JAlanRuss72
01-16-2010, 11:33 PM
=====================BARNEY MILLER====================
That man robbed me! Robbed me! I had revenge in my heart! Revenge! Revenge is sweet . . . but I'm trying to cut down . . .
----an irate New Yorker running into the precinct station
When Barney Miller premiered on ABC as a midseason replacement, like a bad marriage it was given six months. Tops. The diagnosis was terminal. The prognosis was a quick mercy-killing.
But Barney Miller----like the spritely group of police detectives who inhabited the 12th Precinct in Greenwich Village---stuck it out.
Justice triumphed, and Barney Miller not only pole vaulted to the top of the ratings, but kicked up a slew of awards on the way, including an honorary membership award to the cast from the New York City Police Department, a "Barney Miller Week" in Los Angeles, and a Congressional tribute. And it was only twelve years before that the same police departments were screaming about the bimbos portraying New York City policemen on Car 54, Where Are You?
Well, Barney's police didn't have cars. In fact, they didn't even have uniforms; they were plainclothes policemen and policewomen, who weren't that much different from the people they picked up. Said star Hal Linden: "There are no dumb cops in this series. Our relationship with one another will be warm and real. Barney miller knows there are forces that cast people on one side of the desk or the other. So he does his job as effectively as possible."
And so each week, Barney and his crew would drag in at least three loonies per episode (there seemed to be a quota). The wide assortment of public (and private) offenders who marched through the station included men who snatched purses, men who carried purses, hookers, bookies, crooks and conmen, outlaws, in-laws, men who were bombed, men who carried bombs, muggers, sluggers, buggers, pushers, obscene callers . . .
VISITOR: You guys must have a lot of fun around here . . .
DIETRICH: We manage to have a laugh or two at humanity's expense.
Like the WJM newsroom, like the M*A*S*H operating room, like Taxi's garage, the detectives' squad room was yet another sitcom microcosm of what television executives seemed to think might be the Real World. Actually, in Barney's case, they weren't too far off. But they were smart and went one step beyond: rather than simply make the criminals the crazies, they made the detectives themselves a little loony too. Not incompetent. Just a little off. Not like Toody and Muldoon of Car 54, not like Bilko's brigade, not like Maxwell Smart. Just a little neurotic. Some examples: Detective Wojohowicz---the token "Pole"---was naive, trusting, and often said the wrong thing. He continually fell in love with the hookers he picked up for soliciting. Harris---the token black---was the erudite literate detective who was always working on a novel (until he finished it, that is, and it became successful). Fish---the token Jew---was continually complaining about everything from the toilet in the station house to his wife, Bernice. Yemana---the token Oriental---was constantly making coffee, bets, and wisecracks. The police upstairs didn't like him because they thought Orientals ruined the look of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Dietrich---the token German American---was a closet psychologist and was always coming up with a psychiatric diagnosis for everything.
Quite a crew. And quite an ethic mix (there was also a token Puerto Rican named Chano, a token WASP, and so on---the show was both praised and damned for its tokens). But at the helm stands Barney Miller, their humane and humorous captain. In his white shirt and tie, Barney is always there---a little exasperated at times, but always sensitive and kind, and generous about the foibles of his crew.
On most sitcoms you could show a sample day; on Barney Miller you can show a sample night. The graveyard shift, which the detectives are often sentenced to, is a good indication of life in the precinct office.
First, a woman comes in. She's an out-of-towner, and her luggage has been stolen at knifepoint in front of her hotel. "You know," she says, looking through the police dossier of photos, "I watched all those 'I Love New York' commercials back in Youngstown---with all the Broadway actors singing and dancing---they're so exciting and colorful. But they never mention the people with knives." Responds Harris: "Well, they only have about a minute."
In the meantime, the phone rings. Someone's calling in a bomb threat---right in the station. Everyone evacuates. They come back later, realizing it was a false alarm.
Just then a man is dragged in. He'd been caught stealing sleeping pills from a drugstore. Why? Because, he claims, every night he is plagued by a female demon who creates sexual havoc in his sleep. "I've considered going to a sex therapist," he says, "but she won't go."
As if things weren't complicated enough, Inspector Luger----in hat and bow tie---comes in to chat. He has nothing better to do, and wants to talk to Barney, who doesn't want to be bothered. Luger's a pest.
Then: Another bomb threat ("That last one was a test one"). They trace the call and find out it's a fellow named Leon who lives right next door to the station. When they haul him in, he is still dressed in his pajamas and robe. Why did he do it?
LEON: All day long---hookers and deviates in front of my apartment. All night long---sirens howling, people screaming, shouting. It's like a wild party. And all you people are always in a hurry in your squad cars, shooting down the street at sixty or seventy miles an hour. You killed three of my cats!!!
BARNEY: Just what is it you were trying to accomplish with this bomb threat?
LEON: I thought you'd move.
BARNEY: It's the only neighborhood we can afford.
LEON: When I moved here fifteen years ago, I thought: beautiful, live right next to the police station, rest easy, feel secure. I've been robbed seven times---and it took you people twenty minutes to come over---and I live next door to the police station, for God's sake!
They lock him up in the same cell with the guy and his "lady demon". Finally, the out-of-town woman finds her photo and gets ready to leave.
BARNEY: I'm sure getting robbed at knifepoint and spending half the night up here wasn't exactly what you had in mind when you decided to visit New York.
LADY: Well . . . it was better than seeing Annie.
End of a long night on the graveyard shift. End of the episode.
Somehow Barney Miller managed not to be silly. Although it dealt in humor---some of which was pretty heavyhanded (such as when the gay purse-snatcher said, "Kleptomania is a disease, not a crime. I've thrown away better purses than this"), Barney Miller always had respect for itself. Just as M*A*S*H knew that the army could be stupid, Barney Miller knew that the American judicial system was far from fair. Once a prisoner, whose sentence was being decided in Barney's office by his probation officer and Barney, asked: "How long are they going to be in there?" Responded Dietrich: "Discussing procedures doesn't usually take too long, but deciding the fate of a human being---give them a couple of minutes."
When a man wanted to prosecute a woman he claimed had supernatural powers and had put a curse on him, one of the detectives told him that "She could do a lot more punishment with her powers than New York City could do with its."
And of course, there were lots of other loonies. Once a man is caught embezzling a half-million dollars from his securities company.
HIS BOSS: Have you no remorse?
EMBEZZLER: No---just the half-million.
His boss, however, doesn't want to prosecute because he knows the publicity will hurt the company. So he tells the employee that if he gives back the money and submits his resignation, he won't press charges. Knowing he's got him, the embezzler holds out and demands a substantial raise, a new title, a big office, and the right to call his boss by his first name.
Often the detectives weren't much brighter than their prey. Consider this phone call, in which Detective Wojohowicz---a.k.a. Wojo---is talking on the phone to a police officer: "Harris and Dietrich were shot at?! Are they all right? Okay, so they were checking out a disturbance---who cares! Are they all right? They are. Well, why didn't you say that in the first place? Well, think a minute---that shoulda been the first words out of your mouth."
Barney enters.
BARNEY: What's going on?
WOJO: Harris and Dietrich were shot at.
BARNEY: Are they alright?!
WOJO: They were checking out a disturbance-
BARNEY: WOJO!!!!
WOJO: Yeah, they're fine. No reason to get all upset, Barn.
Barney Miller was all about trouble---the Human Condition, as it was often called by the social scientists. And Barney Miller, for a while, had nothing but trouble.
First, ABC---having pitted it against The unbeatable Waltons---wanted to knock it off the air. They hadn't been happy about casting Broadway musical actor Hal Linden as the squad-room captain in the first place, and in the second place there were no major stars and all these minorities and . . .
But the producer, Danny Arnold, begged ABC to cool it for a while and wait for the nation to get used to Barney and the other characters. It wasn't a long wait. Apparently the TV intelligentsia---those people who watched Masterpiece Theater and M*A*S*H, Agronsky & Company, and Mary Tyler Moore---took up the calling and turned in to Barney Miller for comic relief. Even New Yorkers, living in Miller's Manhattan, who got a busy signal when they dialed 911 and to whom muggings were often a monthly occurrence, tuned in in order to tune out. Said one manhattanite: "Watching Barney Miller in the middle of the police chaos and cutbacks here didn't give me more sympathy for the cops. But it made me laugh at---and with---them, which helped relieve some of my anxiety. Made me realize that the cops aren't better off or better protected than the rest of us out here."
Ironically, the police on Barney Miller were themselves constantly policed---by network censors. First, the show, like many others of its era, was the casualty of an "innovation" called the "Family Viewing Hour," which was really the first two hours of prime time TV. In 1975, the National Association of Broadcasters deemed that nothing "inappropriate for viewing by general family audiences" could be on the air. That meant that Barney Miller---which dealt with everything from prostitution to constipation, from indecent exposure to assorted perversions---was in big trouble. And yet, somehow the show managed to get away with a lot. How did they do it? Said Hal Linden: "We fought to get away with those subjects. Tremendous concession had to be made on lines and situations. For example, a show that we did about two homosexuals got on the air only because the gay community put pressure on the network. What the network was saying in effect was that a homosexual was not fit viewing for The Family Hour, and they were forced to backtrack from totally eliminating the subject."
Also, at that time, ABC was prudish about language, and words like "damn" and "hell" weren't permitted on that network (although they were used on NBC and CBS) because they were supposedly "religious." Said Barney's producer: "How can you have a policeman in an urban area say, 'What the heck was that?' and 'Darn you'? But it wasn't just words, it was themes. In 1974, Wojo fell in love with a prostitute, and the network went crazy. In 1976, though, Barney Miller was able to win a battle with network censors over a hooker who was selling Bicentennial buttons as a ploy for $75. The network wanted her to sell them for $1.25, which, of course, would have killed the joke. Another time, the network didn't want the word "diarrhea" used on the show.
Said Linden: "We've had to change scripts and film scenes over again, and sometimes, when we think we've got everything letter perfect, word comes down that we have to make more changes. It's hard to believe, but we lost a station in Omaha because we had a hooker as a character one week. What did they want---a librarian?"
But eventually times changed---including the Family Viewing Hour (apparently they realized that what goes on in real families is much worse than what goes on in television), and Barney Miller was able to go on with its business: comedy.
WOJO: Another outburst like this and I'm gonna handcuff your lips together.
* * * * * *
HARRIS: I don't care if you have psychotic episodes---but for God's sake, don't whine about it!
* * * * * * *
WOMAN: That man took my shoe. Have I been violated?
HARRIS: Metaphorically, yes.
The man behind Barney Miller was Danny Arnold (and in many ways Barney Miller was more Danny Arnold than Barney Miller). Arnold, the dynamo executive-producer, had lived on New York's Lower East Side before coming to Hollywood in the fifties. "Compromise is a disease" was his motto. He had a pal back in New York named Barney Ruditsky, and that's where Barney got his name. Plus, Arnold had once been arrested (a film crew of his was throwing pennies for some reason), and he was hauled into the station. He modeled Barney's squad room after that one, and each of the characters on Barney Miller was really a part of Danny Arnold.
Said one associate: "Barney himself was Danny's ideal---the compassionate, understanding supercop. With the Yemana character, it was Danny's love for horses---he owns more than twenty. With Harris, it was Danny's sense of the luxurious--the clothes, the Rolls Corniche worth over eighty thousand dollars. Chano was Danny the street kid. Fish's wife, Bernice, was really Danny's wife, Donna. Fish always complained about Bernice, but he couldn't do without her. Danny's the same way."
Barney Miller was written and filmed much differently from most other sitcoms---not in terms of technique, but the behind-the-scenes scenario. Arnold would write most of the scripts (and heavily rewrite the rest). He was involved in every aspect of the show, and, in 1979, after running himself ragged, ended up in the hospital for quadruple-bypass surgery (another master-builder of sitcoms, Nat Hiken, was totally involved in his cop show---Car 54, Where Are You?---and also had to slow down for health reasons; he too was fearful of a heart attack). Anyway, on most sitcoms, the cast has the weekend to look at the script before Monday's rehearsal; Barney's cast was lucky to get the script on Monday morning. Plus, while most half-hour sitcoms tape their shows within four hours, Barney's sessions were like marathon tapings---they'd begin at 8 A.M. on a Friday and continue on until about 6 A.M. the next day. "What is this---Gone With the Wind?" asked one crew member.
Said Arnold: "The actors never knew how the show was going to end, or even what the next scene would be. While this terrified them, to a certain extent it was stimulating as hell. It kept their interest alive to the last second. It also never produced any sense of familiarity with what had happened in the past. They'd see these shows and couldn't remember half the things they did."
Of course, all that "familiarity" created some problems. Twenty writers and ten directors came and went. Plus, as production costs rocketed, Arnold's finances swept toward bankruptcy and the network had to bail him out. And, finally, the cast began complaining that they were working too hard.
The first cast casualty was Abe Vigoda, who'd played the favorite, Phil Fish. The crusty, broken-down Fish didn't verbalize much, but kept his anger hidden inside. He could show his frustration but couldn't bring it out enough to fight.
Vigoda had been in show business for twenty-five years and had appeared in eighty plays. But it was his role as ruthless Mafia leader Tessio in the Godfather (a role much unlike Fish) that brought him recognition. And Vigoda wanted more recognition on Barney Miller. He even told Arnold that he'd like the show's title changed to Fish and Barney (not even Barney and Fish). In June of 1977, a rift developed when for the second season in a row Vigoda's agent booked him into another project that delayed Barney's shooting. Arnold insisted that Abe come to work. Abe sued. Arnold countersued. But by the time Vigoda returned to the set---just to be careful, they'd written in a new character, Arthur Dietrich (who could, they figured, be Fish's replacement if Vigoda didn't come back). But both actors stayed in the cast---until Vigoda was spun off into his own series---Fish---something he and the network had wanted. When Fish flopped, Vigoda wanted back in. Arnold thought he asked for too much money. The answer was no.
Another regular, Greg Sierra (who played Chano Amenguale) left the show for his own series, AES Hudson Street, which might be considered one of the Great TV Flops (if there hadn't been so many other Great TV Flops in the late seventies). Instead of replacing Sierra, they simply enlarged Ron Carey's role as Carl Levitt, a nebbish, a bumbling uniformed uninformed policeman who longed to be a plainclothes detective (although his clothes were always tacky; he constantly apologized for the way he looked).
Next to producer Arnold, it was star Hal Linden who made Marney Miller Barney Miller. Linden started life in New York as Harold Lip****z, but changed it while driving through Linden, New Jersey (point of interest: shortly thereafter, Al's older brother Bernard changed his name to Linden too). For business purposes.
And Linden had a lot of business. He started out playing saxophone in big bands and after serving in Korea, he turned to acting "because I got tired of carrying around a sax." By 1958, he was getting featured roles on Broadway, including parts in Wildcat (with Lucille Ball), On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Subways are for Sleeping, and The Rothschilds, for which he won a Tony. Linden, for all his success, was feeling trapped by Broadway musicals and thought that TV might change his image. He made two unsuccessful pilots---Mr. Inside, Mr. Outside, and another that was a spoof on Peyton Place, which went off the air before the spoof could get on. Then he met Barney.
In the pilot episode (which was part of a 1974 ABC summer anthology called Just for Laughs), the show revolved around not only Barney's precinct problems, but his problems at home. He had a wife, Elizabeth (portrayed by Abby Dalton), and two kids. When the sitcom made it to the big time (prime time) the next year, the family (with Barbara Barrie as Elizabeth this time around) played a smaller part---soon to get even smaller when the couple seperated and the emphasis totally shifted away from domestic comedy to situation comedy (although Barney and Elizabeth got back together during the 1978-1979 season---not in person, as far as we were concerned---but on the phone, which was enough. We wanted Barney to stay a cop, not become Robert Young).
Another firm foundation upon which Barney Miller was built was Jack Soo, who had appeared for one season in Valentine's Day, the Tony Franciosa sitcom in which Soo played Rockwell "Rocky" Sin, Valentine Farrow's con-man, poker-playing valet. Said Soo: "I've quit this business a hundred times, and as soon as I do, the phone rings. Maybe it's because I am, seriously, one of a kind in this industry. that's not braggadocio; there's no one of my race who's doing what I do---making people laugh without using either dirty or heavily ethnic routines."
As Nick Yemana, Soo was the senior member of the squad room (after Fish left), and he would sit around and comment on the goings-on with his swift one-liners. On January 11, 1979, after a long illness, Soo died of cancer. Said Steve Landesberg (Dietrich): "Jack was always making jokes, no self-pity. One of the last things he said to me was, 'Enjoy your time.'" After Soo's death, when it was time to reshoot the group photo for PR purposes, producer Arnold said No Way. "Nothing goes out without Jack. Use the old shots," he insisted. (The following year, though, they did take new group photos.)
What about replacing Soo? "It's pretty late to add new people," said Arnold. "I think we're heading down the road to that final sunset." Translated: Barney Miller was about to retire. The 1979-1980 season would be his last---the actors' contracts were up then and they wanted to do other things. But it wasn't an unhappy ending: when the show went into syndication, it was expected to make at least $400 million. Not bad for a show that nearly went bankrupt.
One of the worries about Barney Miller at the beginning was that it was "too New York," that the rest of America wouldn't relate to it. As it became successful, there were worries that it couldn't possibly appeal to anyone outside of the US. But in January, there was an announcement that Barney Miller was being transferred (and translated) to Israel. Seems that some Israeli students there were making a version in Hebrew for Israeli TV. With a few changes, of course: instead of Yemana, there'd be Yeheil the Yemenite. There'd be no more ever-present cups of coffee but, instead, tiny cups of muddy Turkish brew. Harris would be replaced by Motti, whose heart's still back on the kibbutz. Fish would still be there, but instead of being sixty-five years old, he'd be nearly ninety.
But back to English: Barney Miller didn't make any great inroads in terms of understanding the real plights of detectives in a big, bad city (the way, for example, M*A*S*H showed us the underside of a big, bad war). It didn't make any headway in terms of language or permissiveness on television (Archie Bunker had already taken care of that four years before). And it didn't really tell us much more about life in the precinct station any more than Mary Tyler Moore showed us a true picture of life in the TV newsroom. What Barney Miller did do, though, was make us laugh. But in contrast to its peers Happy Days down the block and Chico and the Man down the dial, Barney Miller had more respect for its characters. It had respect for us, its audience. Barney Miller was the logical conclusion to a very illogical entertainment form: the TV sitcom.
DIETRICH: You could point to every item in the Sears catalog and somebody, somewhere, wants to sleep with it.
That man robbed me! Robbed me! I had revenge in my heart! Revenge! Revenge is sweet . . . but I'm trying to cut down . . .
----an irate New Yorker running into the precinct station
When Barney Miller premiered on ABC as a midseason replacement, like a bad marriage it was given six months. Tops. The diagnosis was terminal. The prognosis was a quick mercy-killing.
But Barney Miller----like the spritely group of police detectives who inhabited the 12th Precinct in Greenwich Village---stuck it out.
Justice triumphed, and Barney Miller not only pole vaulted to the top of the ratings, but kicked up a slew of awards on the way, including an honorary membership award to the cast from the New York City Police Department, a "Barney Miller Week" in Los Angeles, and a Congressional tribute. And it was only twelve years before that the same police departments were screaming about the bimbos portraying New York City policemen on Car 54, Where Are You?
Well, Barney's police didn't have cars. In fact, they didn't even have uniforms; they were plainclothes policemen and policewomen, who weren't that much different from the people they picked up. Said star Hal Linden: "There are no dumb cops in this series. Our relationship with one another will be warm and real. Barney miller knows there are forces that cast people on one side of the desk or the other. So he does his job as effectively as possible."
And so each week, Barney and his crew would drag in at least three loonies per episode (there seemed to be a quota). The wide assortment of public (and private) offenders who marched through the station included men who snatched purses, men who carried purses, hookers, bookies, crooks and conmen, outlaws, in-laws, men who were bombed, men who carried bombs, muggers, sluggers, buggers, pushers, obscene callers . . .
VISITOR: You guys must have a lot of fun around here . . .
DIETRICH: We manage to have a laugh or two at humanity's expense.
Like the WJM newsroom, like the M*A*S*H operating room, like Taxi's garage, the detectives' squad room was yet another sitcom microcosm of what television executives seemed to think might be the Real World. Actually, in Barney's case, they weren't too far off. But they were smart and went one step beyond: rather than simply make the criminals the crazies, they made the detectives themselves a little loony too. Not incompetent. Just a little off. Not like Toody and Muldoon of Car 54, not like Bilko's brigade, not like Maxwell Smart. Just a little neurotic. Some examples: Detective Wojohowicz---the token "Pole"---was naive, trusting, and often said the wrong thing. He continually fell in love with the hookers he picked up for soliciting. Harris---the token black---was the erudite literate detective who was always working on a novel (until he finished it, that is, and it became successful). Fish---the token Jew---was continually complaining about everything from the toilet in the station house to his wife, Bernice. Yemana---the token Oriental---was constantly making coffee, bets, and wisecracks. The police upstairs didn't like him because they thought Orientals ruined the look of the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Dietrich---the token German American---was a closet psychologist and was always coming up with a psychiatric diagnosis for everything.
Quite a crew. And quite an ethic mix (there was also a token Puerto Rican named Chano, a token WASP, and so on---the show was both praised and damned for its tokens). But at the helm stands Barney Miller, their humane and humorous captain. In his white shirt and tie, Barney is always there---a little exasperated at times, but always sensitive and kind, and generous about the foibles of his crew.
On most sitcoms you could show a sample day; on Barney Miller you can show a sample night. The graveyard shift, which the detectives are often sentenced to, is a good indication of life in the precinct office.
First, a woman comes in. She's an out-of-towner, and her luggage has been stolen at knifepoint in front of her hotel. "You know," she says, looking through the police dossier of photos, "I watched all those 'I Love New York' commercials back in Youngstown---with all the Broadway actors singing and dancing---they're so exciting and colorful. But they never mention the people with knives." Responds Harris: "Well, they only have about a minute."
In the meantime, the phone rings. Someone's calling in a bomb threat---right in the station. Everyone evacuates. They come back later, realizing it was a false alarm.
Just then a man is dragged in. He'd been caught stealing sleeping pills from a drugstore. Why? Because, he claims, every night he is plagued by a female demon who creates sexual havoc in his sleep. "I've considered going to a sex therapist," he says, "but she won't go."
As if things weren't complicated enough, Inspector Luger----in hat and bow tie---comes in to chat. He has nothing better to do, and wants to talk to Barney, who doesn't want to be bothered. Luger's a pest.
Then: Another bomb threat ("That last one was a test one"). They trace the call and find out it's a fellow named Leon who lives right next door to the station. When they haul him in, he is still dressed in his pajamas and robe. Why did he do it?
LEON: All day long---hookers and deviates in front of my apartment. All night long---sirens howling, people screaming, shouting. It's like a wild party. And all you people are always in a hurry in your squad cars, shooting down the street at sixty or seventy miles an hour. You killed three of my cats!!!
BARNEY: Just what is it you were trying to accomplish with this bomb threat?
LEON: I thought you'd move.
BARNEY: It's the only neighborhood we can afford.
LEON: When I moved here fifteen years ago, I thought: beautiful, live right next to the police station, rest easy, feel secure. I've been robbed seven times---and it took you people twenty minutes to come over---and I live next door to the police station, for God's sake!
They lock him up in the same cell with the guy and his "lady demon". Finally, the out-of-town woman finds her photo and gets ready to leave.
BARNEY: I'm sure getting robbed at knifepoint and spending half the night up here wasn't exactly what you had in mind when you decided to visit New York.
LADY: Well . . . it was better than seeing Annie.
End of a long night on the graveyard shift. End of the episode.
Somehow Barney Miller managed not to be silly. Although it dealt in humor---some of which was pretty heavyhanded (such as when the gay purse-snatcher said, "Kleptomania is a disease, not a crime. I've thrown away better purses than this"), Barney Miller always had respect for itself. Just as M*A*S*H knew that the army could be stupid, Barney Miller knew that the American judicial system was far from fair. Once a prisoner, whose sentence was being decided in Barney's office by his probation officer and Barney, asked: "How long are they going to be in there?" Responded Dietrich: "Discussing procedures doesn't usually take too long, but deciding the fate of a human being---give them a couple of minutes."
When a man wanted to prosecute a woman he claimed had supernatural powers and had put a curse on him, one of the detectives told him that "She could do a lot more punishment with her powers than New York City could do with its."
And of course, there were lots of other loonies. Once a man is caught embezzling a half-million dollars from his securities company.
HIS BOSS: Have you no remorse?
EMBEZZLER: No---just the half-million.
His boss, however, doesn't want to prosecute because he knows the publicity will hurt the company. So he tells the employee that if he gives back the money and submits his resignation, he won't press charges. Knowing he's got him, the embezzler holds out and demands a substantial raise, a new title, a big office, and the right to call his boss by his first name.
Often the detectives weren't much brighter than their prey. Consider this phone call, in which Detective Wojohowicz---a.k.a. Wojo---is talking on the phone to a police officer: "Harris and Dietrich were shot at?! Are they all right? Okay, so they were checking out a disturbance---who cares! Are they all right? They are. Well, why didn't you say that in the first place? Well, think a minute---that shoulda been the first words out of your mouth."
Barney enters.
BARNEY: What's going on?
WOJO: Harris and Dietrich were shot at.
BARNEY: Are they alright?!
WOJO: They were checking out a disturbance-
BARNEY: WOJO!!!!
WOJO: Yeah, they're fine. No reason to get all upset, Barn.
Barney Miller was all about trouble---the Human Condition, as it was often called by the social scientists. And Barney Miller, for a while, had nothing but trouble.
First, ABC---having pitted it against The unbeatable Waltons---wanted to knock it off the air. They hadn't been happy about casting Broadway musical actor Hal Linden as the squad-room captain in the first place, and in the second place there were no major stars and all these minorities and . . .
But the producer, Danny Arnold, begged ABC to cool it for a while and wait for the nation to get used to Barney and the other characters. It wasn't a long wait. Apparently the TV intelligentsia---those people who watched Masterpiece Theater and M*A*S*H, Agronsky & Company, and Mary Tyler Moore---took up the calling and turned in to Barney Miller for comic relief. Even New Yorkers, living in Miller's Manhattan, who got a busy signal when they dialed 911 and to whom muggings were often a monthly occurrence, tuned in in order to tune out. Said one manhattanite: "Watching Barney Miller in the middle of the police chaos and cutbacks here didn't give me more sympathy for the cops. But it made me laugh at---and with---them, which helped relieve some of my anxiety. Made me realize that the cops aren't better off or better protected than the rest of us out here."
Ironically, the police on Barney Miller were themselves constantly policed---by network censors. First, the show, like many others of its era, was the casualty of an "innovation" called the "Family Viewing Hour," which was really the first two hours of prime time TV. In 1975, the National Association of Broadcasters deemed that nothing "inappropriate for viewing by general family audiences" could be on the air. That meant that Barney Miller---which dealt with everything from prostitution to constipation, from indecent exposure to assorted perversions---was in big trouble. And yet, somehow the show managed to get away with a lot. How did they do it? Said Hal Linden: "We fought to get away with those subjects. Tremendous concession had to be made on lines and situations. For example, a show that we did about two homosexuals got on the air only because the gay community put pressure on the network. What the network was saying in effect was that a homosexual was not fit viewing for The Family Hour, and they were forced to backtrack from totally eliminating the subject."
Also, at that time, ABC was prudish about language, and words like "damn" and "hell" weren't permitted on that network (although they were used on NBC and CBS) because they were supposedly "religious." Said Barney's producer: "How can you have a policeman in an urban area say, 'What the heck was that?' and 'Darn you'? But it wasn't just words, it was themes. In 1974, Wojo fell in love with a prostitute, and the network went crazy. In 1976, though, Barney Miller was able to win a battle with network censors over a hooker who was selling Bicentennial buttons as a ploy for $75. The network wanted her to sell them for $1.25, which, of course, would have killed the joke. Another time, the network didn't want the word "diarrhea" used on the show.
Said Linden: "We've had to change scripts and film scenes over again, and sometimes, when we think we've got everything letter perfect, word comes down that we have to make more changes. It's hard to believe, but we lost a station in Omaha because we had a hooker as a character one week. What did they want---a librarian?"
But eventually times changed---including the Family Viewing Hour (apparently they realized that what goes on in real families is much worse than what goes on in television), and Barney Miller was able to go on with its business: comedy.
WOJO: Another outburst like this and I'm gonna handcuff your lips together.
* * * * * *
HARRIS: I don't care if you have psychotic episodes---but for God's sake, don't whine about it!
* * * * * * *
WOMAN: That man took my shoe. Have I been violated?
HARRIS: Metaphorically, yes.
The man behind Barney Miller was Danny Arnold (and in many ways Barney Miller was more Danny Arnold than Barney Miller). Arnold, the dynamo executive-producer, had lived on New York's Lower East Side before coming to Hollywood in the fifties. "Compromise is a disease" was his motto. He had a pal back in New York named Barney Ruditsky, and that's where Barney got his name. Plus, Arnold had once been arrested (a film crew of his was throwing pennies for some reason), and he was hauled into the station. He modeled Barney's squad room after that one, and each of the characters on Barney Miller was really a part of Danny Arnold.
Said one associate: "Barney himself was Danny's ideal---the compassionate, understanding supercop. With the Yemana character, it was Danny's love for horses---he owns more than twenty. With Harris, it was Danny's sense of the luxurious--the clothes, the Rolls Corniche worth over eighty thousand dollars. Chano was Danny the street kid. Fish's wife, Bernice, was really Danny's wife, Donna. Fish always complained about Bernice, but he couldn't do without her. Danny's the same way."
Barney Miller was written and filmed much differently from most other sitcoms---not in terms of technique, but the behind-the-scenes scenario. Arnold would write most of the scripts (and heavily rewrite the rest). He was involved in every aspect of the show, and, in 1979, after running himself ragged, ended up in the hospital for quadruple-bypass surgery (another master-builder of sitcoms, Nat Hiken, was totally involved in his cop show---Car 54, Where Are You?---and also had to slow down for health reasons; he too was fearful of a heart attack). Anyway, on most sitcoms, the cast has the weekend to look at the script before Monday's rehearsal; Barney's cast was lucky to get the script on Monday morning. Plus, while most half-hour sitcoms tape their shows within four hours, Barney's sessions were like marathon tapings---they'd begin at 8 A.M. on a Friday and continue on until about 6 A.M. the next day. "What is this---Gone With the Wind?" asked one crew member.
Said Arnold: "The actors never knew how the show was going to end, or even what the next scene would be. While this terrified them, to a certain extent it was stimulating as hell. It kept their interest alive to the last second. It also never produced any sense of familiarity with what had happened in the past. They'd see these shows and couldn't remember half the things they did."
Of course, all that "familiarity" created some problems. Twenty writers and ten directors came and went. Plus, as production costs rocketed, Arnold's finances swept toward bankruptcy and the network had to bail him out. And, finally, the cast began complaining that they were working too hard.
The first cast casualty was Abe Vigoda, who'd played the favorite, Phil Fish. The crusty, broken-down Fish didn't verbalize much, but kept his anger hidden inside. He could show his frustration but couldn't bring it out enough to fight.
Vigoda had been in show business for twenty-five years and had appeared in eighty plays. But it was his role as ruthless Mafia leader Tessio in the Godfather (a role much unlike Fish) that brought him recognition. And Vigoda wanted more recognition on Barney Miller. He even told Arnold that he'd like the show's title changed to Fish and Barney (not even Barney and Fish). In June of 1977, a rift developed when for the second season in a row Vigoda's agent booked him into another project that delayed Barney's shooting. Arnold insisted that Abe come to work. Abe sued. Arnold countersued. But by the time Vigoda returned to the set---just to be careful, they'd written in a new character, Arthur Dietrich (who could, they figured, be Fish's replacement if Vigoda didn't come back). But both actors stayed in the cast---until Vigoda was spun off into his own series---Fish---something he and the network had wanted. When Fish flopped, Vigoda wanted back in. Arnold thought he asked for too much money. The answer was no.
Another regular, Greg Sierra (who played Chano Amenguale) left the show for his own series, AES Hudson Street, which might be considered one of the Great TV Flops (if there hadn't been so many other Great TV Flops in the late seventies). Instead of replacing Sierra, they simply enlarged Ron Carey's role as Carl Levitt, a nebbish, a bumbling uniformed uninformed policeman who longed to be a plainclothes detective (although his clothes were always tacky; he constantly apologized for the way he looked).
Next to producer Arnold, it was star Hal Linden who made Marney Miller Barney Miller. Linden started life in New York as Harold Lip****z, but changed it while driving through Linden, New Jersey (point of interest: shortly thereafter, Al's older brother Bernard changed his name to Linden too). For business purposes.
And Linden had a lot of business. He started out playing saxophone in big bands and after serving in Korea, he turned to acting "because I got tired of carrying around a sax." By 1958, he was getting featured roles on Broadway, including parts in Wildcat (with Lucille Ball), On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Subways are for Sleeping, and The Rothschilds, for which he won a Tony. Linden, for all his success, was feeling trapped by Broadway musicals and thought that TV might change his image. He made two unsuccessful pilots---Mr. Inside, Mr. Outside, and another that was a spoof on Peyton Place, which went off the air before the spoof could get on. Then he met Barney.
In the pilot episode (which was part of a 1974 ABC summer anthology called Just for Laughs), the show revolved around not only Barney's precinct problems, but his problems at home. He had a wife, Elizabeth (portrayed by Abby Dalton), and two kids. When the sitcom made it to the big time (prime time) the next year, the family (with Barbara Barrie as Elizabeth this time around) played a smaller part---soon to get even smaller when the couple seperated and the emphasis totally shifted away from domestic comedy to situation comedy (although Barney and Elizabeth got back together during the 1978-1979 season---not in person, as far as we were concerned---but on the phone, which was enough. We wanted Barney to stay a cop, not become Robert Young).
Another firm foundation upon which Barney Miller was built was Jack Soo, who had appeared for one season in Valentine's Day, the Tony Franciosa sitcom in which Soo played Rockwell "Rocky" Sin, Valentine Farrow's con-man, poker-playing valet. Said Soo: "I've quit this business a hundred times, and as soon as I do, the phone rings. Maybe it's because I am, seriously, one of a kind in this industry. that's not braggadocio; there's no one of my race who's doing what I do---making people laugh without using either dirty or heavily ethnic routines."
As Nick Yemana, Soo was the senior member of the squad room (after Fish left), and he would sit around and comment on the goings-on with his swift one-liners. On January 11, 1979, after a long illness, Soo died of cancer. Said Steve Landesberg (Dietrich): "Jack was always making jokes, no self-pity. One of the last things he said to me was, 'Enjoy your time.'" After Soo's death, when it was time to reshoot the group photo for PR purposes, producer Arnold said No Way. "Nothing goes out without Jack. Use the old shots," he insisted. (The following year, though, they did take new group photos.)
What about replacing Soo? "It's pretty late to add new people," said Arnold. "I think we're heading down the road to that final sunset." Translated: Barney Miller was about to retire. The 1979-1980 season would be his last---the actors' contracts were up then and they wanted to do other things. But it wasn't an unhappy ending: when the show went into syndication, it was expected to make at least $400 million. Not bad for a show that nearly went bankrupt.
One of the worries about Barney Miller at the beginning was that it was "too New York," that the rest of America wouldn't relate to it. As it became successful, there were worries that it couldn't possibly appeal to anyone outside of the US. But in January, there was an announcement that Barney Miller was being transferred (and translated) to Israel. Seems that some Israeli students there were making a version in Hebrew for Israeli TV. With a few changes, of course: instead of Yemana, there'd be Yeheil the Yemenite. There'd be no more ever-present cups of coffee but, instead, tiny cups of muddy Turkish brew. Harris would be replaced by Motti, whose heart's still back on the kibbutz. Fish would still be there, but instead of being sixty-five years old, he'd be nearly ninety.
But back to English: Barney Miller didn't make any great inroads in terms of understanding the real plights of detectives in a big, bad city (the way, for example, M*A*S*H showed us the underside of a big, bad war). It didn't make any headway in terms of language or permissiveness on television (Archie Bunker had already taken care of that four years before). And it didn't really tell us much more about life in the precinct station any more than Mary Tyler Moore showed us a true picture of life in the TV newsroom. What Barney Miller did do, though, was make us laugh. But in contrast to its peers Happy Days down the block and Chico and the Man down the dial, Barney Miller had more respect for its characters. It had respect for us, its audience. Barney Miller was the logical conclusion to a very illogical entertainment form: the TV sitcom.
DIETRICH: You could point to every item in the Sears catalog and somebody, somewhere, wants to sleep with it.