Two Hundred A Day - Episode 144: Backlash of the Hunter

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

Nathan and Eppy go to where it all began with the TV movie pilot for The Rockford Files: 1974's Backlash of the Hunter. It's a good excuse to talk about the roots of Rockfordishness, the greatness of the casting, and the changes to come for the main show. While we obviously can't watch it with fresh eyes, it is a solid Huggins story elevated with first looks at all of our favorite elements as well as trips to Vegas, explosions, and a blood-chilling villain. I dunno, I think they might be onto something with this Rockford Files thing! We have another podcast: Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday) at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files (http://tinyurl.com/200files)! We appreciate all of our listeners, but offer a special thanks to our patrons (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday). In particular, this episode is supported by the following Gumshoe and Detective-level patrons: * Richard Hatem * Bill Anderson * Brian Perrera * Eric Antener * Jordan Bockelman * Michael Zalisco * Joe Greathead * Mitch Hampton's Journey of an Aesthete Podcast (https://www.jouneyofanaesthetepodcast.com) * Dael Norwood wrote a book! Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo123378154.html) * Chuck Suffel's comic Sherlock Holmes & the Wonderland Conundrum (http://whatchareadingpress.com) * Paul Townend recommends the Fruit Loops podcast (https://fruitloopspod.com) * Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app (https://rollforyour.party/) * Jay Adan's Miniature Painting (http://jayadan.com) * Brian Bernsen's Facebook page of Rockford Files filming locations (https://www.facebook.com/brianrockfordfiles/) * Brian Cummins, Robert Lindsey, Nathan Black, Jay Thompson, David Nixon, Colleen Kelly, Tom Clancy, Andre Appignani, Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Holley and Dale Church! Thanks to: * Fireside.fm (https://fireside.fm) for hosting us * Audio Hijack (https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) for helping us record and capture clips from the show

This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and message. I'll get back to you. Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidiah Ravishaw. And Epi, at long last. We are here. We're finally doing our podcast. We're finally doing this, our We're finally doing our podcast. I've heard that this show is good.

How should we start our podcast? Well, clearly we should start with the pilot of the show. It would be foolish. It would be absolutely foolish to wait until the third to last episode to do the pilot.

It's probably worth saying for posterity. I can see a situation where someone would find our show, be interested and be like, oh, here's the pilot. So I should start with that one, even though it's going to be like episode 100. And what number are we on? We should probably start off by apologizing about all the in jokes that they won't get. That's true. It will be episode 144 is what this will be.

Gross. Because that's a gross. Oh, because it's a gross. It's like the, I don't know, the iron anniversary, silver anniversary. It's our gross anniversary. That's a thing. Yeah, so we, you know, set out on this journey just picking random episodes because that was what was interesting to us.

I don't remember if we had a particular reasoning behind doing that other than it just seemed like it would suit us better than doing a episode by episode. Right. Yeah, I don't know what we were thinking. Yeah. But it, you know, it worked out know what we were thinking. Yeah. But it worked out. I had fun picking an episode. You know, like when you sit there and you're like, oh, it's my turn to choose. Because we used to do that. You may not remember before this year,

because I think we had almost this entire year planned out. Basically. Yeah. We would say, oh, it's my turn to pick. I'll pick an episode. With a few caveats, you know, it's like we knew when we had time enough to do a two parter, um, were that they were all two partners like this one though, huh? I wonder if this aired as an hour and a half. Yeah. Cause there's some filler in there.

Um, but yeah, like we didn't, we didn't want to start from the beginning. I think, you know what, what I bet happened is that you and I probably Had both recently enough watched enough of the early Rockford Files that we just didn't want to just retread that water again Yeah, that's probably a good point because we started talking about doing the show because I was watching it on your recommendation And yeah, we were just what and we were both watching it. I think in order just yeah So yeah, if you are just joining us because for example, you've decided that you should start with the pilot. So we have almost the entire series in our back catalog. But coming into this kind of ending stretch came into focus when we realized that we were actually going to get to the end, because that also wasn't a given.

And in order to kind of have like a nice I don't know feeling of completion maybe yeah like you said it is worth kind of just taking a moment and note that we started this off did not think we were going to do all of the Rockford files I forgot that that was also part of it we were like we'll just do these for as long as it makes sense and that'll be it. We didn't think we weren't going to do them, but we also were not committing to doing a 70-minute podcast from the jump. Is more because we ended up attracting this great community of listeners, many of whom

are patrons, many of whom are not, and that is also great, who we do hear from and we get gifts from every once in a while. It's cold enough here. I wore my Rockford show jacket. Oh, the show jacket. Yeah, yeah. Today this morning. Big thanks to listener and patron and friend of the show, Brian Burntzen, who hooked us up with with with those.

I believe via Rockford super fan Pat, who who sourced those originally. But anyway, which is all to say, it's a symbiotic relationship, right? We're doing the show because we like it and we found things interesting and we like talking to each other. However, if we didn't discover that people were into our show and wanted to hear more of it, that then gave us the motivation to continue the original activity. So that's just been really nice. And I think we've talked about this a million times, but it's been really nice that it's a thing that feels like it came together outside of the other things that we do as designers and publishers.

So that's all to say that we did the rest of the show. And now to kind of bring in for landing, give us a sense of completion. We have our final final set of episodes, the pilot so we can see how it all started, what the pitch for the show was, right, because the pilot is basically pitching the show to the to to the public and be like, hey, you like this? Right. At least it was at the time. I don't know the world of contemporary streaming shows and pilots and whatnot. Like, right. I don't I don't know. But yeah, we get to see the show pitch.

And then we are going to watch the first episode. So just you're tuning in on Friday night to watch the new James Garner show since. Yeah. I mean, he done I'll get into it. But but yeah yeah pop culturally I think probably you think since Maverick there were you know Nichols was in the middle but Nichols did not do well so you know that probably wasn't in the mix for the average watcher I think.

And then we're going to the last episode and see how it all not how it all came to an end because I think and we'll have to double check, we're pretty sure the last episode was not conceived as the last episode. Yeah, yeah, I think that's correct, yes. But we will see how it happened to go out. Where they left audiences in the year of our Rockford 1980. Yeah, so that's our journey going forward.

And then so this is a double length episode and then those are both just regular episodes. So yeah, that's what we got. I did aim to go into this one as cold as possible. I've never seen the pilot. We talked about it a little bit because there is a recurring character. So Sarah, the client in this one, she has a second episode that we did, I think, last year, pretty recently. In much the same way that Captain Pike returns in that Star Trek episode.

Fortunately, that one was not mostly a flashback of this episode because... Yeah. Not that it's great. Anyway, so I knew a little bit about this episode from looking that up. And I think we talked a little bit about like, like are we ever told what his like why he went to jail? And we did some speculation and I think someone said like, well, they that's mentioned in the pilot.

And I was like, don't tell me. I knew that Rocky was played by a different actor. Those were the three things that I knew going into this one. So the actor who plays Rocky in this one is Robert Donnelly. And I like to think of him as again, with the Star Trek references, as go to universe Rocky. Yeah, yeah. He's a little darker than the. Yeah, he's from the mirror universe.

Yeah, I can easily slot him into Jim's weird uncle. Right. Yes. He really feels like a weird uncle. Yeah. We'll talk about that. But uh, yeah So that's all I knew so I didn't do any real like research before going into this one Did you have anything in particular before we get into it? I had seen it before it was Literally the show that hooked me on the the Rockford files, right? Like so Yeah, em and I watched it yesterday, like, and we were talking about how we think it was just on Hulu at the time.

Yeah, it was on Netflix and Hulu maybe or it was on Netflix and then Hulu. Something like that. It was jumping around. Yeah, we only had three seasons for a while, which is where our first year, two years is only in the three, the first three seasons. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, we like because we were we had access to all of them because we had the DVDs. We once people started very graciously giving us money on Patreon. We then bought the DVDs for ourselves. Yeah. So we could do the rest of it. But yeah, that first couple of years was like, well, people who have streaming services like us can watch the first three episodes, the first three seasons.

So we'll keep our discussion to those for now. Yeah, but we were talking about how I wanted to watch it because I remember as a kid having weird feelings about it. I know that that's a loaded phrase, but basically, like, I thought of it as the sad show. I think it's because Rockford just doesn't have money. Never ends up with the paycheck at the end, or not never, but like, I don't know if I recognize that as a kid. Well, anyways, the point is, I had memories of it as a kid, but I do remember, like, people liking it.

I do remember it being good. I obviously didn't at that time, didn't know enough to really, like when it originally aired, I was very young. So I would have caught it in reruns probably. Anyways, the point is I wanted to try it again. And we watched the pilot and we were like, yeah, we like this guy. This guy is very charming. I like his moral stances. I like, we're going to and we were like, yeah, we'd like this guy. This guy is very charming. I like his, uh, moral stances. I like, we're going to see it throughout this, but this is a wonderful, wonderful episode of Jim tries not to do his job. Like he just spends most of it firing himself, which is great.

Uh, yeah. And, uh, I got hooked. Oh, and very specifically the bathroom scene. Yeah. Uh, we'll, we'll get into, uh, when we get to that, but that one, it's, it's even in the opening montage and I got excited. I, it's the thing that I remember the most vividly about this episode. Um, yeah. So I remember it being a show that I was super excited about. I have the syndicated version, which it sounds like you did too on the DVDs.

So this was a TV movie hour and a half show. And then we both have the broken into two for syndication version. So, you know, there's a bit of triangulation to where exactly. Well, OK, the second one picks up exactly where the first one ends in terms of right. It's not like we're losing stuff in the middle. Yeah, they give you a previously on the but the previously on is pretty padded. It's fairly long and there's no real indication that it's a previously on, which was I thought was interesting. I have a story for you about that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. We get to that. Yeah. But I think unlike the last two partner we did were like the syndicated version, put some additional content in the second episode that we didn't see because we had the full runtime version. This one, I think we got all the stuff that was in the movie. I felt like this one very much had that movie feel. It had that cinematic kind of quality, probably because it was directed by a guy who did TV movies. The director is Richard T. Heffron, and his credits are almost entirely TV movies. So I was like, oh, I mean, I guess if you want to make a TV movie, you go to a director who does those. It has a nice leisurely pace.

How do I say that without it coming out like a backhanded compliment? Because it's not. It's just like it's a while before we see Jim and we just kind of like just get the whole setup of what's happening. Maybe more so than a lot of Rockford Files episodes. They're trying to hook you with the mystery. Yeah. They do a good job of that. Yeah. Just a brief run job of that. Yeah.

Just a brief run up of the getting here. You know, the Rockford files is a Roy Huggins and Stephen Cannell joint. Roy Huggins was the creator of Maverick. Both these guys have lots of other credits, obviously. But he worked with Garner on Maverick. And then in between the end of Maverick and the Rodford files, they did another western called Nichols that did not do well. But Nichols is where Metta Rosenberg got involved because she was Jim's agent, I think, and then started something like that. Yeah. It's where they cast Stuart Marglan in Nichols, and that's where

Garner and Marglan met, I believe. So there's a lot of stuff we mentioned over time. If there's someone's like, oh, they were on Nichols or like, oh, that's probably where they met. Yeah. Yeah. Rough advice people. And then Huggins was doing a show called Toma, which was a police procedural show based around this, a real detective or a real police. I don't know if he's a detective or not, but a real person named David Toma, I think, almost sent up in the episode where Hector Elizondo is the guest star and he's the cop from Chicago that has the show made about him. That's kind of a send up of Toma, which is kind of funny.

It's fun. But Toma is where Stephen Cannell started working with Huggins, I think, as a producer. So there's this whole swirl of stuff. And then Huggins basically has this concept of, okay, maverick, but a detective. Yes. And this gets filtered through the other shows he's doing, filtered through people's interest in availability, et cetera, to turn into originally his name was Tom Rockford. But eventually he ends up James Rockford, of course. That's an interesting. I mean, obviously, he's James Rockford.

So there's a quote here. This is all from I'm skimming the Ed Robertson book, where he goes into more detail about all this stuff. But there's a line here. Garner also asked Huggins to make one small change in the script. I'd originally named the character Tom Rockford after one of my sons, Huggins said. Jim asked me to change his first name to Jim. And so we did.

Basically, because it's just easier for him to be addressed by his name when he's on set. Yeah, great. That makes sense. Huggins also happened to have a son named Jim, so it all worked out. So that was 1973 that Garner signed on to the show with Huggins after getting kind of the pitch on it, etc. Toma was showing on ABC and it ended up getting cancelled and there was some other kind of political stuff it sounds like, but it turns out so it could have been on ABC and they rejected it. So Huggins took the pitch to NBC. So this was a show in search of a network. So here's a good little call out here. If the Rockford Files was gonna sell,

NBC had to be convinced that it was unlike any private eye series that had ever been done. Because primetime television was inundated with police and detective shows at the time, Huggins knew that the network was unlikely to purchase another private eye series unless it had something that made it stand out. That something could be expressed in terms of locale, Hawaii 5-0, streets of San Francisco,

a visible characteristic, Cannon was fat, Barnaby Jones was old, Kojak was bald, or some other idiom sequence like Columbo or Herio. Even though the concept of Rockford, Maverick as a Private Eye, would already appear to address that matter, Huggins decided the best way to sell the series was to play off its title. So he decided to sell the Rockford Files as a private eye would already appear to address that matter. Huggins decided the best way to sell the series was to play off its title. So he decided to sell the Rockford Files as a series about a private eye who only handles closed cases that would make it sound different. That sold the series, but the concept was quickly forgotten once the show got on the air.

But yeah, so that was the that was a gimmick for the series, which is kind of funny, though. That is a plot point in in this episode and in a lot of the first season episodes. Yeah. Yeah. So that brings us to they make the pilot. I think we'll talk about various details as we get to them in the in the episode.

You know, there are moments I think where we're going to be like, yeah, this doesn't really breed with the character as we know them later. Right. Right. Which is all I think par for the course for a pilot. Yeah, that's how pilots work. There is a slur used in the show, which caught me by surprise,

but also is being used as an inciting tactic. My content warning notes here are the homophobic slur, and then an implied rape, I think there are sexual assaults. Yeah. So, you know, forewarned. These are both not particularly focused on aspects of what we're watching. They're just kind of like, oh, oh, and then like you move on to the next scene. They're not vital.

Like they can easily have been left out. This feels more on the, it's a product of a time end than a, what a decision they made end. Right, yeah. So that's a lot of beating around the bush before we just get into the episode. Yeah. Alright, so. Mmhmm.

Rockford Files. Pilot. It is entitled Backlash of the Hunter. Yes. It is airing March 27th, 1974. Directed by Richard T. Heffron, as I Yes. It is airing March 27th, 1974, directed by Richard T. Heffron, as I mentioned. It is a story by Roy Huggins, credited John Thomas James, as per usual, teleplay by Stephen Cannell. And I feel like that's all we need to know going into our movie montage. All right. The Bionic Woman. Before she's a bionic woman. That was my first note Lindsay Wagner. Yeah, we've gone over all this last time we talked about her Angel very excited to see angel angel going all the way back to the pilot and we'll soon find out that so does Dennis

And then we see the wrong Rocky What I'll refer to him throughout. I don't want to dig on this guy. Noah Berry's perfect for the role. So whatever made them make that decision, it was a good decision there. That was basically pure availability. When they shot the pilot, Noah Berry wasn't available, but by the time it was airing, he was available. I think the show he was on got cancelled. So they had him in mind? Yes. Okay, alright.

And a lot of the casting was Meadow Rosenberg. She did a lot of the initial casting. She particularly wanted Noah Berry to play Rocky, but he was in a show called Doc Elliot at the time. But then by the time Rock for Files was ordered as a series, so after this, yeah, Doc Elliot had been cancelled, so he became available and there we go. So Rosenberg also cast Stuart Margolin. Oh great. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah. Um, this, this Rocky, I would say has a little bit more of a This Rocky, I would say, has a little bit more of prospector energy. Yeah, he's a little seedier. Yeah.

Which is, I think, why I feel like he's a weird uncle. Yeah, yeah. And then we get a jump kick, which is great. That's part of the bathroom scene. That when we get to it, I will go on and on about how much I love this scene. Yeah, that was the my main notes by the time this thing ends. And I know this is in tradition for us, but the answering machine starts and we need to talk about the answer just a little bit here. Billings LAPD, you know Thursday is Chapman's 20th year and we're giving a little surprise party at the captain's. I think you should come. By the way, we need five bucks with a present.

As our listeners know, we're big Billings fans. Yes. So I wonder if this is a syndication edition. Billings as a character is not in this. Yeah. Luigi Elgato is. He's the guy who gets who's getting married. Okay. All right. I found it. Ed Robertson provides, as he so often does. He has an appendix about Rockburn's phone messages.

And there is a good there's a passage here, though the pilot did not include a telephone message when it originally aired on NBC. The two parts indicated version does open with the message from Billings. And I was like, this does seem slightly slightly familiar. This is the message from Billings. And I was like, this does seem slightly familiar. This is the message from the Hawaiian headache. Oh, okay. So this message is recorded six years later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. Okay, so that answers that question. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's fun. It's good for us as Billings fans. It is fun continuity that we start off with the whole of the Rockford files with him being asked to pay $5 for Chapman's 20-year anniversary gift or whatever when he's been on the force for only 14 years.

Anyways, yes, that was the opening montage. 200 a Day is a 100% listener-supported show, thanks to our patrons. In addition to our gratitude and editing access to the 200 Files Files spreadsheet, patrons receive exclusive episode previews every month and plus expenses, our bonus podcast where we talk about media, work, and our lives. In addition, every episode we say thank you to our Gumshoe patrons. Brian Bernsen has a Facebook page where he drives his Rockford tribute car to shooting locations from the show. Facebook.com slash Brian Rockford files. Chuck Suphel's one-shot comic Sherlock Holmes and the Wonderland Conundrum is available at WhatchaReadingPress.com.

Find Dale Norwood's book, Trading Freedom, How Trade with China Defined Early America, wherever good books are sold. It's about fast ships, cheap drugs, and American political economy, published by the University of Chicago Press. Join Mitch Hampton to examine all matters aesthetic and what it means to be human at the Journey of an Esthete Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Paul Townand also recommends the podcast Fruit Loops, Serial Killers of Color, at Fruit Loops Pod dot com. Shane Liebling has all of your online dice rolling needs covered at his website, Roll for Your Dot Party.

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200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you. Well, we start off our first shot here. We're panning over. Well, we start off our first shot here. We have, we're panning over what we can only assume is Paradise Cove. Yes. Because our credits play. It's a bucolic seaside scene. We get the full vibe. I think there's people playing in the sand, people playing surf, etc.

And then we cut on a phone ringing at a karate dojo. It's a phone call for Jerry, who is in a gi with a black belt. And he's working out with a heavy bag. Jerry Grimes, who will loom large in this. And I thought that he was first. I thought he was a different actor. I was like, he's been in other Rockford files. I thought so, too. He is not.

He looks like a that guy that I'm looking at right this second. Played by Will Smith. William Smith as distinct from Will Smith. Yeah, who does not appear in further Rockford files, but he's a pretty good creepy and crazy guy. Yeah. Oh, he was, okay, he was in Red Dawn. And that's the role I remember from he was one of the evil invaders. I don't remember if they're Russian or they're communist. That's all that really matters. Yeah, no, he's got a very good villainous aura about him. So he does that quite well.

So he's getting a call from a woman named Millie or Mildred, who's saying, I think we're in trouble. Millie, who we will see come up again later, is played by Nita Talbot. And I recognize her from Columbo. Of course, as so many so many of these actors I do. She's in the Columbo with Leonard Nimoy, where he's the the doctor. She's the roommate of the nurse that Leonard Nimoy's doctor kills. Very different kind of character. Anyway, also only Rockford Files appearance for her. She is calling Jerry. I think we're in trouble. And then we start cutting between Jerry in a red convertible and an old guy on a

bus with a paper bag. We have some I noted as tension making saxophone in our soundtrack. Jerry's is following this bus. It's the end of the line at the beach. The bus driver kicks him off. We start hearing carnival music because obviously there's going to be like a Coney Island style. I don't know if this actually exists in L.A. I mean, here's actually here's the thing about this entire pilot is it's really L.A.

E. The shooting is very on the street. It really has that sense of place that we've talked about a little bit. That's a big feature of of the show. Like, I'm sure a lot of the interior stuff is on, you know, is on state sound stages and stuff, but all the exterior stuff is very you're in the streets. Like, there's all the cool awnings and billboards and ads and like stuff painted on the buildings. Like it's it's very specific. So that's all good stuff.

But I do associate the beachside carnival with Coney Island. I don't know if that's an LA thing or not. We have some shots of carnival rides amping up our attention as we come into a sequence of watching the old guys walking. So these are all knee down shots. This is the pants leg ballet that we're going to watch. It's the pants leg ballet that we're going to watch. It's the pants leg ballet. That's good.

Of our old guy in his torn up corduroys and then Jerry in his slick red trousers and high heel black boots. We know that things are not good. My note is things are not good music comes up. Our old guy goes under the pier with his booze. He takes a swig. We see the red pants. He takes another swig. The delicate ballet continues. And then in a sudden explosion of violence, Jerry, I think we actually get it get in dialogue later. He grabs the guy's tie. Yeah, chokes it in a very, uh, very creepy, very creepy.

And also there's this, the shot has him, I think he's spitting out like what he just drank, right? Like it's wine or something. And yeah, yeah. But it also looks like blood that he just sprays out of his mouth. I think it's just on the edge probably of what they can do for for network. So it implies gore without actually being gory, which is almost worse. That's good. But then what really amps up the creepiness, obviously, so he's getting murdered, which is bad. But then this guy Jerry is like taking a very specific kind of pleasure out of choking the life out of this guy. Beautiful. Just relax. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That's going to come up. He's a loose cannon. He's enjoying it. He says, relax, Mr. Butler. Butler so we get the name. Very creepy. Takes the guy's shoes, I think to make it look like a mugging, right? Right. Yeah. The one bit that we we jumped over was that there was this whole thing about the old man being on the bus and the bus saying this is the last stop. You have to pay a fare to stay on it. And he's like, I'm supposed to meet someone, This is the last stop. You have to pay a fare to stay on it. And he's like, I'm supposed to meet someone, which I assume he was, he was not. I don't think he was expecting Jerry.

I think we can, uh, we can make assumptions about who he thinks he's meeting, but yeah, and we go from that very dramatic finale of poor Mr. Butler to the police station. This is an establishing shot of some kind of suburban police station. This is not, not the one that we will come to know and love. Not is an establishing shot of some kind of suburban police station. This is not the one that we will come to know and love. Not one we know, yeah. But we come in to our good friend Dennis Becker talking to his captain whose name is Harry

Dell. There's such a big caseload and the captain wants him to toss all the things that don't have prospects. Right. Yeah. We need to concentrate on our resources, on things we can actually do stuff about. They don't have time for dead enders and toss a couple files. And then the last one is what about this? Why no wonder the bridge? And Becker has a hunch that's not just a mugging. The guy had a had an engagement ring with a diamond in it on his finger.

It's worth a couple hundred bucks that wasn't taken off of him. The captain says, dump it. And so we end that scene with Becker putting a folder into a filing cabinet and closing it. And it says unsolved inactive. Perfect. I know someone who deals with inactive cases. Becker dialed in 100% from the jump. Yeah. No, this is good. Yeah, this is the Dennis we all know and love.

There's a moment early on in this coming up in a bit where I was like, in the pilot, do Dennis and Rockford know each other? Then it turns out they do. There was a moment where I was like, are they going to establish this relationship or did they just like the way this Dennis Becker was played so they rewrote them or whatever. But it does turn out that they do know each other. We then have Harmonica come up in our soundtrack as we see some hands adjusting a bathing suit on a mannequin. Yes. This is just establishing this

This is just establishing this store that Sarah Butler is her store. She sells bikinis, but there's a couple weirdly. Yeah, lascivious shots that introduce it each time. It might even be the same shot each time. It's like for each. There's one on each of the two parter, right? Like I think. But like, yeah, no, no this this show the pilot a little sweat here little more sex Cells then that that it would then the the show normally is yeah Yeah, it's it's almost like there we should have something like that. So let's film a very uncomfortable scene

Horrible. It's just like there's nothing natural about what's happening No, no, and it's a bit of a combination with so there's nothing natural about what's happening. No, no. And it's a bit of a combination with, so there's lots of like, not lots of, but there are notable close-ups of hands and close-ups of feet. And it's like, I don't know, maybe this is a thing? Yeah. For the director, maybe, who knows? But it's not bad or distracting.

It's just like, I noted it, but it doesn't matter. I was like, oh, that's going to like, give us a clue it's not bad or distracting. It's just like I noted it, but it doesn't matter. It's like, oh, that's going to like give us a clue as to a person or something. But it's just establishing her her swimwear store. Yeah. But yes, we meet Sarah Butler, Lindsay Wagner, who I think is great in this episode. She's also good in these other episodes. The first episode we saw her in, which is the sequel to this episode. But she's opening the phone book other episodes, the first episode we saw her in, which is the sequel to this episode.

But she's opening the phone book and flipping to the detectives and we find Jim's ad, the classic shot. As immortalized on our show t-shirts, the Rockford Agency, our trained investigators, Capital S specialized in closed cases since 1968. Criminal only, 24-hour service, license and bonded. 2354 Ocean Boulevard, which changes soon. Los Angeles. Could get lost in the weeds on all the other ads that are in here.

Yes. Including the one below it for the like, Corrie Detective Agency that just has a big drawing of a gun underneath words that say ethical, reliable, confidential. That's good. Anyway, we cut from the ad with Jim's face to Paradise Cove. She's driving her green convertible beetle to the beach. We have the camera panned from the road to said beach where we meet Jim and Bizarro Rocky. Yes. Bizarro Rocky. I will say that the portrayal is obviously way different, but the language is what I expect to hear Rocky saying.

Yeah, yeah. Because this is all about what does it what's it going to take to get you to go fishing with me? It's a little bit later where he deviates from what you expect from a Rocky from a Rocky from an earth an earth Prime Rocky. Yes He even say says you should have taken over my rig. You have made a hell of a trucker Also, I like this because this is also like bizarre Rocky his truck is blue. He has like basically the same. Yes like Bizarro Rocky, his truck is blue. He has like basically the same. Yes.

Or, you know, four by four or whatever. But Rocky's iconic truck is red. Yeah. It feels like they're like, we know this guy's a placeholder. Yeah, just brought his own truck. From the perspective of let's have an unconventional private detective. Right. We meet him on the beach. He's talking to his dad about doing things that are not being a PI. Right. And he sees his,

you know, his client, this very pretty woman instead of coming into his office, she's knocking on the door to his trailer while he's still on the beach, almost leaves because he doesn't quite get there soon enough. There's a little bet between Rocky and him about whether Rocky thinks she's from the bank. Yeah, she's a bill collector or something. Yeah, bill collector or something. This is a hint. This isn't our Rocky. Our Rocky sees the best in most people. Yeah, our Rocky Jim's like, let's just wait on the best in most people. Yeah, our Rocky Jim's like, let's just wait on the beach till she leaves. And he goes, what she might need. She might be in trouble or she might have a job for you.

And you know, you need money, right? Exactly. And then the bet has a welching privileges, I guess. Well, they explain he explains it to. Oh, he does. Oh, I missed that. Yeah. OK, so they all meet. He invites her into the trailer. She says, this is your office. And he says, it's cheap.

It's tax deductible, earthquake proof. And if a job takes me out of town, I take it with me. Narrator, he never did. Only twice, as we've determined. Oh, oh, oh, right. He's moved it. Yes. Moved it. But yeah. Yeah. But never took it out of town. No. So when she says she wants to hire him, he gives Rocky a look and holds his hand out for for the cash, which is good.

But Rocky's heading up to the cabin to go fishing. That's our Rocky. And don't forget the Welching privilege. I won't. Nice to met you. He just lost a bet. I gave him the right to renegotiate the loss. He get me drunk and we'll settle for five bucks.

You want a cup of coffee? No, thank you. We start off, you know, meeting Jim Rockford, our private investigator, hero of our story, with him trying to find a clean coffee mug and saying, I hope you can afford me. Yes. When we were watching that, we actually had to rewind because the business... It feels really specific without actually going anywhere.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and he kept the coffee mug in a drawer? Yeah. You know, like where you kind of wouldn't expect it to be or whatever. But also this trailer is smaller. This trailer is smaller than the usual trailer, which again, this is all, you know, we expect this kind of stuff. I did like how the layout was basically the layout that we're used to. Yeah. The couch against the far wall.

His desk is across from the door. Like all that stuff is actually pretty much there. But yeah, this also introduces us to a Jim who is slightly less personable than maybe we're expecting. Yeah, he's a little more off putting than. Yeah. Yeah. I hope you can afford me. Sorry, what? I like to get the business out of the way up front.

I don't want to shock you, Ms. Butler, but it costs $200 a day plus expenses. $200? Plus expenses. And I only handle criminal cases that are closed. I get myself messed up in a LAPD active file, I can get my can shot off. Tell me how you got this wonderful finishing school approach, Mr. Rockford. Well, if she says that money isn't my problem. I could hire a whole platoon of people like you. That's running out of check.

Jim is watching it from across the desk and goes, that's Rockford with a K. But he kind of does start getting his his wry smile that I'm expecting as they go a little bit into banter around the check. Her problem is that her father was murdered and the police don't think it's important. Just some Skid Row killing. Two months ago, someone killed him and nobody cares but me. Jim asked her about it. He says that a detective Becker was on the case and referred me to Jim,

like referred me to you. So I think the only time that Becker has told someone to go go talk to my friend, Jim. Yeah, that's I miss that, except I didn't. I guess I didn't miss the connection because I was again with the yellow book, the yellow page ad in my brain. I was like, oh, she pulled him out of the yellow pages. And so that's why earlier I was like, oh she pulled them out of the yellow pages. And so that's why earlier

I was like it's weird that they introduced Becker and then don't say that they know each other, but they do they say it right away So that's all good. Never mind. I take everything. I've said this episode back What a way to end the series Just like we started it. Yes Listeners in case you can't tell we do heavily edit because we go down these weird roads. Yeah, we do. We don't know how to talk to each other like humans, so. Yeah, exactly.

But something's changed, and she wants Jim to meet her brother, and he can tell you about it. Jim's like, all right, let me make a phone call. Wait for me outside. Let me make a phone call. I'll meet your brother, and then I'll tell you whether I can take the case. She leaves, and he makes the call, and he's calling to run a credit check on a miss Sarah Butler. So this is again the kind of thing we see a lot, especially in the first three seasons.

We usually don't see it on screen. I think you know, this is a very establishing this behavior bit. I'm starting to think about how and we talk about this a lot, there's a lot of noir in this initial version of the show. Some of his behavior, how he talks to her and stuff like that, has more of that noir edge to it. Yeah, yeah. More of the, like, he's seen it all. I mean, like we do get that elsewhere, but like they're hitting that hard in this pilot episode. But I do love that he runs a credit check. There's also a couple other things that like,

like when she mentions that her dad was just another skid row murder, it seemed to indicate to him that like, oh, no, she doesn't have money. Spoiler, she doesn't have money. There's a few things that keep triggering that in his head. He keeps coming upon clues that she can't afford him and is trying very hard to make it so she doesn't put him in a bad situation. So we go to this pharmacy to meet her brother who is played by your favorite. Yeah, Bill Moomy.

In case you missed the other episode with Bill Moomy in it, which was the other episode with Lindsay Wagner in it, where he did not reprise the role of her brother, I don't think. No, was he like the artist guy? He was the artist, yeah. Bill Moomy is TV's Will Robinson from Lost in Space or the kid from the Twilight Zone that sends people to the cornfield I believe that one I might be telling lies on I'm gonna just check for the record the other episode the other Sarah episode is season one episode 14 orally farewell yes which was our episode 126 from just about a year ago, last November. Yeah, he was in three episodes of the Twilight Zone. Anyways, also Lanier from Babylon 5, which I'm sure we have a lot of crossover audience here. We've been watching Babylon 5

for lunch, so it's in my head. And I guess most importantly, and where everybody knows is that he's part of the musical act Barnes and Barnes, which does the song Fishheads. Fishheads, roly poly fishheads, eat them up yum. Which I'm sure you all know, because you were all raised on Dr. Demento. I did drop that clip into the last episode. So yes, all of our listeners know about it. Anyway, he's great. This is not a major role here. No, it isn't. That's a whole lot of preamble, but it's a rap on Bill Mooney. And so we have to appreciate that. Yeah. So we see that she and her brother clearly had different relationships with their dad.

He always told her he was so beautiful, but he was just a drunk. He made me carry his golf bags and take out the laundry, et cetera. But Sarah has brought Jim to her. Her brother's name is Nick. She wants Nick to tell tell them about. Yeah, that's like drag it out of him through multiple. Yeah. B bits of this conversation about his missus Elias. There's a bit where he grabs Sarah like to be like, leave it alone or something,

and Jim grabs him and they have a bit of a face off and Jim is significantly bigger and he says, you a cop? No son, I'm about 50 pounds heavier and a hell of a lot meaner than you It's a great line. It's a good gym line. So he's like, okay, it's not a big deal But here's what's happened this woman that he makes deliveries to From the pharmacy took an interest in him learned that his mother and his father both died And has offered to put him through medical school to become a doctor. She lives in Bel Air. Why does she order from this pharmacy that's like far away? Yeah, and not in the nice neighborhood. It's like, I don't know, but she does. Leave it alone.

Jim does get a thoughtful look on his face through hearing this information. Nick tells Sarah not to mess this up for him. And we end on a gym. The medical profession needs more sweet guys like you. Yeah. It's it's it's fun. Obviously, I get more out of it because I am a big Bill Mooney fan. But Mooney heads, we call you. Yeah, one of the Mooney heads. I think that the forked path that we're getting here, which, you know,

looking back on it, because I knew where this was going. Well, we both knew where this was going. But from Sarah, it's all butterflies and roses when it comes to her dad. But then the details about her dad just keep coming up. So that's giving Jim some doubt. Maybe this is just a skid row killing.

This guy doesn't sound like the best guy But obviously the clue the big clue here is just this very weird patronage Yeah, because the other thing is it because Moomi is a consummate actor He plays this guy as the kind of person you wouldn't want to put through medical school. Yeah It seems like a weird match. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we go to the Peacock Bar, which I just sent you the screenshot, because this is speaking of like sense of place. You know, it's just a lot of these establishing shots really tickled me.

We see Jim on the payphone and then he goes to sit with Sarah. They've clearly been enjoying some kind of fancy lunch. But he was just talking to someone and got her credit report. And unfortunately, she's tried to pass him off a bit of bad paper. Her check isn't good. He leaves that off with, I was just beginning to like you. And she says, I like you, too. You laid some bad paper on me.

People who like each other hardly ever do that sort of thing. Oh, how stupid of me. That's my household account. I'm sorry. I wrote on the wrong bank. Knock it off, Sarah. These guys tell me that you're the only one in town with the worst credit than me. And it's a great line. She had to do something to get someone to help her because no one's listening to her about this. Please take this case.

And Jim's kind of like, why? Like, how does this change anything? And she's like, well, isn't it strange that Mrs. Elias uses that pharmacy? Why would you want to put Nick through medical school? You met him. Right. And Jim agrees that it's odd, but it's a bit thin and says that he can't take the case. I'm going to cut in this exchange because it's core, establishing Rockford stuff. have any real close friends, I have to get along with myself.

So I don't take cases where I think I'm wasting my time or your money. If you had any. They leave outside of the bar. She then tries another tack and asks if he wants to go to dinner and starts like smoothing his lapels and he's like, don't do that. Right. Yeah. He knows what's what. Fine.

He'll look into it for an hour at no charge, just for fun. And if he thinks that it has merit, he'll take the case. Here we start to see the good chemistry, I would say, the two of them have. Yeah, yeah. Because he's being a little cold and standoffish, but once they spend a little more time going over things and how he sees that she really cares about this, he starts to thaw a little bit. JAYLEE We mentioned earlier about sort of the noir roots here. And one of the things that like I'm enjoying them playing with here is that she's doing the stuff of a femme fatale, but she's not a femme fatale. She is trying to trick him into taking the case but not so that she can frame him or

Get him to find the gold at the you know, that's been hidden or anything like that She literally wants to find out who killed her dad and no one's helping her So she's using all the femme fatale tricks. I like it. It's a fun play with that We go with active camera movements and some action funk music to the newspaper building. Yes. Well, we are going to meet our good friend, our other good friend, Angel. The youngest I've ever seen Angel. I think Angel actually is not as dialed in here.

No. Right. Yeah, there's a couple different ways this character could go. Angel. I think Angel actually is not as dialed in here. No. Right. Yeah. There's a couple different ways this character could go. It's very interesting that the whole brother-in-law employs him at his newspaper angle. It's like the beginning. Is maybe even the purpose of Angel. That's what it kind of feels like.

It's like what we're establishing is that Jim has a friend who's a cop, and then he has a friend who works at the newspaper, right? And that gives lots of hooks for storytelling of like how to get information to and from Jim. Yeah, fortunately, for all of us, Stuart Margolin is bigger than this role. And so we get to see it grow into the angel that we know and love. to see it grow into the angel that we know and love. One of my favorite things about this scene, and I really would like to know who this came from, because we get the exposition of Jim being an ex-con,

and that Jim was pardoned, right? We get all of that. Yeah. But we had that angel and knew him when they were in the state penitentiary together. It's all through this like angels, like confessing that he was part of a robbery or something like that. He's on he's on probation. So he needs this job.

He needs a straight job. He does say if if his brother-in-law didn't own the paper, he would be in real trouble. We get that exposition about they were in prison together. And then while he's like looking through a filing cabinet to like find the thing that Jim asked him to look for he just kind of whispers we're in prison you must have told me a hundred times you were innocent well that

wasn't how about you did you do that thing no, I was bad rap. Sure. Sure. And he won't back down from his story even though Angel starts being like, oh, come on, you can tell me. Right. I told you, you can tell me. So there's a bit of like, this is the first time they've been interacting since then. Yeah, that's what it feels like.

It's so good, though. I mean, obviously, I love watching Angel and Jim play off of each other. But like, this is this is a great way to get this going. I can imagine them filming this and going, All right, this guy's a character. Like we we're bringing it back. For the record, Joe Santos says that Stephen Cannell cast him. So a lot of great minds doing casting. Yes. By. Yeah. I had a thought about angel where it's like, yeah, this character could have stayed in this lane

And we would have been perfectly happy with that. I think yeah, but because we know the angel to come I'm like Watching I'm like looking for little signs and I think it's like the eye movements and like did you really do it? Jimmy like that stuff is really good. This is the only time he's wearing a suit other than the episode where he gets married. Right. So that's one thing. And yeah, just his overall this is his haircut and everything. He just is a little more dialed down than the character we come to know. Anyway, there's some old society columns about this Elias woman and that's what Jim is was looking for

He offers to take an angel out to dinner and angel says now I can't hang out with guys I did time with yeah one of the terms of his parole In another two episodes, he's holding Jimmy up for cash to open up the file drawer, right? Like we're right. Yeah Yeah, so instead Jim takes Sarah to dinner. They give Jim a tie that has like cats on it or something. Yeah it's just a very bright print tie like it's red and white I think but it's it's it's ugly. Yeah Sarah invited him to this place and Jim's like I thought this was informal so he did not wear a tie but he needed a

tie. We have them talking and getting to know each other a little bit more but also talking about this case She asked why is Jim so expensive and again good establishment stuff. It's a little less than a plumber makes who doesn't work weekends. Yes Plus it's a dangerous profession. Sarah asks if he's willing to do an installment plan. She can pay him 25 a week Yeah, that means you have to pay me for eight weeks. So you sure about that? She wears him down to finally he's like, okay fine I'll spend a day on it and as soon as he does that she's like, why do you take the case? Like which one of these many things may do tip you over So we learned that the background on mrs. Elias is strange. Mr. Elias the man that she married was old and rich

She and this old rich guy go to Vegas to get married on their wedding night Mr. Elias, the man that she married, was old and rich. She and this old rich guy go to Vegas to get married. On their wedding night, he dies, and she gets all his money. So that's just weird. But he doesn't see how that could tie into her dad's death. Those two things were 10 months apart. Yeah, so that event happened 10 months before Sarah's dad was killed. But he's like, the medical school thing is also weird. Like you're right, why would anyone be like, this guy, he's who I should pay to make into

a doctor. Too many strange coincidences. So he'll look into it for a day or so. And we're good. Thank you Mr. Rockford. My father's Mr. Rockford. Call me Jim. Thank you Jim.

We have a little montage here where we end up in Vegas, gambling montage, etc. Jim has gone to the Clark County Courthouse to see the coroner from Mr. Elias' death. And this is Michael Lerner, who's another great, memorable character actor. We most recently lauded him for his performance in Peace Work episode 133 where he's our episode 133 where he is Murray the sharply dressed guy who's working for the feds to bring to infiltrate these gun running rings or whatever. The guy who's talking about how people are dressed and yeah, yeah, and he was also in profit and loss. Yes, yeah, he's been in a couple.

Yeah. He just has this bit part in this one, but it's good. He's a he's a real face. Yeah. Anyway, he's the coroner. Jim's basically like, is there any foul play in this guy's death? Right. Marries a young woman, immediately dies, leaves her all his money.

And he says, no, his arteries were hard enough to pound through two inches of concrete. He died of a natural and inevitable heart attack. There was a cousin who was trying to cut in on the will. So there were four other doctors who performed postmortems and they all agreed that it was a natural death. If he's interested in opening the case, he's looking and looking for a medical opinion, he's wasting his time.

Outside the door, Jim has a thoughtful look, and then we go to a phone ringing, and the woman that we met earlier as Millie answers the phone, Mildred Elias, and the coroner is calling her, because he feels, and he mentioned this to Jim, he feels really badly about how she was treated by the by the cops right in the wake of her husband's death And just wanted to let her know that some guy was asking about it and gifts gives her Jim's name Because he left his card so no address but his name and is that he's a PI

Yeah, this has to be I mean we don't see it but this has to be a card that he has printed on his little printing press only because there's no address, you know, like, he probably just whipped up a PI card for himself. Why would you go pay a print shop when you have the printing press and you can just like, yeah, exactly. And then he he my note is and then he shoots his shot. He's like, you know, if you're ever back in Vegas, you know, I'd love to meet up with you. And she just gives this look on her face like, oh, my God. Yeah, I'll call you back to arrange that.

That moment is very like every character is a character. Right. Yes. Yes. He's motivated. He's got a motivation for for not taking Jim's side in this. And it's it's not money. He just finds her attractive. And yeah, yeah. Yeah. Action banjo as we go. Yeah, banjo time.

Another call for Jerry as he's hitting the heavy bag and his Mildred. Yes. Where's this week's check? Forget the check. It'll be there. I've got to see you. In these two short phone calls, we get Jerry and Millie have some kind of relationship. It apparently is based on money. He clearly is a goon.

Something weird is up. So we know there's a connection. There has to be some connection because Jerry killed her dad and now she's calling him because someone's looking into her husband. But this episode or this movie really puts the reveal way down at the end. This is not a we get to figure out the mystery as we go kind of thing. No, we're enjoying the characters is what's happening. Jim goes to Sarah's place of business to tell her that in his opinion it's a dead end. More mannequin shot.

More mannequin shot. But he's very graciously, he's not going to charge her all the travel time to and from Vegas. So his actual time on it comes to $75. Is tax deductible? Yeah, he really wants to not be responsible for charging her, but he also really needs to charge her. And that's it's fun. Well, I think it's a little bit of the care of the character at this point

where it's like he's focused on, like if he's going to do the work, he's going to get paid. Yeah. Which is for freelancers out there. Keep that in mind. I think that kind of transitions a little bit to where he's only like this with rich people. Right. Yeah. It transitions a little bit to where with with people like Sarah, who, like, can't really afford him. He kind of will kind of like cut him a break or be like, you can pay me later.

Like, he'll just kind of let it go. But with a rich person, he's like, here's my bill. Right. Oh, you want to send a check to my house? No, no, I'll take I'll take the cash now, please. Yes. We get an electrical musical sting in here that is like like a synth or something. I don't know. It's ominous, but it's more ominous than the scene requires. I just made a note of it because I was like, oh, I like it.

But also, we're just discussing bookkeeping at this point. Well, we do have a little drama because, you know, Jim, sorry, but but if she wants the advice of a friend, she should forget it, even though she's like, I'm going to find out who killed him. Like even if nobody else cares, she cares. And Jim leaves, he's he's trying to just be done. His line as he leaves is, It was nice knowing you, Sarah. I think you better bury your father before he buries you.

Yes, yes. And then as he drives away, we see Jerry follow in the bright red. Yeah. And then a trumpet fanfare version of the theme. Just to be like, don't worry, folks, we're still in it. Yeah, we have a good car tailing sequence where we see Jim notice that he's getting followed. He does stop at a phone booth to call Sarah. And I think he's like, OK, since I'm being followed, clearly something is happening.

So he calls Sarah to say, I have one other thing to look into. I'll go talk to Mrs. Elias. I like how she has no idea he's calling, right? Because this is these are phones from before. Uh huh. And, but she's so angry when she answers it. It's great. This is also some fun business. This is so good. Business where he's just idly flipping through the phone book to his own ad like you do, I guess.

Yeah. You Google yourself. Yeah. That's what he was doing. And someone has drawn a mustache and beard, like devil beard on it in pencil. So while he's talking to Sarah, he's getting a pencil and trying to erase it. It's thin paper and he starts tearing through the paper. Say what I'll do. I'll make this half price. Thank you, Jim. But don't don't hurt Nick's

chances for medical school. Damn it. What's wrong? I tore my picture. I'll call you later. So just like nonsense line for her to hear. And it's great. Yeah. He does say that he'll charge her half price. And she says, thank you. And does ask him not to blow her brother's chances at medical school. Right. And he's about to. Well, here's the thing. I don't think he does.

Maybe we can talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, eventually he does. But yeah, the case requires it. Well, maybe not even. OK, we'll get into it in a second. Yeah, yeah. You know, there are things we do not get in this pilot that are some of the things that we love about the show. We don't really get a great Jim Runcicon. Like this is the closest we get. And I'm going to send you the screenshot because I love his outfit in this one.

Jimi in costume. He does wear the square glasses and carry a briefcase, which is how we know he's in disguise. But he tries to run a con and it doesn't go anywhere. And I think that is the takeaway. That's good. Like, you know, establishing thing for this character. Later we get to see him run all the successful cons, but this one, he just gets totally still involved, which again, is kind of like inverting the PI like thing. Yeah.

Millie's hanging out at our outdoor pool. She's in a bathing suit. She's sunbathing. He's claiming to be a dean of admission from one of the medical schools that Nick is applying to. You don't look much like a dean of admission. You look like a truck driver in a suit And he just goes well, I'm not He is taking a little taken aback by it but it's well within the kid in character so that's good

I love that line though that you look like a truck driver in a suit Yeah, he's there to determine if she's really going to pay for Nick for all four years. He's not a family member. You know, it is expensive. It'll come to almost 15,000 a year. I'm very wealthy and I want to do this boy a favor. It's like, well, we have a lot of other needy applicants. He's my only charity case.

He runs a, well, the school wants to know if you're going to set up a trust like and she's like call my lawyer He'll set it up. I'm like, all right, like Yeah, she's playing it totally straight great and he just gets totally stonewalled. He tries to keep chatting He's like, oh the pool is really nice on a hot day like this and she's like, yeah, it is. Goodbye Yeah, he takes his glasses off Like if he could he would let his hair down. Just like wave it in the wind. But it just yeah, just isn't going to work. And it's not because she hasn't made she's like totally like,

oh, this Dean wants to flirt now. Like, yeah, you can leave. He leaves. She goes inside. We have another leg ballet where we see that Jerry in the house and she comes around a corner and he's like lurking behind this corner. She screams in surprise much as Epi screams when a YouTube video starts playing when he wasn't expecting it to. He's not like trying to frighten her.

Frighten her. It's just a thing that happens. But it does a great job of establishing that this guy, like we're getting to the- It's creepy. I think we know it. I think we know that she does not have this guy on a leash. He's demanding money from her. They seem to be working together, but he's a danger to her as well as everyone else. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, he's the Dean of whatever. He's like, his name is Rockford and he's the man you sent me to follow. We go to the Cyrano nightclub and then we hear voiceover and we cut to the hotdog stand where Jim and Sarah are getting dinner. So no fancy dinner tonight.

Yeah. So there are no tacos in this episode, I will say. No. So again, not a hundred percent dialed in unless you're one of those Pedants who subscribe to hot dogs being tacos without getting into that which we're not at the end of the day Everything's a burrito. Let me get right down But it is called the I'm just doing the one screenshot where Jim is chewing on his hot dog But they are at the tail of the pup hot dog stand. It's a good line

I won't put these both in the post, I don't think, but because there's going to be too many screenshots, but I think you will appreciate. So the funny thing about the establishment is that it is a hot dog stand in the shape of a hot dog bun on its side with the hot dog sticking out where the two ends of the bun come together like a butt. It's yeah. It's not a good look. It's not a good look. It's very funny.

And then there's mustard. So there's a brown smear. Yeah. Tale o the pub. And this exists. Like this has to exist. Yeah. Yeah. This is a place that was just on the road somewhere. Yeah. Anyway, discussing the case,

he's breaking down his bill for Sarah. Like, here's all the itemized things, which is always good. Eight dollars and 62 cents for some tax thing. Yeah, because it's not sales tax. There's federal tax. I break it out that way for my own records. Yeah. And he even says, I called her attorney, he's setting up the trust. So like, yeah, like Jim got that process into motion. It sounds fantastic.

That's good. Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true. If it's in a trust, they should be good. If that attorney sets up the trust before the trial, I feel like. Right. Yeah. Then Nick is good. But if not, but she gave him nothing. He doesn't have anything to sink his teeth into. And that's when he sees the nose of Jerry's car, the red convertible that's been following.

— This is the second time you've quit and I'm still getting these little slips of paper from you. I'm not even sure you're really off this case. — I'm not sure either. You go home, I'll call you later. Hey. Earlier, she said, Who's who's paying for this? And he said, I am. And then he leaves and stiffs her with the check for the hot dogs. So good. We get into our sequence here where he drives away.

Jerry's following. We see Jim thinking he pulls over. He goes into like a theater as like a marquee. And I was like, is that like a vaudeville theater? And I'm like, this may be some movie theater that has an old style thing, but it is a live stage. It's vaudeville. I think he comes in on a burlesque or something like that. Or, yeah, he's doing like a high wire act, but I'm like, yeah, on the stage,

like a balance beam kind of thing. But she's wearing like a sparkly swimsuit, etc. The trick is they're just doing the trick. Like we're going to see that high wire act, which does the splits on the high wire, which is impressive like that. I think Emma and I both started clapping when the audience started clapping for that one. And we're going to see like a nice, uh, dog show, train dogs. And these, this is just the thing.

Like this is, they, this existed and they were filming it. It's 1974. You can go to the, go get your drink at the bar and watch vaudeville. Apparently you pay the cover at the door. You go in and not only that, the bartender knows Jim, they know Jim. This is like a haunt. Like Jim comes to this vaudeville act often enough for them to recognize them And as we'll find out actually not even until the next episode Right because they we cut in the middle of my favorite scene here

But they know him well enough that they know that he might be bringing trouble, right, right Jim feels safe here. Jerry follows him in, sees Jim at the bar. I think Jim pretends not to see him, but make sure that he's seen. And then Jim goes to the bathroom. So we cut back and forth between Jerry watching this act on stage and Jim waiting impatiently for the guy who's meticulously cleaning his fingernails underneath the faucet in the bathroom for presumably minutes.

Yeah. So Jim's finally takes action. He keeps glancing like he's waiting. He's waiting for Jerry to come through the door. Right. Right. Yeah. He's waiting to get ambushed.

Yeah. So finally he stumbles up to the guy pretends to be drunk and is like, hey buddy. Can you just give me 20 bucks? I have this chick that I'm talking to and you know just give this whole routine And the guy that that frightens the guy away. He's like, I'm sorry I can't help you and finally leaves Jim does a great drunk He is good if you would absolutely leave the room to get away from this character, even though it's Jim James Gardner. He then unscrews. I like how we see the whole thing. He has so good the soap dispenser, sprays the hand soap all over the floor.

Then we see him take a roll of nickels, which I guess adjusted inflation. I assumed it was a roll of quarters. Me too. Yeah. But it's probably yes. Adjust for inflation. roll of nickels. A roll of quarters, that's a lot to carry around in your pocket. We go back, we see that now the Dancing Dog Act is on stage. Jerry's looking at his watch. He finally goes into the bathroom.

Jim is waiting. Yes. With a, you gotta be one of the dumbest looking apes I ever saw. Right. I'm going to send you this screenshot because there's a great camera shot of Jerry coming into the bathroom. Jim is standing by the sink, so the mirror over the sink is over his shoulder. In the screenshot, it looks like picture in picture because the camera is getting the

reflection of Jerry coming in the door framed directly next to Jim. Oh, so good. It's a really good shot. It is a good shot. I wasn't able to pause it on a slightly clearer frame, so it's a little blurry, but you get the idea. Honestly, I wonder if this scene is the reason why we have the pilot. A couple of things so far that I love about this scene is how long it takes for this guy to go into the bathroom after Jim. Is it extended? Yeah, he waits a long time.

Instead of this being, this is genius what Jim is doing, but instead of this being like the perfectly calculated move, you know, or anything like that, this is a trying to make the best out of the situation and just like, oh, maybe the guy won't come in at all. I've just spilled soap all over the floor and chase this guy out for no reason. It just has a lot of opportunity to fail and nothing we've seen from this episode so far indicates that it's guaranteed to work. So it does have this sort of tension to it,

and then it works, and it just... It's so good. So the banter to get into it, oh, big muscled up apes like you are always compensating for something. Yeah. Jerry's starting to get mad, he's like, like what? And then Jim using it as a slur calls him queer

in order to get him angry, which works. Yeah. The tone of that did not hit me great. No, they don't need it. No one thought about that as a thing that they needed to think about. Yeah, exactly. I feel like later episodes, they do think about that sort of stuff. So that's that's good. But yeah, yeah. But that does bring out Jerry's weirdness, where he gets all like creepy.

I don't know how else to describe it. Yeah. It goes like everything's going to be all right. Yeah. Which is kind of his line when he's going to try and kill someone. And then he rushes at Jim with his big karate kick. Oh, it's slips on the soap, falls down in front of Jim. Jim punches him right across the jaw and he just goes down. Yeah. So in the syndicated show, this is where we get to be continued. It's time for us to take our traditional intermission,

as we all need a little break to head out to the lobby, take a little stretch, get a snack, a drink, reflect on what's come before and anticipate what's to come in this episode of the Rockford Files. We also like to take this time to remind you of where else you can find us on the internet. Epi, where can our listeners find you? Well, you can find me at my website dig1000holes.com. That's 1000 the number. Or you can find me as Epidya on the Mastodon instance dice.camp or on cohost. Where can our listeners find you, Nathan? All of my

games, zines, podcast projects, and other work are at NDPdesign.com. You can also find me at NDP on cohost and over on Instagram at NDPdesign.games. And of course, you can always find this show 200 a day at 200aday.fireside.fm. And now we return to the continuing adventures of Jimmy Rocco. We pick up our second episode on the same shot after the previously on and the credits. Jim is shaking his fist and we see him open his fist and smile at his role of Nichols. So that's like the last shot of the first indicated episode and the first shot of the second. I assume in the movie it just rolls straight through.

Right. Yeah. One continuous scene. So I just say that in order to finish the scene. And then I have two things to talk about Jim is standing tall and victory. Mm-hmm He then uses his advantage to tie his belt around Jerry's feet and hang him upside down On a coat hook so that he's not hanging like hang his feet on the coat hook. So he's he's essentially immobilized He can't really do anything while Jim is standing there Yeah, yeah

This is a good pose and you can see all the smear of the soap the soap on the ground around him Oh, it's so good. The lighting is good too because the lighting is not good, right? Like it's it's uh, it's not flattering in any way. Jim finds his wallet looks at his license. The trouble with karate, Jerry, is it's based on a ridiculous assumption that the other guy will fight fair. Who follows someone in a red convertible with chrome hubcaps? And that's a direct Huggins thing where he's like, I always thought it was silly that for visual purposes, detectives were always following people in red cars. Yeah.

The audience immediately recognizes it or something like that. Yeah. Jerry says, a chickie knows said to scare, scare him off, but now I can see you're the wrong guy. Jim asks him what he does for a living. He says, nothing. A lot of ways of doing nothing, Jerry. So Jim steps on Jerry's wrist

Yeah, and then leans on it when Jerry is not straight with him and it looks like it really hurts Yes, I feel like again is on that outer edge of I don't know how serious Jim can be with with physical violence Like there's a couple episodes where we see him. He's a little more like punch him up and this is on that edge here. That's pretty much counterweighted immediately by a bit where a guy comes in. So good. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know the room was being used. Okay.

We're almost through. Oh, I'll just wait outside. It's okay. You can stay. It is straight up the most intimidating thing that Jim can do in that scene, right? I'm so incredibly comfortable being here doing this right now that I don't mind you just- A witness. A witness just waiting it out.

Yeah. He tells Jerry he's gonna, you know, take a look through his background. If you hear someone's looking through your credit report and everyone you know, that's me. Then he leaves. He says good night to Harry at the bar. We go back to Jerry, where he has got himself free. He's clearly incensed and he kicks in the door with his karate kick. And he slipped a little bit doing it, which is great.

It's a little like it's just. Yeah. My two things. Obviously, the scene is great. It may very well be the most significant scene in Rockford Files history, I say. There is a passage here in 30 years of the Rockford Files where, let's see. So they do a test screening, right? There's this market research company that does test screenings before they decide to air the pilot. As a rule, they consider a series pilot or commercial to be successful if it appeals to 70% of the test audience. Rockford scored in 85. Oh wow. We blew the needle off, recalled Cannell. We had the highest rating of any pilot,

ASI as the company, ASI had ever tested up through that time. In fact, it was so high, NBC couldn't believe the score, so they retested it, and it scored even higher than the second test. In fact, one particular scene in the pilot was so popular with the test audience, the arrow measuring the audience's approval nearly went off the chart. During that scene in which Rockford pours soap on the bathroom floor and he hits the guy with a roll of nickels. "'That needle went way into the 90s,' said Cannell. I'd never seen the needle go that high. But you could just hear the audience howling

through the glass wall of the booth where we were all sitting. So good. It is a great scene. The NBC president turns to Huggins after the screening. Well, Roy, after Nichols, we never thought we'd ever do another show with Jim Garner, but I guess we're going to have to do this one. Oh, I have to see Nichols. I know. To know what happened there.

I know. Maybe in our post-Rockford, we'll screen some Nichols and see if we should talk about it. Like I said, this is the first in my living adult memory, first Rockford files I watch. And when we get to the preview montage, I was like, yes, this scene. Yeah, I love this scene so much. The read that I'm getting, obviously, is someone who wasn't there, is that this is the kind of thing that just wasn't on TV. Yeah. People just didn't see characters, even if they were wry or silly or whatever.

This particular combination of how Rockford approaches problems and like that kind of offbeat-ness of it is totally unique. You'll love to see it. You do. I believe that is what we have turned Rockfordishness. That's what we're seeing coalesce in this scene. The scene is pure Rockfordishness, right? Through and through.

Other note, so I sit down to watch this. I load up the first episode, because I see it's in two episodes syndicated whatever. Somehow I have mislabeled the two episodes on my flex server. So I started watching the second episode. The second episode has about six and a half minutes of previews on, which is just clips from the first one in in sequential order. It is the story from the first episode, but there's the music's different. There's no narration. There's no there's very little transition because it's just clips, right? But they're long enough that they don't feel like clips. Yes. So I'm watching this and I'm like, this is wild. Like, this is really trusting the audience.

Yeah. Like, I liked it, but I was like, this is really trusting the audience to hang because there's a lot here that I'm like, oh, I know who this like I know who Dennis is. Yeah. I know who Jim is, but I'm like, oh, Jim's acting kind of weird. But I guess it's just like the first episode, you know, the pilot. He's still working out the character. He's being really cold because it kind of emphasizes that part of it.

We're trying to not work, but it hits all the beats. It does almost the entire first scene. It does where he gets strangled and spits out the the wine. It has that it has Sarah trying to hire him, confronting Nick, go into the cafe. It skips the Mildred stuff, but it has the coroner and it has this fight. Yeah. Let's see. Oh, you know what?

We skipped a scene. Oh, did we? After Jim? Because I was like, this was in the preview montage to or the the previous Leon after he sees angel Jim goes to see Dennis Yes about the case file and Dennis. Well, it's great cuz he's like it's the if you could tell you Yeah, if I could tell you anything, I would tell you that he was still wearing a diamond ring So I don't think it was a mugging right? So shame we skipped it I don't really want to go back but because it's good like oh, yeah, this their dynamic like yeah. Yeah, it's right off the bat. Anyway, that is in this so I'm like, yeah This we don't see angel. Yeah, so but I'm like the music's weird. It's a cinematic camera It's really cutting hard. This is wild. I can't believe that they decided to do this style

Like there's no Experimental yeah, and then that's all leading up to the credits. I'm like, wow, so that's where we're kicking off Like that's all the backstory Yeah, we're kicking off our movie with the credits and then at the end of the credits it goes part two and like That's good. That was a very funny experience because it was making me think about how like the Colombo pilots, there's two pilot movies for Colombo and they're more like movie movies and have a little more style to them in how they're shot. I think I told you the experience we had when we finished watching Colombo, the app we watched

it on would auto start the next episode, but instead of starting the next episode, it just went back to the first one. All I saw on the app was that we had another episode of Colombo to watch. And so we sat down for lunch one day and we started watching it. And I was like, wow, this 90s Columbo is a real 70s throwback feel to it. We got so far into it before we realized we were rewatching the very first pilot. Someone's very familiar about this. Oh right yes. Yeah. So anyway so that was kind of fun because I kind of

liked that like real hard style where it was really like you really need to pay attention so that you get all these beats. But it makes sense that it was the recap and not the not the actual show. So that was a fun experience going into the kind of back half of our movie here. After leaving Jerry, Jim waits across the street until Jerry leaves and then follows him. Yeah, you'll reverse the follow. You love to see it. He pulls up to some kind of nightclub on the strip. Jim sees some cops

go by with their lights on, which I think is just for color. I thought like, is he going to try and flag them down or something? But I think right just just showing the kind of area that they're in we go inside to follow Jerry and get this oh the the mirror the mirror yeah this like wild disco mirror thing and like the red lights uh on the dance floor. Yeah. My note now, this is the 70s seems very sweaty. How to describe this. It's not a mirror ball. It's covered in little mirrors like a mirror ball, but it's like as if a villain from an H.G.

Wells story designed the mirror ball like, yeah, it's like a tunnel to the center of the earth. It's a cube with like little with like concentric circles coming out of each face. Yeah. That go into cones. Yeah, it looks like it's going to start drilling like they're going to start spinning. Yeah. But they're all mirrored. So, yeah. Yeah. So it's to get as many lights chasing across the dance floor as possible

to scare away people like me who would start feeling dizzy and need to leave. Yeah, you wouldn't hang out here. You want to hang out at the bar with Jerry? No. So, yeah. So he goes to the bar outside. Jim goes to Sarah's like her house. I guess they're on a go to her house basis now and says, I'm back on the case. Am I regular rates?

Someone's interested in Jim, which means that he's turned over the right rock. And then he tells her to put something sexy on. He's going to give her a chance to get her money back, which sounds more dramatic the way I'm saying it. Yeah. Again, it's a little more humorous in the delivery. And then she's like, what? He's like something slinky and he snaps his fingers.

She's like, what? He's like, something slinky. And he snaps his fingers. He's going to pay her his normal operative fees to help investigate her own case. Basically is what it is. So, yeah. So we have a sequence where she's finishing up her makeup in the car while Jim is giving her instructions. He wants her to meet up with Jerry at the bar in this club and gives her some knockout drops. Yes. I won't do it for less than 50. Who set you on to me?

The cops. Well, I'm the figures. Legit concern, but she also is game. There's no sense here that Jim is forcing her into this. No, no, no. And we sort of established in the earlier episode that she's willing to use her feminine wiles to try and get Jim to take the case, right? Like this is, yeah. Outside the club she says she can handle it and he gives a smile and kind of

touches her cheek and it's like, I think you can. Again, it's kind of a warm moment where they're kind of on the same page about this. Jim executes a fun sweeping maneuver in the car to pull back against the curb after letting her out. We do a crossfade to show that time has passed. Jim is checking his watch. I have a note here where this isn't anywhere just a thought I had. Would be great if she was like stringing out the thing to pad the hourly rate. Get two hours out of it. Yeah. He finally sees the two of them stumble out. They certainly look like they've been drinking. I have a note.

These ballets should not let this man drive. No, absolutely not. But Jim follows. They go to a hotel as they're walking down the hallway. Sarah, fruitaciously, I want to know what the other guy looked like. Because Jerry has this big bruise on his jaw where Jim punched him. Yes.

He talks big. I took that guy apart, whatever, and says that she's in for a real treat. There's this zoom on the lock and the deadbolt as he unlocks his door. Yeah. Which again, I think is just a piece with seeing hands do things as kind of a visual motif. But it felt very ominous, but it doesn't mean anything. Yeah, it was expecting that lock to be a barrier in some future scene, and it just wasn't. I think it's just this director likes hands and feet. That's the conclusion that I'm coming to.

Hands and feet. Inside, there's two glasses, Sarah saying, let's finish these drinks. And we see her very specifically put a drop from the blue bottle of knockout drops into one of the glasses. He starts coming on to her. She pushes him off, plays a little hard to get. He's like, come on, we're not in high school, which is kind of kind of funny. But she gets the glass in his hand and he takes it, he shoots it down. We see that Jim is now outside the door. And then as he goes for Sarah to

kind of embrace her again, he gets a funny look on his face and he passes out and falls face down on the floor. There's a little bit of tension there, but I feel like we see Sarah being on top of the situation. Yeah. Yeah. Sarah lets Jim in. He gives her some stick for letting Jerry paw her. He's like, I saw you outside the club. She's like, what? I was trying to pick him up. Remember? I think we see this with Jim. You know, he has a bit of a double standard sometimes.

Yes. And she comes right back at him and it's like, this is what you're literally paying me to do. So you can't criticize me on this. I do want to point out that our actor, William Smith is ripped. Yeah. He takes his shirt is off. Yeah. In the second half of that scene. He's big.

With the high waisted pants, with the pants like on his actual waist. And yeah, he he could be in the ring. I would I would buy that. Let's move. I don't want him to wake up and catch us. Are you afraid of him? You damn right I am. Like a gym, gym ism.

What are they looking for? We'll know when we find it. We have dramatic crosscutting as they're tossing the room and we go back and we see that Jerry's starting to wake up a little bit and then falling back asleep, etc. Just to give us a little tension. We get a shot of, I think, the red pants hanging in the closet. I think so. It's not a clue or anything like that. It's a clue for us, but we knew this already, so that doesn't matter. Jim finally finds a photo album that he calls like, ah, it's his trophy case.

And it's big photos of different women that Jerry is posing with. And one of the pictures is Jerry and Mildred. So connection made. We have another brief scene with Angel where he's getting more clippings for Jim from old newspapers, including a picture of Mr. Elias so that they can compare it with a picture of Sarah's dad. And they don't really look alike, but they are both old is kind of the thing. Sarah is there. It's a very brief scene and as they leave, Angel says to her, me and Jimmy go way back. We were in the pen together.

We were both framed. And then we have a humorous freeze frame on Sarah's face. Yes. That cuts right back to Sarah's place where she asked Jim if he was really in prison. He spent five years in state pen for armed robbery. So there we go. There we go. Now we know. Now we know.

Good sequence here. Did you do it? Would you believe me if I said no? She goes, probably not. Then let's not mess with it. And she says, okay, that was a mean thing to say. Yeah. She would.

She really would believe him. But it's not important to him anymore. It used to be. Yeah, I want to let everybody know I was innocent. The governor gave me a pardon and said it never happened. I took that pardon and I had it framed and I put it up on the wall of my office. And one day I looked at it and suddenly wasn't important anymore so I took it down. And you think I ought to take my father's picture down? I won't tell you what to do, Sarah. I gave up that habit while I was in prison.

That's one of the more constructive things I learned while I was there. Well, somebody killed him, and whoever it is ought to be caught. Well, the trick is not to get caught yourself. She tells Jim he's a sentimentalist. How strange he says, not really. We have some romantic stirrings happening through this conversation. And then he does end up going in for a kiss. So my note is like she lets him. She's not trying not to be kissed.

But then there's a beat and then she responds with her affirmative kissing, if you will. Yeah. And a swell of romantic music. And then I thought this was a really nice tonal moment where they end the scene breaking the kiss, but going into like a hug. Yeah. And she kind of tucks her head onto his shoulder.

Yeah. And it makes it more tender than sexy. Yeah, yeah. I would agree. And I'm the one you're trying to convince. I think our pilot is trying to get across a little of the like, Jim is he's an attractive man. We're not going to shy away from that in this show. Yeah.

We want a little romance, a little action like the pilot really does kind of give us a little bit of everything. Yeah. And a counterpoint to our romantic interlude, we go to Jerry at Millie's house calling someone. He wants a plane to Vegas. And this guy, Marty, I think, says, all right, it'll be 10 grand, everything included. Millie wants to know what he's going to do. He doesn't want him to kill anyone. I didn't know you were going to kill that man Butler. We have a very intense scene where we see that as you say he is not on any kind of leash. Yeah. Yeah. He just turns to her and just goes, I need 20 grand. Her

read is you are arranging to kill someone. So I'm not going to pay you. But she just says no. And he throws her on the couch and jumps behind her and grabs her head scarf, mirroring what happened with Mr. Butler. He's starting to pull around her neck and she just yells out my money and he stops. I almost killed the golden goose. So he doesn't even have him on a leash. Right, yeah.

He is a creature of impulse, I think we really see. I'm not gonna kill anyone. We're just gonna rough the guy up and buy him off. And I think that is what she wants to hear right? Yes. She doesn't have the money right that second You know, he'll get it in the morning and then so he says I'll spend the night won't that be fun? Yeah, that's that's our second content warning. But yeah, there's an implication there that is yeah, not great No, and this gets plenty scary without it. So again don't particularly particularly need it, but that's where we were in the 70s. Yeah.

Now we going into the weird dreamy montage. We now have a flashback sequence. Jim and Sarah are on her couch. She looks like she's asleep. His shirt is unbuttoned a couple buttons. So it's like kind of post-coital, but not really. Like, it's pretty soft nod. And then there's this dreamy like blue music

flashback that kind of shows us the story so far. My read is if you're watching this movie and you're tuning in for the second hour. Yeah, this is probably placed to get you up to speed with the plot because it's not really it doesn't really serve any function narratively. Yeah, I agree. We come out of it to Jim asking Sarah to tell him more about her dad the last year or so. He needs to find a connection with Elias. Clearly there's something but there's just and I think as an audience

We're also like what is the connection? Yeah. Yeah, there are no clues. There are no nods. There's no foreshadowing really It's just like well, there's something he was a problem to them We know that only because of the juxtaposition at the very beginning of the episode of Millie calling Jerry and saying hey, we have trouble. So, Sarah, you know, it's a sad story. Her mom died a couple of years before that. Her dad crawled into a bottle, couldn't really reach him. He just, you know, deteriorated.

Part of her story is that there was one time she couldn't even find him for three weeks, and then randomly found him at a mission that she was looking for him at. When she sobered him up enough to ask him He said that he had been in the desert for his health Jim asks the date She couldn't really remember and then he's like was it around the first two weeks in June last year and she's like, oh, yeah It was how do you know? Yeah, I need to go get some stuff from my trailer and then we're going to Vegas I'll explain later If we've been paying attention, this is, I think, syncing up with

when Mildred got married to Elias. Right. There's a notable amount of I'll explain later in this half of the show. Jim calls Rocky. Bizarro Rocky, he needs some help. I can help you bait a hook. They're really biting up here. He wants to know if he's still friends with that city administrator in Vegas,

because he needs to get into City Hall as soon as possible. Rocky was exaggerating a little. He's not exactly a city administrator. Well, just what is he, Dad? Well, he's a janitor in the city administrator's office. Well, you're some kind of a liar. I wasn't lying. I wouldn't lie, Jimmy.

I'll think about it. What I said was that he was cleaning up in the city administrator's office. That's what I said. Which is, that's pure Rocky. Yeah, yeah, that's good Rocky stuff. Does he have a set of keys? Can he get me into city hall? and there's a moment and Jim goes I'll give you 50 bucks plus Welching privileges

Which in this case means renegotiated up I'm not quite sure what it means Yeah, I don't know unless it's like a thing that they just keep passing back and forth. Yeah, probably See you in five hours, which I guess is how long it'll take to get to Vegas. Jim to the cookie jar. Yeah. Yeah. Introduced that to he has his gun in the cookie jar. The cookie jar. It is it is in a bag in the cookie jar, which probably makes sense, honestly.

A little more sanitary. But I think for dramatic effect, we dropped the bag. Later, it's just in there. Sarah, you mean you didn't have a gun on you when I picked up Jerry? Jim's like, no, but he doesn't have a permit anyway. Yeah, we go to the Firebird on the way to Vegas. Sarah wants to know what's going on. Jim has a wild idea.

And if it's right, I'll explain everything. Why don't you just tell me? And he says I'm superstitious. And she says, you're afraid if you're wrong, you'll look stupid. Yeah, that too. So they do, you know, hang a lantern on that, I guess. But yeah, for for the audience, we're still deferring the reveal. Right, right.

Cook County Courthouse. Jim wants to know who performed the wedding ceremony for the Eliases. So Rocky has met them there. I guess this guy is the janitor that he knows? This part of my connective tissue here is a little weird, because the guy's like wearing a suit and looks... Well, maybe you gotta look good as a janitor at the city hall or whatever, the town clerk or whatever. He does say, must be important to get me up at 6 a.m. Jim says it is important. He says how important and Jim says this is coming out of year end Rocky.

We're back to Bizarro Rocky. Skip the shakedown. He ain't going for it. Definitely not our Rocky, but a fun Rocky nonetheless. I do like the idea of him being a slightly shadier uncle. But they find the name of Reverend Danford Baker. We now have a extended sequence here at the Rose of Sharon Wedding Chapel. Jerry and his boy Marty are in a black car, not car guys. We see them in a black car, not car guys, we see them driving.

We see this reverend that we presumably just learned the name of, performing a wedding ceremony. We see Jim and Sarah driving. Sarah's having trouble reading the map and they have good banter of, you know, this is like getting comfortable enough to be sarcastic with each other. Yeah. Level of their relationship, which is good.

But they're taking a little while to find this place. We're trying to find the reverend does say Delgado. So I think it's just his name. But oh, room is Louis Delgado. Nice. Yes, I miss that. Yeah. So the ceremony completes our new weds go out, our goons go in. Mm hmm. I have a little chat with the reverend.

Uh, we see our goons escorting the reverend out of the chapel. We see the firebird passing the car that says just married and has the tin cans, you know, rolling along behind it. Our goons hustle the reverend into the back of their car. They start to pull out. And then in a Rockford move, if I've ever seen one, the reverend opens the door while they're turning and rolls out. So it runs across the street,

which I love, who is in front of a bus makes it. Jerry pulls out a gun, takes a couple of shots. He does get get him while on the run with the second shot. And that's when the firebird roars in, kind of clips Jerry as it comes to a stop and he spins around. Jerry takes a shot at the firebird in that sequence and then runs back to his car. And then we have

good car action here. Yes. So, in the preview montage, there is a bit where we see the firebird spinning and I was like, J-turn! It's not really a J-turn. He does a fishtail 180 to get across the street turn and follow, but wasn't wasn't really a J turn. So I couldn't hang that innovation here either, unfortunately, though I was looking for it. But yeah, and then we have a sequence rushing through the streets and then outside of Vegas into the hills, into the rural kind of surrounding area.

And the tension here is that our goons can't quite get away from Jim and Jim can't quite close the distance on the goons. Yeah, there's a little back and forth between the goons where it seems like they don't want to lose him. They don't want him to gain on them, but they want him to follow. And then Jim seems aware of that a little bit. Like he's like, we're not, not she's like we're not losing him And he's like we're not gaining on him either. Yeah, but I even having watched this episode Oh so long ago, I guess I just completely forgot. I don't know. I wasn't expecting the twists That are about to come this this escalates. Let's just put it that way

I mean, I think because it's kind of coming from Jerry, who's like, come on, you're doing fine, like in the review, because I think Jerry wants to kill Brockford, I think. Yes. So I think that's why I didn't note that both of the passengers. So the other guy is driving and Jerry's in his red like leisure suit. His murder suit, his murder suit. And then Jim's driving and Sarah is in a red dress underneath a blazer.

Oh yeah. Nice little synchronicity. That's good, yeah. I missed that, yeah. But yeah, eventually our goon car rolls out over the high desert to a waiting light aircraft. Why it's there is not explained other than maybe he was going to use that as a getaway after doing whatever they're going to do with the Reverend. I can only imagine they're going to take the Reverend out here. Yeah.

Kill him and then fly away. He did engage Marty for the plane. He did say I need a plane. Yes, he did need a plane. Maybe he was established an alibi by getting back so quickly or something like that. Yeah, it doesn't really matter as we find out. But yeah, he's far enough. Jim is far enough back that our goons are able to jump into the plane, get prepared and start taking off. And we think there's a moment where maybe because the firebird starts paralleling the plane. It's like, oh, but then they are too far in front and are able to lift off before Jim can do anything about it. But it's not over Before we get our dramatic conclusion We have a exchange in the firebird where Jim finally tells Sarah what he thinks happened thus telling us what has happened in

classic exposition Style. Yeah, so the Eliases had their wedding party in LA, then they flew to Vegas, and then they checked into a hotel, and then old man Elias died before they actually went to the chapel to get married. So Mrs. Elias panics. She's about to lose out on this big payday since they haven't actually been married yet. She calls her friend Jerry, says, I lost $10 million. I need help. Jerry says, throw an electric blanket on him. I'll get a substitute.

So I was like, oh, and my dad's about the right age. So that's why Jerry grabbed him. This is during the time he was in Vegas for his health, right? Or in the desert for his health. Yeah. So they grab her dad. That's who the Reverend marries. Then after that, she calls the cops. My husband is dead. Problem solved. Her dad gets back to L.A., maybe eventually sobers up, figures out that Mrs. Elias inherited a bunch of money. And there's a little bit of language here, but like basically either he was going to blackmail them or threatened to or something,

or they thought that he was going to for some reason. So it couldn't be couldn't be allowed to take that risk. Sarah definitely doesn't think he would blackmail. We haven't seen anything to say one way or the other, but it was just more of a risk is all. Yeah. This all kicks off with Mildred calling Jerry and saying, we have a problem. And her dad saying, I'm meeting someone here.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think he might have been. Yeah. Maybe he calls her and says, hey, you owe me. And she says, OK, I'll meet you at this place. And then she calls Jerry. Right. Yeah. Because she says, I didn't know you're going to kill him. Right. Right. Right. We can fill in those blanks, which is good. This is very like Huggins storytelling, I feel. Yes. Like here's the effect.

You can kind of imagine like what actually happened. But here's all the follow on effects. We got it. We got a big one coming up for that. I have a huge question mark near the end of this story. All right. Well, she wishes that Sarah wishes they could have caught him. And Jim says, we'll turn it all over to the cops. At least your dad's case will come out of the inactive file. And that's when the plane comes back around the frame and we see Jerry with a machine gun.

Yes. And our high, high octane literally ending here where it's again a kind of an extended sequence. But it's pretty fun where the plane just takes multiple strafing passes and Jim is kicking up dust and trying to maneuver in the car. He eventually ends up tucking into like a rocky outcropping. Jim and Sarah run to cover. Jerry strafes the firebird without it moving and it explodes. Yes, we lose our first firebird so soon. So soon. Jim has brought his gun.

So he he braces. He lines up his shot as the plane comes over the rocks over them. Jerry's reloading. So he has an opportunity and he takes a couple of shots. And then the plane turns around again and he takes a couple more. And we see two bullet holes into the tank. There's a beep as the plane flies away. It just says, well, we hit him.

And then the plane comes around and we see it's really, really low. And it finally comes down for a landing. It lands, our goons run away from the plane and of course explodes. Yes. Why? I'm not sure. and of course explodes. Yes. Why? I'm not sure, but yeah. Good aerial footage of a burning plane as the banjo comes in.

Considerably more explosions than most of the other episodes. Yeah. So here's the tea on this scene. Yeah, let's hear it. Quoting here from 30 years of the Rockford Files. Near the end of the pilot episode, Rockford files his pistol into the engine of a plane flying several thousand feet above him, italics in the original, and somehow manages to hit it. But that wasn't how the scene was supposed to play.

The script called for the plane to fly no higher than 15 feet above the ground, so that when it flew directly over Rockford, he would have a clear shot at the belly of the engine, and a good chance of causing damage. As the scene stands, however, it is the one moment of incredulity in an otherwise excellent film. In fact, it was the subject of the one overwhelmingly negative finding on the test screening report. Huggins knew it too. In fact, he became so concerned over that scene, he offered to put up his own money in order to reshoot it. I made a proposition, he recalled. I said to the production company, let me reshoot that, and if the pilot sells, you pay for it.

But if it doesn't sell, I'll pay for it. Because a scene like that could be the difference between the show selling and the show not selling. If we reshot it and the pilot sold, it would have been worth the extra expense. And if I was wrong, if I reshot it and the pilot still didn't sell, I was willing to pay for it myself. The studio declined Huggins' offer, and the scene stayed stayed in and NBC purchased the Rockford files anyway But it gives you an idea of how Huggins happened to approach his craft as a producer of television. Yeah, that's interesting Still a lot of fun. Mm-hmm car versus plane Jim versus plane Jim versus machine gun and I like how it's not that it's too wild to be a part of the story, because clearly it's as we will find out in the last scene,

like it's kind of the comedic hook for the rest of the episode. But yeah, that that the mechanics of it weren't right. It was too far away. We need to reshoot it so that it would make sense that Jim possibly could do the thing that we are calling for in the script. That's like a distinction that like matters right to to the craft, which I really appreciate Well speaking of craft. This is another wonderful bit of Rockford ishness here where our goons are walking down the street They're trying or down the street. It's like a rural highway. Yeah, truck is coming towards them

They put out their thumbs to hitch. It passes them. They drop their arms and then it stops and they start picking up the pace to jog towards it. And then Jim jumps out in front with his gun. You fellas need a lift. So he forces them up and into the cement barrel of the cement truck. Tell Sarah to go drive. Go ahead, honey, you're driving. And then he stands there with his gun while the barrel turns with our villains inside it, which probably isn't very good for you, but is an amazing set piece. That's good.

So some questions. Yes. Where'd that come from? The cement truck. Yeah. Was there anyone else there? If she's driving driving then they just got a free cement truck somewhere. Maybe he forced whoever was driving the cement truck out of it. Yeah, that's all I can think of. There is like a couple indications of like, it's like farms and stuff.

Yeah. You know, it's the desert, but like, because there's like a truck that he has to swerve to avoid that's like a fuel tanker or no milk tanker or something I mean there could have been some kind of construction going on that had a cement truck like there or whatever I missed it or whatever, but that's fine The other question I have is you and I I don't think we could just get behind the wheel of a cement truck I Suspect there is more to do with driving cement truck than there would be just like with a regular driver's license. All of that

said, it's lovely. I do love that they put our goons in the mixer. It's worth it. Yeah, it's and the mixer spins. I think they have to spin when they're driving. Otherwise your cement would you would end up with a rock. If it's automatic, automatic sure fine if you have to turn it on and that's just me yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah no but it's good stuff um I agree with your critiques however they did not bother me in the moment no they didn't bother me in the moment either it was just the thing where I was like oh wait, wait a minute. We go to the Vegas. Oh, yes. Where our first question to Jim, where did you get that gun? You don't have a license.

Jim asks if he called Becker in L.A. You're checking the signatures on the marriage license, right? Like Jim's like, here's all the things that need to be handled for this case. And the cops like, yeah, it's all being handled. We're doing all that. But in the meantime, where did you get that gun? Look, I don't know how to tell you this, Buster, but you just can't go around shooting down light aircraft with handguns.

Everything else is fine. Everything else is within the realm of things this guy has seen. But this, the cop gives a phone call. No, no, listen, I've got a whole omelet cooking up here. I'm holding two guys on suspicion of murder. There's going to be an FAA investigation into that crash. I got a minister in the hospital. I don't know.

I'm just going to hold everybody. I get figured out. I did have a note earlier. I was like, I hope someone heard the shots and like called the ambulance or something, because that dude just gets plugged and then we just never see him again. But I guess he's in the hospital. So that was Becker on the phone. They picked up Mrs. Elias. And that's when Rocky Bizarro Rocky comes in. What's he in for this time?

Shooting down a light aircraft with a handgun. Yes. They're going to hold Jim. Jim wants to know the charge. There's a moment and Jim says, how about vitamin deficiency, which is good response? How about material witness there? Sarah says that she's sorry for this Jim says it's okay. They can't hold him that long. He'll only charge her half price for the time. He's waiting

The good line it's a good line Are you joking and he says yeah, and they share a kiss and the cops take him away to process Rocky's talking to Sarah. Well, you look at that last time, it took me five years to get him out. Had to hawk my truck to pay for the lawyers. Don't have anything to hawk anymore. I don't know if that comes up later, but as a establishing backstory for Rocky, that makes sense. Yeah. Explains why he doesn't drive a rig anymore. Right. No, it's good. I like it. Who's going to pay for his

lawyers this time? And Sarah says, maybe I can. Good luck. There is like a I mean, this doesn't come up, I don't think in the other episode with her. I guess there's a path where it's like, since she did technically marry my dad. Right, right. But there's the other might be money, but they don't they don't make that evident at their little intake station. There's a slot machine because Vegas, Jim, they have to take his belt and he takes everything out of his pockets. And I guess he has a nickel or whatever.

So he puts it in the slot, takes a poll. Nothing happens. And we end on I bet you don't get many winners around here. Ain't that the truth? and we end on. I bet you don't get many winners around here. Ain't that the truth? Yeah. Instead of a freeze frame on that in our credits,

it cuts to a freeze frame of Jerry slipping on the soap. Yes. And that's what we play the credits over, which I think is like, yeah, this is what we're all here for. Yeah, that's, yes. End of pilot, time to buy the series. Yes, I would. I'd buy the series, I think. The ending bit is great.

Again, in the context of other detective stories, they they put their detective in jail at the end of it. It's hard for me to even think of ones. Any other show that it's like that. I mean, there's definitely other shows where detectives have been in jail or cooling their heels in jail or whatever But I don't recall ones where they're like and there we go. Our hero is now in jail Mm-hmm, and that and that's how we're ending it for you I guess that's a question maybe in the first episode if there's any exposition about about it

Don't don't remember there being any but me neither I mean you know it's a it's a pilot movie it is yeah standalone so that gives a good ending yeah if you never if they decided not to buy it at least we all got to see an entertaining movie yeah kind of a tradition around that era this might be more of an 80s tradition is to run credits over the action sequences of the stills from the action in the show that you saw. Yeah, this still fits in that, and I'm glad they chose that and not like the exciting explosions that they had.

They knew this part of the story is the best part. I really enjoyed the whole of the story, and like I said at the top, it was watching this again as an adult that made me go, oh, I'm going to watch more Rockford Files. I did not at the time think I'm going to spend so much time watching it. You could take your time. That's how we got you. Yes.

Yeah, it was a fun watch. It was a little weird for me just because I watched I started watching the second episode. Right. Yes. It was a mistake. And then I also watched them over to because of my weekend. I had to watch them over to two sessions. So, you know, it wasn't like the seamless

experience. Yeah. That one would have had. But I was like I was ready to watch it. Right. I was like, all right, let me give me the good stuff. And there is a lot of good stuff. So I liked that. I think, like with any pilot, it's interesting to see how much is already there and how much gets developed. We talk a lot in the first season, particularly about like locations that change and like little continuity things that they firm up,

you know, that kind of stuff in a way where no one is like, all right, every week we're going to be answerable to the nerds on the wiki. Right. Right. Like it's that kind of show. But everyone involved in it cares about it, I think. And that really shows it's good. It's worth watching. Clearly, we get more of all the good stuff as the show goes on. Yeah. Is there anything that stands out to you as the biggest surprise in terms of like change or unexpected difference between like something in the pilot and something that how it ends up being in the in the main run of the show? There's Bizarro Rocky. Obviously, we went over Bizarro Rocky. That's actually kind of a stunning thing about this pilot is how of the show it really feels. The Bizarro Rocky aside, if they aired this somewhere in the middle of the first season, I don't think I would be like... It wouldn't feel out of place. Yeah. There's a piece of trivia that when this was originally syndicated, like put into syndication, it was scheduled in the fourth season for some reason. Oh, wow.

So like if you were watching it in syndication, it would have scheduled in the fourth season for some reason. Oh wow. So like if you were watching it in syndication, it would have just been with fourth season episodes and I feel like that would have felt very strange. Yeah that would have. Tone had shifted by then I think, but yeah anyway. Yeah I'm trying to think. It might also be fairly elastic when it comes to this kind of stuff because like as a kid I would watch Doctor Who when it was on, you know, PBS and I never knew what Doctor would be.

And in the beginning, I'm like, even thought that the Doctor changed every episode or not that often, but you know, like, try to think, yeah, cause the character is pretty firm, you know, little tweaks here and there, but they were doing little tweaks throughout season one. Oh, yeah Angel like we said, she was dialed down a little bit But it doesn't matter what you do angel shines through right like that. That's it. That's a

Dennis is great right from the get-go Dennis is actually less hostile than normal Sorry, how so is not the right word less irritated? Yeah than normal. Sorry, hostile is not the right word. Less irritated than normal. But not too much less. We start immediately with the pressure that's on him. It kind of feels like any other episode where we only have one scene of Dennis. Yeah. I think the arrow that's drawn in this episode doesn't point directly at the Dennis we have, but points more at a Dennis who is feeding Rockford cases. And that's not true. There's politics behind why I can't do this, but it's important. So hey, Jimmy, check this out.

And I don't think the show would be as good as if that was like an angle that they kept leaning on. I do think it happens a couple times, but like that's it. Or it's implied that it happens. Dennis hooks Rita up with Jimmy because of something, you know, like that kind of thing. That's a good point. I think my most like visceral surprise was how and how simultaneously angel and not angel. Yes, angel is because he's there. But yeah, it's like he's he's in the clay, but it hasn't been shaped yet.

You know, yes. Maybe the wider thing that I think is maybe one of the biggest changes. And that's and I'm sure it's just a development thing. You know, it's not a oh, we we need to retool this from the pilot. I think it's more like how do we tell the stories we want to tell the pilot kind of has a it kind of has a introducing a new character in a tabletop game feeling where it's like we kind of have like scenes to identify all of Jim's resources. Right, yeah. Dennis is like kind of a resource from the police side. Angel is a resource at the newspaper. Even Rocky is a, Bizarro Rocky is a resource with like-

He's an old man with friends. Weird old men that he knows. Yeah. And even like there's the the Vaudeville theater with the bartender that Jim knows. Yeah. It kind of is putting together a skeleton of looking at my character sheet. I have allies, contacts, you know, like a mentor, like a video of like a World of Darkness game where you have these like merits that are part of your character. So you have like a scene to like establish who those actually are before you like start your real game.

It has a little bit of that where it's like, OK, here's all the infrastructure for how Jim does his thing. And then I think probably from the jump, we'll find out when we do the first episode. But certainly by this time, we see Sarah again, which is halfway through the first season. It's become more naturalistic where Jim has friends and some of his friends are good friends and some of his friends are only friends because why are he and Angel friends? We can't even articulate it, but they are, right? Yeah, yeah. So we get a little more of that humanity that that that really makes it such an appealing character. Yeah, I'd agree with that. And this episode, we see it with Sarah. But like, yeah, there's still a lot of gym to fill out from the sketch that is this episode,

which is good. I mean, they can film six seasons. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of fun I'm glad we waited towards the end to do it right like, uh, if we had just done it in the middle It'd been fine, but we wouldn't have the weight of the whole series to compare it against Yeah, it's kind of more fun to be able to look back at it. Yeah, I think yeah, uh and Starting with it. That would have been OK. That would have been OK. But you know, like, we would have been like, wow, this Noah Berry guy really has a different take on the character. Yes. Yeah. Would we have fallen in love with Bizarro Rocky and then just spent

the rest of that? Yeah, I don't know. You got it. You got to love Noah Berry. Yeah. He's a little thin. Yeah. He did a perfectly fine job and we got to see an alternate universe where Jim's weird uncle also is in the picture. Yes. So I'm OK with that. They should have brought him back as a weird uncle.

Yeah. That would have been great. Well, that is the pilot backlash of the Hunter. Hmm. Named for obvious reasons. Now, who's the Hunter and what's the back? I think Jerry. Jerry. I guess. He's out of control. Yeah. Yeah. That's the hunter? What's the back? I think Jerry Jerry. I guess he's out of control.

Yeah, yeah. That's the thing, right? My feeling on the title has always been that it's a very noir title. Yes. So, yeah, that that's a piece of it as well. But yeah, that whole tension of like noir stuff and the cowboy. Yeah. Pulling those two things together is really the achievement here. And it's good stuff. Alright, well, so it turns out we like this show. Maybe we should watch the rest of it.

Yeah. I don't know. Maybe we should stop now. No no. No no. We still have two episodes to go, my friends. And so we will be back next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files. But also... I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.