Barney Miller is an American sitcom set in a New York City Police Department police station in Greenwich Village. The series was broadcast from January 23, 1975, to May 20, 1982, on ABC. It was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker. Noam Pitlik directed the majority of the episodes.
Premise
Barney Miller takes place almost entirely within the confines of the detectives' squad room and Captain Barney Miller's adjoining office of New York City's fictional 12th Precinct, located in Greenwich Village. A typical episode featured the detectives of the 12th bringing in several complainants and/or suspects to the squad room. Usually, two or three separate subplots are in a given episode, with different officers dealing with different crimes. Once a year, an episode would feature one or more of the detectives outside of the walls of the precinct, either on a stakeout or at one of their homes.
Primary characters:
- Captain Barney Miller (Hal Linden) is the sensible captain of the precinct who tries to retain his sanity while dealing with the foibles of his staff and the unending stream of budget problems and paperwork that make up his job.
- Sgt. Philip K. Fish (Abe Vigoda) is the senior detective on the squad. Crotchety, world-weary, and near retirement, he always seems to be suffering through some physical ailment, but his years of experience as a police officer make him a very good detective and mentor to other members of his squad. Frequently, he is on the phone dealing with a minor marital crisis with his wife Bernice. The character was eventually spun off into its own series.
- Det. (later Sgt.) Stanley Thaddeus "Wojo" Wojciehowicz (Max Gail) is the naive, gung-ho but goodhearted Catholic Polish-American, who gradually transforms from a macho former Marine into a sensitive character who tries to see things from a decidedly humanitarian point of view, while performing his duties as a detective. He takes and fails the sergeant's examination four times, but finally passes on his fifth try and gets promoted in season four.
- Sgt. Ron Nathan Harris (Ron Glass) is an ambitious, intellectual African American, who lives well beyond his means, and who frequently seems more preoccupied with his attire and his career as a writer than with his police work. A long-running plotline about his various attempts to establish a writing career eventually has Harris emerge as a published author, with his lurid memoir Blood on the Badge.
- Sgt. Nick Yemana (Jack Soo) is a surrealistically philosophical, wisecracking Japanese American detective. He is noted for his "off the wall" sense of humor and wry observations about life, as well as for his gambling habits, extraordinarily poor paperwork filing skills, and for making extremely bad coffee for the other members of the squad.
- Sgt. Miguel "Chano" Amanguale (Gregory Sierra) is a dauntless, beleaguered Puerto Rican detective, who is very emotionally attached to his job.
- Sgt. Arthur Dietrich (Steve Landesberg) is an intellectual detective with a calm, unflappable nature and a seemingly endless supply of knowledge on a wide array of subjects.
- Deputy Inspector Frank Luger (James Gregory) is Miller's rambling, out-of-touch, and unapologetic old-school superior who frequently drops by the precinct to "chat with" Barney.
- Officer Carl Levitt (Ron Carey) is a diminutive and obsequious (but competent and hard-working) uniformed officer who constantly, passive-aggressively badgers Miller about being promoted, and in the last season is promoted to detective.
- Elizabeth Miller (Barbara Barrie): Barney's wife, a dedicated social worker is intended to be a regular character, and listed in the opening credits during seasons one and two, Liz is seen fairly infrequently; she is, however, often referred to, and Barney is often seen (and heard) on the phone with her.
The show's focus was split between the detectives' interactions with each other and with the suspects and witnesses they detained, processed, and interviewed. Some typical conflicts and long-running plotlines included Miller's frustration with red tape and paperwork, his constant efforts to maintain peace, order, and discipline, and his numerous failed attempts to get a promotion; Harris's preoccupation with outside interests, such as his living arrangements but mainly his novel (Blood on the Badge), and his inability to remain focused on his police work; Fish's age-related health issues, marital problems, and reluctance to retire; Wojciehowicz's impulsive behavior and love life; Luger's nostalgia for the old days with partners Foster, Kleiner, and "Brownie" Brown; Levitt's quest to become a detective (which is eventually successful); the rivalry between the precinct's resident intellectuals, Harris and Dietrich; and continuallyâ€"but reliablyâ€"bad coffee, usually made by Yemana.
Cast
Regulars
With the 2016 deaths of Abe Vigoda and Ron Glass, Hal Linden and Max Gail are the only living full-time cast members. Although Gregory Sierra is still living, he left the show after Season 2. Barbara Barrie became a recurring character as Barney's wife Liz.
Recurring characters
Other officers and staff
‡ Murdock, Gorman, Dullaghan, and Leiber all made guest appearances in other roles in addition to their regularly recurring series roles.
Barney Miller had a stock company of character actors who made frequent appearances in different roles, among them Phil Leeds, Kay Medford, Bruce Kirby, Kenneth Tigar, Arny Freeman, Don Calfa, Walter Janowitz, Peggy Pope, Nehemiah Persoff, Rosana Soto (Rosanna DeSoto), Todd Susman, Leonard Stone, Philip Sterling, Sal Viscuso, Rod Colbin, Martin Garner, and Jack Kruschen.
12th Precinct regulars
The 12th Precinct had a number of regular complainants, habitués of the holding cell, or other people who often dropped by. Characters seen on three or more episodes included:
‡ cast in several different roles over the series' run
Guest stars
Fish's family
Fish's wife Bernice made an appearance from time to time in Seasons 1 to 4. In Seasons 1, 3 and 4 she was played by Florence Stanley (in a total of seven appearances); in Bernice's only Season 2 appearance she was portrayed by Doris Belack. In that episode, Fish also had a grown daughter named Beverly played by Emily Levine. Also seen as recurring characters in Season 3 were group home children Jilly (Denise Miller) and Victor (John Cassisi), who would eventually become Fish's foster children. In 1977, the Fishes were spun off into their own show, Fish.
Barney's family
In addition to Barney's wife Liz, Barney's son David (Michael Tessier) and daughter Rachel (Anne Wyndham) appeared in the pilot. Barney's son was written out of the show after the first episode (though his daughter appeared once more, in The Courtesans), while his wife made appearances through the second season. Wyndham also reprised her role in two later episodes.
Pilot
The series was born out of an unsold television pilot, The Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller, that aired on August 22, 1974, as part of an ABC summer anthology series, Just for Laughs. Linden and Vigoda were cast in their series roles; no other eventual cast members were present. Abby Dalton played Barney Miller's wife, Liz, while Val Bisoglio, Rod Perry, and a pre-Hill Street Blues Charles Haid rounded out the cast of the pilot. Guest stars included Mike Moore, Chu Chu Mulave, Henry Beckman, Buddy Lester, Michael Tessier and Anne Wyndham.
The pilot script was later largely reused in the debut episode Ramon. For this reworked episode, Bisoglio's lines were more or less evenly split between the new characters of Yemana and Chano, while Haid's character of Kazinski became Max Gail's Wojciehowicz. Rod Perry's character, Sgt. Wilson, was replaced by Harris in the reworked episode, although Wilson would reappear one more time in the first-season episode Experience before disappearing from the series entirely. Abby Dalton was replaced by Barbara Barrie as Liz, and Henry Beckman's character of Uncle Charlie was dropped entirely. The rest of the guest cast (Moore, Malave, Lester, Tessier and Wyndham) reprised their roles in the debut episode.
Unlike the remainder of the series, the pilot was shot on film at CBS Studio Center, where the sets of the 12th Precinct and the Miller apartment were originally built. When the show went into regular production in late 1974, it was recorded on videotape. The sets were moved to the ABC Television Center in Hollywood, where they remained until production ended in 1982.
The pilot was never broadcast in syndication. It was released in 2011 as part of Shout Factory's complete series set on DVD.
Opening theme
The distinctive opening notes of the bass line of Jack Elliott and Allyn Ferguson's theme music, performed by studio musician Chuck Berghofer, are played over a shot of the New York skyline as seen from the water of Upper New York Bayâ€"from Season 2 on, with a garbage barge being towed in the foreground of Lower Manhattanâ€"followed by shots of the characters. Several slightly different versions of the theme featuring minor variations in composition and performance were used during different seasons. The closing credits featured a different shot of the skyline (with the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the United Nations Building in the foreground).
Production
Production of Barney Miller deliberately resembled a theatrical play; scenes rarely strayed from the precinct station's squadroom, with its prominent open-barred holding cell, and Miller's adjoining office. Characters came and went, but always within the confines of the precinct. Barney Miller tended to obey two of the three classical unities of drama: unity of place and unity of time. The third unity, unity of action, was not followed, since each episode had multiple subplots.
Barney Miller was notorious for its marathon taping sessions. Early seasons were recorded before a live studio audience and used a laugh track for sweetening reactions during post-production. Creator and executive producer Danny Arnold would then rewrite and restage entire scenes after the audience departed, actively looking for quieter, subtler moments that would not play well before a crowd; a taping session that began in the afternoon or early evening would then continue into the early morning hours. Max Gail referred to this in the Jack Soo retrospective episode aired on May 17, 1979, remarking that one of the clips shown was a scene that "we finished around 2:30 in the morning." In a 1977 blooper, a crew member mentions it being 3:15Â a.m.
Writer Tom Reeder described working on the show:
Danny Arnold was the creator of the show, and especially in the early years, he was a marvel. When he was "on", he could spin out entire scenes, ad-libbing dialogueâ€"and great jokesâ€"for every character. By the time those scenes got to script form, though, he obsessively rewrote them.
That's true of a lot of showrunners, but Danny couldn't seem to stop himself. Sometime during season 2 (or maybe it was 3) the show was no longer taped in front of an audience, partly because the script was rarely done by show night. When one season began, six pages were in print. Not six scriptsâ€"six pages of one script.
This meant that on the day the show was taped, the actors would hang around on the stage, waiting for pages to be sent down. Thenâ€"sometimes at 2 a.m.â€"they would have to learn new scenes. Ron Carey (Officer Levitt) would get his fairly quickly: "Here's your mail, Captain." On the other hand, poor Steve Landesberg (Dietrich) might have to memorize long speeches explaining how nuclear fission works.
In the early years, Danny benefited from the heroic writing efforts of Chris Hayward, who was a veteran writer, and rookies Tony Sheehan and Reinhold Weege who, like me, didn't know any better. They were the Barney Miller writing staff. My agent wisely turned down Danny's annual offers of staff jobs, negotiating freelance assignments (so-called "multiple deals") for me instead. Even so, the pace was franticâ€"on one assignment I was given 3 hours to write the story outline. On another occasion, a friend came into my office at ABC-Vine Street and said, "Hey, Reeder, want to go get some lunch?" I pointed to the paper in my typewriter and said, "This script is on the stageâ€"thanks anyway."
Employing a live audience became impractical as lengthy reshoots became commonplace. By Season 4, only a quiet laugh track was used when necessary.
Marty and Darryl were among the earliest recurring gay characters on American television. Danny Arnold worked closely with the Gay Media Task Force, an activist group that worked on LGBT representation in media, in developing the characters. Initially both characters were presented in a stereotypically effeminate manner but in later appearances Darryl began dressing and speaking in a more mainstream fashion. Officer Zitelli's coming out was the first gay story arc on American television, occurring across the series' sixth and seventh seasons.
The series took a while to become a hit, but ABC supported it anyway. Danny Arnold ended production of Barney Miller in 1982 after eight seasons for fear of repeating storylines; the show was not cancelled by the network.
Reception by police
Barney Miller retains a devoted following among real-life police officers, who appreciate the show's emphasis on dialog and believably quirky characters, and its low-key portrayal of cops going about their jobs. In a 2005 op-ed for the New York Times, real-life New York police detective Lucas Miller wrote:
Real cops are not usually fans of cop shows. [...] Many police officers maintain that the most realistic police show in the history of television was the sitcom Barney Miller, [...] The action was mostly off screen, the squad room the only set, and the guys were a motley bunch of character actors who were in no danger of being picked for the N.Y.P.D. pin-up calendar. But they worked hard, made jokes, got hurt and answered to their straight-man commander. For real detectives, most of the action does happen off screen, and we spend a lot of time back in the squad room writing reports about it. Like Barney Miller's squad, we crack jokes at one another, at the cases that come in, and at the crazy suspect locked in the holding cell six feet from the new guy's desk. Life really is more like Barney Miller than NYPD Blue, but our jokes aren't nearly as funny.
Similarly, during his appearance on Jon Favreau's Independent Film Channel talk show Dinner for Five, Dennis Farina, who worked as a Chicago police officer before turning to acting, called Barney Miller the most realistic cop show ever seen on television.
Awards and honors
Barney Miller won a DGA Award from the Directors Guild of America in 1981. The series won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1982, after it ended. It received six other nominations in that category, from 1976 to 1981. The series won Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series in 1980 (in addition to nominations in 1976, 1977 and 1982), Outstanding Directing in a Comedy or Comedy-Variety or Music Series in 1979, and was nominated for a number of others. It won Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Comedy or Musical Series in 1976 and 1977 (from a total of seven nominations), and won a Peabody Award in 1978. In 2013, TV Guide ranked Barney Miller at #46 on its list of the 60 best series of all time.
DVD releases
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released the first three seasons of Barney Miller on DVD in Region 1. Season 1 was released on January 20, 2004, to slow sales, and Sony decided not to release any more seasons. However, the decision was later reversed and Season 2 was released in 2008 (four years after the release of Season 1), followed by Season 3 in 2009.
Shout! Factory acquired the rights to the series in 2011 and subsequently released a complete series set on October 25, 2011. The 25-disc set features all 168 episodes of the series as well as bonus features and the first season of the Abe Vigoda spin-off, Fish.
In 2014, Shout! began releasing individual season sets, season 4 was released on January 7, 2014, season 5 on May 13, 2014. Season 6 on December 9, 2014. and Season 7 on April 7, 2015, followed by the eighth and final season on July 7, 2015.
Season 1 was released on DVD in Region 4 on December 20, 2006.
References
External links
- Barney Miller on Internet Movie Database
- The Life and Times of Captain Barney Miller on Internet Movie Database
- TV.com: Barney Miller
- The Barney Miller homepage