In appreciation: 50 years of Barney Miller

By Gary Bennett

This article appears in the April 3, 2025, issue of Frederick News-Post’s “72 Hours” entertainment insert.

Before there was Barney the dinosaur, there was Barney Miller. (Of course, before that came the undisputed Barney champion of all time, Barney Fife.)

Being the second or third best of anything is not too bad, but the case can be made that “Barney Miller”, a smartly written police comedy from the 1970s and ’80s, was one of the best TV shows ever.

TV Guide sure thinks so. In 2013, it ranked “Barney Miller” No. 46 on its list of the top 60 TV shows of all time. That may not sound like much, but consider that by 2013, over 10,000 TV shows had aired on broadcast or cable TV since the 1940s.

“Barney Miller” premiered on ABC on Tuesday evening, Jan. 23, 1975. It stayed there for eight years, often preceded by another big ABC hit, “Happy Days.” The titular character of the show, Captain “Barney Miller,” was played superbly by handsome, 40-something, ‘70s ‘stache-sporting Broadway actor Hal Linden. He professionally and calmly led a motley bunch of police detectives in the “old one-two” — the 12th Police Precinct in New York City.

The show was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker. Noam Pitlik directed most episodes. “Barney Miller” was never canceled. The producers voluntarily ended production on May 20, 1982, fearing they may begin to repeat story lines. It was never what you might call a smash hit. It was more like comfortable sweatpants you looked forward to slipping on once each week.

Hal Linden

The entire series is available for purchase on DVD, and you can even catch two episodes every week night at 9 p.m. on Antenna TV.

“Barney Miller” takes place almost entirely within the confines of the detectives’ squad room and Captain Barney Miller’s adjoining office. Most of the police action happens off-screen. This was the same strategy employed by contemporary sitcom “All in the Family” that took place almost completely within the Bunker’s Queens living room.

The familiar old precinct setting, complete with clutter and grime that seemed immovable over the years, allowed viewers to focus completely on the interplay of the characters — both the starring detectives and guest starring complainants and suspects — to superb effect.

A typical episode featured the detectives of the 12th Precinct bringing in several oddball complainants or suspects to the squad room. Usually, there were two or three separate subplots in each episode, with different officers dealing with different crimes and suspects. Many of the laughs came from the seen-it-all detectives and their handling of the weirdo interlopers.

Captain Miller (Linden) tries to remain sane while leading the 12th Precinct’s detectives. And what a crew they were. This was one of television’s first great ensemble casts.

The cast was led by crotchety, world-weary, Jewish-American Philip K. Fish (played by Abe Vigoda of “The Godfather” fame); naive, excitable but goodhearted Polish-American Stanley “Wojo” Wojciehowicz (played by Max Gail); ambitious, intellectual and slightly arrogant African-American Ron Harris (played by Ron Glass); wisecracking, gambling, poor coffee-making Japanese-American Nick Yemana (played by Jack Soo); and beleaguered Puerto Rican Chano Amanguale (played by Gregory Sierra).

Abe Vigoda

Miller also had to deal with his winking, glad-handing, past his prime, unapologetically old-school superior, Inspector Frank Luger (played wonderfully by character actor James Gregory), and diminutive and toadying uniformed officer Carl Levitt (played by Ron Carey), who constantly badgers Miller about being promoted to detective. Chano and Fish were replaced by intellectual Arthur Dietrich (played by deadpan comedian Steve Landesberg) in season three.

Some typical conflicts and long-running plot lines included Miller’s constant efforts to maintain peace, order and discipline; Harris’ preoccupation with outside interests, especially his novel that he wrote while on the job (“Blood on the Badge”); Fish’s age-related incontinence issues and reluctance to retire; Wojo’s impulsive behavior; Luger’s nostalgia for the old days; Levitt’s eventually successful quest to become a detective; the rivalry between the precinct’s intellectuals, Harris and Dietrich; and reliably bad coffee made by Yemana.

Like many sitcoms, “Barney Miller” took a while to get established and find its bearings. The first season focused much of the time on Barney’s private life at home with wife Liz (played by Barbara Barrie). The show runners soon realized the laughs came from within the precinct and wrote Liz out of the show. Rarely after that did we get a glimpse into any of the detectives’ private lives.

One of my favorite episodes, “Hash,” explored what would happen if the detectives unknowingly ate brownies laced with hashish while on the job. A great line from that episode was delivered when the still sober Captain Miller asked Harris where nearly retired and slow-moving Fish was. Harris slurred, “Last time I saw him, Barn, he was jumping between buildings running down a perp.”

Another favorite was the fifth-season finale “Jack Soo: A Retrospective,” which paid tribute to the late comic actor who was felled by cancer earlier that year. In this episode, the cast, led by Linden, appeared as themselves in the 12th Precinct office as they fondly shared stories and remembrances of their dear friend. At the end of the episode, the cast raised their coffee cups in loving memory of Soo.

Decades after it left the air, “Barney Miller” retains a devoted following including real-life police officers, who appreciate the show’s emphasis on dialogue, believably quirky characters, and its low-key portrayal of cops going about their sometimes-mundane jobs. “Barney Miller” is very possibly the most realistic cop show TV has ever seen.

Inexplicably, none of the actors ever won an Emmy Award (there were many nominations for Linden, Glass and Landesberg), but the show itself was honored many times with writing and directing awards. In its final season of 1982, “Barney Miller” finally won the Emmy for best comedy series after six previous nominations.

Linden (94) and Gail (82) are still alive and fondly remember their time on the show. Linden has told interviewers that he is still occasionally called “Captain” by respectful, working police officers. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else in that role now, but Linden let on recently that only a scheduling conflict prevented Daren McGavin from taking the role.

To this day, “Barney Miller” remains an influential TV show, noted for its ability to tackle tough, timely issues in a lighthearted way.

Maxwell Gail

Gary Bennett is a longtime Frederick resident who spends his time hiking, biking, volunteering and providing childcare for grandchildren. He is married and retired from his career as a nonprofit marketing executive.

Live from New York, it’s 50 years!

By Gary Bennett

Saturday Night Night Main Stage, Rockefeller Center, New York

This article appears in the Fredrick News-Post’s February 6, 2025, “72 Hours” entertainment insert.

It’s difficult to overstate the cultural significance of Saturday Night Live. It may not seem so today, but the show literally changed the way young people approached Saturday nights in the 1970s.

Saturday Night Live will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025 with a three-hour prime time special on NBC on Feb. 16. As of this writing, a host has not been named, but one thing is certain, the show will be chock full of hilarious clips from its 50-year reign.

Much about Saturday Night Live, especially the early years, has passed into legend. But when the show hit the airwaves in October 1975, no one knew what to expect. A young writer named Lorne Michaels talked NBC executives into taking a chance on a live, late-night, weekend comedy show. This had not been tried before.

He wanted nothing less than to redefine comedy the way the Beatles, 10 years earlier, had redefined pop music. “That required not pandering, and it also required removing neediness, the need to please,” Michaels says in the book “Live from New York” by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller. “We were only going to please those people who are like us, and that’s what we did.”

The show aired at 11:30 on Saturday night. If you were a college student at that time, like I was, 11:30 was prime time for parties, drinking, dancing and blowing off steam. Many of us didn’t even head out until that time. Once word got around that you had to see this new show, it didn’t take long for us to adjust our loose schedules accordingly. NBC banked that we would do both — stay in to watch the show but still go out before, after or both — and we did.

The Magnificent Seven, 1975

A little known fact is that Johnny Carson is largely responsible for the airing of Saturday Night Live. Carson ruled late-night TV during the week. By 1975, he had had enough of NBC airing his reruns on Saturday night; he wanted to use the reruns himself during the week so he could take more time off. NBC had the option of returning this weekend time to the local affiliates, and thereby giving up a chunk of ad revenue, or trying to fill the time with other programming.

It was no surprise when word went out from NBC executives to develop a late-night weekend show. Had the powerful Carson never made this demand, it’s quite possible there would never have been a Saturday Night Live. After all, Carson did not retire until 1992.

The man NBC took a chance on, 30-year-old Lorne Michaels, gave them much more than I’m sure they bargained for: an adventurous, topical, satire series with a live studio audience that, had executives and advertisers known of its content in advance, might never have seen the light of day.

Michaels wanted the show to be the first one in the history of television to talk the same language being talked on college campuses, streets and everywhere else young people gathered. In this, he succeeded wildly.

The show was originally called NBC’s Saturday Night. It was the first show the television generation — baby boomers, as we are now called — could call their own. It was unlike anything else on the air, and it would be years before rivals even tried to imitate it. It was new, unusual, surprising and boy, did it make us laugh. It had the proverbial inmates running the asylum, and it showed.

The show made stars of unknowns and superstars of stars. The brash young players that comprised the Not Ready for Prime Time Players in those first few seasons are now household names. Belushi, Chase, Aykroyd, Radner, Murray, Murphy, Piscopo and more delighted in trashing TV taboos.

Many of these would-be stars wanted no part of TV but took on the gig anyway because they could look down on even the most successful prime-time show — because their show was different. It was one of a kind. It made fun of television. John Belushi made his feelings about television known at the time by famously saying, “My television has spit all over it.”

And who in the boomer generation can forget the Coneheads, Mad Samurai, Nick the Lounge Singer, Fred Garvin (Male Prostitute), the Wild and Crazy Guys, Killer Bees, Blues Brothers, Roseanne Roseannadanna, Wayne and Garth, Mr. Bill, Fernando, Hans and Franz, Lisa Loopner and Todd, The Church Lady, Pete Schweddy and the Greek deli owner selling “chee-burger, chee-burger, and Petsie.”

The very first show featured a “cold opening” that portended of things to come. Belushi appeared as a semi-literate immigrant dutifully keeling over with a heart attack because his English teacher suddenly dies of one. With that, Chevy Chase, as stage manager with clipboard in hand, looks in at the dead bodies and flashes that fake Hollywood smile and says, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” Then cue the saxophone-infused music. Those words from Chase, the music and the accompanying scenes from New York’s shady underbelly had an exciting feel to them. We were hooked.

Another instant hit from the early shows was Chase as the bumbling but cooler-than-you newscaster for Weekend Update, an absurdist view of the goings-on in Washington and around the country. The segment was so topical and up-to-date that writers tell stories of being under Chase’s desk live on air handing notes up to him.

His goofy but sincere opening line of the newscast — “Good evening. I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not” — became a national catchphrase that even President Ford used. Because of this segment and the stage manager schtick when opening the show, Chase became the first breakout star, leaving after only one season to act in movies.

He was replaced by none other than Bill Murray in season two. The show barely skipped a beat. In short order, Belushi and Dan Aykroyd became major stars, too.

Feuds, fights and romances among staff members were in the paper seemingly every week. Boozy after-parties were legendary. Sex and drugs were rampant backstage. Network executives tended to steer clear of the 17th floor, where the show was written and performed, not wishing to be enmeshed in marijuana smoke and other strange aromas that would be hard to explain. Better to not know.

By the beginning of the second season, Saturday Night Live was the talk of television, a national phenomenon.

Even the performers who joined the cast later are legendary in their own right: Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, Chris Rock, Darrell Hammond, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon, Tracy Morgan, Amy Poehler … the list goes on and on. Big stars like Hanks, Martin, Baldwin and Timberlake fell all over themselves wanting to host.

For better or worse, Saturday Night Live lives on as a testament to what you can accomplish if you really believe in something — and “don’t give a flying f— if it fails,” as Chase put it in 1975, when a reporter asked him how the show succeeded.

Gary Bennett is a longtime Frederick resident who spends his time hiking, biking, volunteering and providing childcare for grandchildren. He is married and retired from his career as a nonprofit marketing executive.