night Court, thinking about calling that one order in the court and that will be a lot of fun. And if you guys want to join us on that, you are more than welcome. We would love to have you far more frequently than we have you. Now. You know that I met Meltourmee and it was a huge mel Tourmee fan nice and I play him on my show regularly.

The Velvet Fog. So you don't have to auto. You're good Like you've made it to the end of the run of Barney Miller. You're you're in, You're you're brought into the fold. Now.

You didn't give anything, Flynn, you didn't do anything. You want to If you want to come on and talk about Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brow or Daniel Craig, you're welcome on the Ranking on Bond show whenever you want. But at this point, Auta, you could walk on down to the Twelfth Precinct and shoot somebody in the head and we'd still have you. On the show. Good.

Oh my god. So I want to thank John Walker for providing us with our opening theme song. Thank you so much. John. I'll be in touch about this night Court thing again.

And yeah, until we don't come back next month. Thanks everybody for listening and being on this journey with us for the last five years. Can't tell you how much we appreciate it. And if somehow in the future and I'm calling this shot now, if somehow in the future we managed to talk to how Lindon, that episode will be here at some point, fingers crossed Mo