Barney Miller

1 9 7 5 - 1 9 8 2 (USA)
168 x 30 minute episodes
1 x 60 minute episode

The downbeat 12th precinct squad room in Greenwich Village, New York City, was the setting for this eccentric series. Prostitutes, crooks, lunatics and other forms of street life passing through the station house often stole the show from a fine ensemble cast, led by Hal Linden as Captain Barney Miller. 

Abe Vigoda was arguably the real star of the show for many episodes, but when Fish retired and went home to Bernice after 35 years of being a cop, other characters took the fore.  Notably the womanizing but kind and well-intentioned Stan 'Wojo' Wojciehowicz, Nick Yemana (Oriental and a sucker for a bet), verbose Puerto Rican Chano Ameguale, and Sergeant Ron Harris (and the ongoing saga of his veritas novel, Blood On The Badge) 

Remarkably, considering the popularity and critical acclaim it would soon attract, Barney Miller very nearly failed to get off the ground. Danny Arnold - the driving force behind the show - took years to persuade ABC to put it on screen.

The one-off pilot edition The Life And Times Of Barney Miller, was declared a flop, and it was only thanks to the intervention of top director John Rich that the series was revived. Rich had steered All In The Family to great heights and ABC were desperate to sign him to a contract for other work. Even though it was not his projects, Rich virtually insisted that ABC develop the Barney Miller pilot into a full series if they wanted him to sign a deal.

Most of the episodes were self-contained but strands of continuing storylines ran through the series. The humor was sardonic and intelligent and ran to such subjects as mental illness, arson and teenage pregnancy. 

Barney Miller was a major hit with police forces across the US who felt it more accurately depicted their day-to-day work than, say, Starsky and Hutch. The cast members were even made honorary members of the NYPD, but after eight years the show finally folded because the writers had simply run out of topics and they wanted to bow out with standards intact.

The final storyline ran over three episodes and had the Greenwich Village station house declared a historic monument (former campaign HQ of Teddy Roosevelt) and the squad were disbanded. Abe Vigoda - who played the detective with the bowel complaint, Phil Fish - was given his own series, Fish in 1977. There was also an attempt to float Wojo into his own series but this stalled after the broadcast of a special one hour episode of Barney Miller devoted to him.