Two Hundred A Day - Episode 54: Gigi Garner Interview + Q&A Special

Episode Date: August 4, 2019

Nathan and Eppy are super excited to welcome Gigi Garner, daughter of James Garner and animal rescuer, to the show! We talk to Gigi about the James Garner Animal Rescue Fund she recently launched, get some of her reflections on the Rockford Files and her father's legacy, and hear some great stories! We then answer questions from our patrons and listeners, including the monumental task of picking a favorite episode! Make a donation to JGARF.org Pick up a "What Would Jimbo Do?" shirt Follow Gigi on twitter The Problem Solving of Filmaking youtube clip We now have a second, patron-exclusive, podcast - Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files! Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Richard Hatem Victor DiSanto Brian Perrera Eric Antener Jim Crocker - keep an eye out for Jim selling our games east of the Mississippi, and follow him on twitter @jimlikesgames Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app Kevin Lovecraft and the Wednesday Evening Podcast Allstars And thank you to Dael Norwood, Dylan Winslow, Bill Anderson, Dave P, and Dale Church! Thanks to: fireside.fm for hosting us Audio Hijack for helping us record and capture clips from the show spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for other audio clips Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by game and narrative designers Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. In each episode we pick an episode of The Rockford Files, recap and review it as fans of the show, and tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives. Special Guest: Gigi Garner.

Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we usually talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford File. I'll get to that in a minute. I'm Nathan Pallotta. And I'm Epidio Ravishaw. And we have a very special conversation today that we'll be delving into The Rockford Files, but not entirely about it as we have a very exciting guest for us. Gigi Garner, thank you so much for joining us on 200 a Day. Thank you for having me. You know, our show is about the Rockford Files,

and we're going to be asking you some questions about your memories and any fun stories you might have for our audience. But one factoid that we happen to know from the Internet is that your dogs are named after characters from the show, and you actually have a new project, Dog Related, that you've launched. Could you tell us about that a little bit? Sure. Well, in case anybody doesn't know who I am, I'm James Garner's daughter. We just assumed the rumors are true. And so yeah, my dogs, my two rescues are Rocky and Angel Garner, Garner. And I have been a rescue for rescuer for about 30 years. And actually, July 19 is the fifth anniversary of my father's passing.

And it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do in his honor. And because I'd been a rescuer and my dad was a huge dog lover, I just figured it might be a good fit for me to file for a 501c3 charity and call it the James Garner Animal Rescue Fund, also known as JGRF. And I just launched it. What I'm going to do is I used to physically rescue dogs for many years. But what I'm what I do now is I network with other rescues or vets or individuals who have emergency situations and need funds for whatever food, lodging, transportation, whatever it is, medical relief, medical care. And then I just network with different rescues. I've rescued about 20 something dogs from Thailand in the last couple of years. And I work with other rescues. So I had them flown actually to Sonoma. And then I work with a rescue there and they were adopted out. So I mean, basically, it's not just dogs from other countries.

It's any dog in need anywhere. And I'd also I'm also going to focus on, in particular, some rescues from Oklahoma, because, of course, my dad is from the great state of Oklahoma. He's very proud of that. And if you saw Jimmy Joe Meeker, I think he's from Oklahoma. One of our favorite recurring roles on the show. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

So I'm going to try to focus on some rescues from Oklahoma as well. But it's called JGRF, JGRF.org. And I'm really excited about it because I just launched it on Father's Day. Oh, yeah. I would encourage our listeners to go check it out. If for no other reason that I've just been going through the gallery and looking at these adorable pictures of Angel and Rocky. Well, my dad, you know, I wanted to tell you, my dad rescued a couple of dogs, and one of the dogs he rescued, he found out in the desert, and he went out there to quit smoking with his friend. They got a motor home, and literally this dog came out of the desert from out of nowhere,

and my dad was trying to quit smoking for a commercial that he was doing for a quit smoking product, and he named the dog Nicotine, and we called him Nicky. So he ended up with a zone rescue at home. That's great. I actually have a question about smoking on the Rockford Files because we've noticed that Jim Rockford doesn't smoke a lot. He's not like a smoker as a character trait, but every so often he'll light one up

when he's talking to someone or when he's thinking about something. We always wonder if that has significance in the story because that's what we are always paying attention to is the flow of the narrative and the writing. But was your dad, was that a character thing or was there like a reason on set that there were cigarettes in some scenes and not others? I do not know.

I don't know anything about that. I just know that my dad smoked a lot and it wasn't good. And also, if you think about it, when you're shooting a scene where you have to smoke a cigarette. Yeah. For continuity purposes, you have to keep smoking, keep smoking, keep smoking. And you're smoking, by the end of it, 20 cigarettes. So it's not good. Did he manage to quit for the commercial?

He did. Oh, that's good. He did. Yeah, he did. So I guess that brings us into it because we did want to ask you about the Rockford Files. Were you involved with that show? Did you have a presence there?

We're not, you know, super technical historians, so we figured we'd just ask you about what your role, if any, was on set or around set. Well, I went to the set quite a bit. And at one point, I think I was like a production assistant, which is really a glorified gopher. Yeah. Just running around getting things for people. But I was there quite a bit because really my dad was gone a lot. And really, if I wanted to see my dad that much, I would just go to his work. Right.

Which was nice. That's great. Was there like, not to dig into like behind the scenes gossip or anything like that, but do you have any good stories from the set that you can share with our audience? Oh, gosh. You know, there was one time I remember they were shooting down in Paradise Cove in the parking lot. And it was at night. And I actually, I had come from home and I brought our dog at the time. His name was Cherokee. He was a white shepherd.

I brought him with me to the set. And we were in the parking lot and they were going to blow up the trailer. And my dad did most of his stunts himself yeah but he didn't he did not do this one stun his stunt double roy clark uh was uh supposed to they were supposed to wait till roy ran out of the trailer and then hit the detonation button. And unfortunately, the guy hit the button too soon. And it literally blew Roy out of the trailer. Oh, no. It was really horrifying.

And Roy was screaming my dad's name. He wanted my dad, you know. Jam, jam. And he was on fire. Literally. He had a cork board from the wall stuck to his back on fire. And it was, it was a terrible, terrible incident. And I think as far as I know, that's the only time anybody ever got hurt on the set.

And my dad was right there, you know, consoling him. And he got some pretty bad burns with that. It was really not good. Dangerous business when you get into those big explosive moments. I'm thinking, I forget the title now but maybe the the episode where the guy ends up throwing a grenade into the trailer from the top that's one of those yeah i don't think we've talked about it yet for the show but that's the time i remember the trailer exploding for for us well we'll have to look into that because i i'm we might be able to figure out which one that is

uh but uh also kind of famously like you said said that your dad does a lot of his own sons. And one of the more impressive things is that he did a lot of his own driving in the Firebird. Did you ever get a chance to get behind the wheel of the famous Rockford Firebird? Well, I did. Actually, there were, I think, five different cars. And this is going to sound really strange, but at the time, right,

it was the 70s, it was the mid-70s. And one time, my car was in the shop and I drove to school every day. And so I had to take my dad's work car to school and I parked the car like two blocks away from my school. So nobody would see me in my dad's work car. It would be so embarrassing to be driving that thing around. Exactly. Exactly. So embarrassing to be driving your dad's work car when you, when you have a really cool,

you know, BMW or something, you know, it's just, it just wasn't happening. Was it the, the, the car with,

with the signature license plate and everything like the one that's literally on set? Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. You know, my dad drove, like in the Rocker Files, there was

a truck that was supposedly his dad's Rockies, and it was a maroon and silver truck. That was actually my dad's truck. Oh, really? And he would drive that back and forth. So he owned the truck. That was his own personal car. It does seem like

that they take better care of that truck than they do the firebird it's always it's always pretty clean it's never getting blown up yeah well it's my dad's car it was his personal car so yeah they're gonna take really good care of it so that's how it got there and that's how it got to be Rocky's car. That's great. And I think that also explains why I think like maybe half the scenes where Jim is in that car, he's the one driving it and not Rocky. Oh, really? I didn't realize that. Well, that would make sense. Yeah.

I will say this. My dad really did all the driving and that whole J-turn thing. That was all my dad. Yeah. We end up spending a lot of our discussion time talking about the J-turn whenever it comes up because it's so iconic, but it's also not in every episode. So it's kind of like, all right, maybe someone just tuned into the show in the last couple episodes and hasn't heard us talk about a J-turn before. So we're going to go through all of the why it's called the J and why it's such an impressive move. Our long-term listeners are probably sick of us talking about the J-turn.

It's just, it's so cool. And it just seems like such a natural extension of both the character of Jim Rockford, but also like your dad's personality as a driver. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what you have to understand understand or maybe people don't realize but my dad you know he starred in a film in the 60s in 1966 called grand prix and it is the most iconic racing film ever made even ron howard says it's the greatest racing film ever made and he made Rush okay but um my dad did all

of his own driving in that and it's really funny because none of the other actors had ever even driven a car before because they were like all from Europe like Brian Bedford he's from England never driven a car Antonio Sabato Italy or Spain wherever never driven a car. Antonio Sabato, Italy, Spain, wherever, never driven a car. Yves Montand, France, never driven a car. And so my dad actually went to a racing school. He went and learned from Bob Bondurant, a famous race car driver. And my dad just took to it like a duck to water. And he just became this great driver and then ended up like he came in second in the Baja 1000 and he owned his own racing team he raced at Daytona, Le Mans I mean he was really really into racing and in fact he drove the pace car for Indy three times so he

really was a driver he could have been one of the greatest professional drivers but part of the problem was he couldn't work as an actor and be a driver as well because he'd be insurance nobody would insure him oh right acting work that does make me like i wonder and you you might not have the answer to this but uh this makes me think um one of the things that I really enjoy about, uh, the Rockford files, the chasing and the driving and stuff like that, uh, is that it's, uh, very creative. Like there's things that happen, uh, that you don't expect there's like, you know, suddenly a car will slow down and pull into a parking spot and let another, you know, like there's tricks and things that happen. And I was just wondering if you knew if your dad had a lot of input in that given his experience driving or

uh it was that more just he may have he may have he may have with with stunts and things like that it's very possible but one thing my dad did not mess around with was the dialogue. He let, you know, the writers write. And that was that whatever was on the page is what he was going to read. It didn't, uh, monkey around with it or ad lib or do anything like that. Oh, he just read what was on the page.

And of course he had the greatest writers, David Chase, you know, um, Steve and, uh, Juanita Bartlett, you know, and Juanita Bartlett. You know, Juanita Bartlett was a secretary in the office.

And she came from being just a secretary to being one of the greatest writers. Yeah. When we see that she's written an episode, we get excited about doing a. Yeah. Did you like so did you know Juanita then? I mean. Oh, of course. know Juanita then? I mean, Oh, of course.

Yeah, of course. I knew everybody there. Absolutely. Yeah. She, she seems like such a, such a powerhouse as a writer,

just with, you know, the dialogue and everything, but also her, the characters that she writes are some of the most human characters. We think it seems to us. Yeah. And they really seem to bring the best,

they really seem to have brought the best out of your dad in response to them because he was so good at responding to other actors. Well, what's interesting is Steve and David and Juanita knew my dad so well. So because they knew him so well, I think it made it easier for them to write for him because they just knew what my dad could do

because they knew him so well. Yeah, Juanita, I mean, did you know that she was just the secretary? No, I didn't know that. She was just the secretary in the office. I think I'd probably read it,

but I kind of forget it because she became a producer. Yeah, yeah. She really, you know, came a long way I think I'd probably read it, but I'd kind of forget it because she became a producer. Yeah. Yeah. She really, you know, came a long way and showed what she could do. Yeah. She was one of the nicest people, too. Yeah.

I was going to ask if you have any, like, not necessarily stories, but anything that you'd like to share about her. Just because in terms of doing research for the show, there's a lot about your dad. There's a lot about some of the other actors, but a of the writing staff they don't get written about as much is there anything uh you'd like you'd like us to know or our listeners to know about her that wouldn't necessarily she well all i can tell you is she's just one of the nicest people i've ever known always had a big smile on her face um she died unfortunately gosh, six or seven years ago, something like that. She retired to Martha's Vineyard. And she's just a real Hollywood writer's success story, which is amazing.

And then I will tell you that David Chase called me after my dad passed away and really shared some true gems, some stories with me that were actually pretty funny that I cannot repeat. But they had a real family, and I'm still very close to Chaz Johnson, who is, of course, went on to produce JAG and NCIS. And I mean, I'm still very close with him and his wife. Those people were a real family. The people that made The Rocker Files, they were a family, for sure. That's something that really came through for us when we started watching the movies, the TV movies. So much of the staff was the same. So many of the actors came back

and Gretchen Corbett coming back as Beth after so long and everything. There's a real warmth to those. That was so great. I think when we were chatting a little bit, someone mentioned the ill-fated reboot attempt. Do you know if

anyone from the original show was involved with that? No. No, nobody was. They tried, you know, NBCUniversal, they tried to reboot it. They cast, I believe his name is Delbert Mulrooney as Jim Rockford.

And they did a pilot and apparently it just did not come out well. And it just didn't happen. In fact, they didn't even air the pilot. They did ask my dad to make a cameo. He said no. Because Cherokee Productions wasn't involved with that. It was all NBC, his production company. I'm in the process of taking over Cherokee Productions because it's my dad's brand and it made the rocker files. And I went to USC film school and my dad would like me to do something with it. My expensive education, but, um, you know, we own it.

We own half of it with, you know, NBC universal. So, um, I don't think, you know, they want to get my dad's blessing, but if it's NBC Universal, it's the network, whatever, they're going to do whatever they want. They're not going to ask anybody's permission. They're just going to do it. And, you know, I don't really believe that a new generation or at least the old generation, because it is kind of a cult classic. I don't think the fans are going to be able to buy anybody else in that role. It's just like trying to make Columbo without Peter Falk. I don't know if it would work.

I just don't. And apparently it didn't work. Yeah. Yeah, we have the proof in front of us. They didn't even want to show the pilot. No, no. And also, you know, there's another great, talented actor star, Vince Vaughn, who wants to make a Rocker Files movie, obviously starring himself. And, you know, Vince Vaughn has something that nobody else has. He has certain, you know, qualities. That's why he's so successful. But I just I'm not 100 percent convinced that people, you know, will buy him, especially the people who are the fans from the original.

I'm just not sure if there's anybody who would really pull it off besides my dad. And of course, he's not around anymore. So that's that. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I mean, of course, anything that propagates the rocker files, I'm all for, you know, because I'm trying to keep my dad's legacy alive. You know, I don't want people to forget about him and what he did. But I just don't know. You know, I don't know. yeah it's uh oftentimes um the the series that you see that successfully do stuff like that they don't just reboot it they just move on like you know set it in the same world uh they take i'm thinking like how star trek managed to do uh you know go from captain kirk to yeah picard you know like the they're like we had this iconic character here we're not going to try and recreate this iconic character we're going to see if we can capture some of the other magic uh some other way but yeah i like i i don't know i would think if i were an actor i would be terrified of trying to sell those shoes it would be such an intimidating i mean

it'd be challenging but also like his screen presence is just so unique. It's hard to imagine anyone else. We talk about it on the show somewhat, but one of the great things about him as an actor is how he reacts to other people. Yeah. You can watch him in a scene and you can have it on mute and you can still know what's happening, right? Like, because he's, you know, working with other people and stuff like that and i think that that is a subtle secret weapon of his because you can have you can have actors with a lot of charm that aren't also doing that and and if you if you're not also doing that then you're not going to pull off the same thing that was the Rockford Files.

You know, that's my theory. Right. That's a good point that you made, because really, my dad didn't really act. He more reacted. Yeah, he had, you know, something that probably, you know, a lot of people didn't have. I recently found out something that really kind of was very shocking in a way. I found out that one time he was leaving some event and Cary Grant pulled my dad aside and he said to him, you, you are the only person who is on my level. Wow. And I think my dad's jaw dropped.

My dad never told anybody that. My mother told me recently. And I was like, what? My mom said that they were just like dumbfounded and couldn't believe it, you know, that he would say something like that to my dad. And also. What a compliment. I know. Incredible compliment.

Also, John Wayne has had publicly said that my dad was the best actor of his time. And he said that publicly. Yeah, I think I've read that. So there were other actors who were, you know, very talented, you know, also could see what my dad brought to the table. We're just glad that we can, you know, still see his work. One of the things that's been a bummer for us, I think personally, but also just for the show, is that the Rockford Files isn't streaming anywhere. It was when we started. And then...

You can thank Netflix for that. I know. We outran the streaming portion of The Rockford Files with our show. And so, you know, we've bought the DVDs and everything. But it's just like, we have people ask us all the time, where can I watch the show? And it's like, well, a lot of it's on YouTube and like bad, you know, like get around copyright. Yeah.

How about they can buy it? Yeah. Yeah. Or you can buy it. It's not expensive. Yeah. So we try to direct people to buy it. But yeah.

The Mill Creek DVD set is pretty affordable. Yeah. And that's all but the 90s movies. You don't have any uh secret knowledge about plans to bring it back to streaming or anything i do not you know they're not going to tell us it's a lot of things revolve around you know they they they go in cycles now if i'm not mistaken there have been several like different networks like get tv me tv and some other um cozy tv yeah yeah they play they have played it um you know quite a bit i don't know if they still do but there are places

um on tv where you can still watch it somewhere but uh i would say I would recommend the best thing is to go buy it. You heard it here, folks. Please buy it. There was a guy today on Twitter who was like, oh, you can go to this thing and watch it for free. And I'm like, dude, please don't tell people that. Spend the $35 for the 120 episodes of the show. Yeah, it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it.

You mentioned Twitter and I just wanted to, first of all, I just want to thank you for your Twitter presence. It's often a joy to sometimes, you know, pull out my phone and check Twitter and then just have like just a whole bunch of things about your dad and the Rockford Files but also like the dogs and stuff scroll by. I, cause I can usually around the same time of day, I think you, you've,

you come on and I noticed when that happens and I, I'm like, Oh, that's good. It's what I needed in this moment right now. So that's good. Good. Well, I mean, I try to, you know, make it somewhat interesting. And, you know, I do tweet a lot about my dad, but I tweet about things that interest me. Of course, animal advocacy is my passion in life. And so I really try to help as many rescues as possible. But I am on Twitter. It's Mavrox Girl, and it's Gigi and James Garner. I started this before he passed, and I would tell him, okay, I'm tweeting this now, or I'm tweeting that. He's like, what's a tweet? I have to explain everything to him. But anyway, Twitter is really fun for me. I like it because it's in real time. And I'm not on Facebook and I don't

like Facebook at all, but I love Twitter. And so I'm pretty active on there. And I, you know, try to answer everybody's questions. A lot of people have questions about my dad. Like somebody asked me yesterday, how tall is he? How tall was he? And things things like that so i try to interact with the stands as much as possible because i never did you know um i got on twitter and things uh around the time that he had his book out the garner files oh yeah which is his autobiography i was you know trying to help promote that and everything which it was a shot simon and she was doing it i believe it was in the top 10 for a long time the garner files and um so i was using that and things like that now i've got i'm just thrilled i've got over 10 000 followers which is amazing for me and uh i really enjoy it we're jealous

yeah yeah you're you're you're doing us a favor by being on the show, really, when you get right down to it. Well, you guys are helping propagate the Rockerfiles, so how could I not do that? That's my job. It's my legacy. Well, we really appreciate it. I will also note that I have my copy of the Garner Files on the bookshelf over there. It's a great read, especially because he talks a lot about the racing stuff. If anyone out there was intrigued by our discussion earlier, he clearly was, was really invested in it because he spends a lot of time in the book talking. And it's really interesting stuff. It's a good read too. Like he's a very personable

author, like his voice comes through. Or I've seen so many Rockford files that I'm just hearing it in his voice. It's very easy to imagine him saying the words because we've watched him so much. Well, we've probably taken enough of your time. Can you give us the info for J.G.

Arf one more time? And we'll, of course, put some links in the show notes and tweet out all the links. Sure. It's www.jgarf.org. And I also designed these t-shirts that I put out there on Teespring to raise money. And it's what would Jimbo do? And so the t-shirts are on the website. So if you click on the t-shirt, then you can go to the site and get one of those. WWJD, What Would Jimbo Do? I believe that Epi owns one of those shirts.

Oh, perfect. I received several Jim Rockford-themed t-shirts when I first started doing this show, uh, which was exciting. I was very, very happy to get that. And, uh, at least two people in the wild knew what I was talking about. Uh, the younger crowd don't yet, but I keep telling them we're doing our best. Keep up the good work. Oh, thank you. Well, uh, thank you again so much for your time. And thank you for the Animal Rescue Fund. I personally will be, you know, taking a look, doing what we can to help. And also, we ask our listeners, if you have an animal in your life, you care about animals, this is a great place to put a couple dollars towards helping out a good cause. Please take a look.

To do it in James Gardner's name, which is why we're all here. Thank you. Thank you. Eppie, I need a quick break. I'm going to grab a taco. You tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the Information Superhighway. I'll be right back. One way to find me is to go to twitter.com and search for at epi di e-p-i-d-i-a-h i'm usually responsive there otherwise you can go to worlds without master.com where you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games and if you like role-playing games maybe you want to check out dig a thousand holes.com where, uh, I publish all my other role playing games. Oh no. I dropped my calculator. Nathan, while I go pick up a spare, why don't

you tell the good folks where they can find you on the internet? In addition to this podcast, I also design and publish role playing games, including the worldwide wrestling pro wrestling role playing game. Among many others, you can find links to all of my games and other projects at ndpdesign.com. And of course, you can find me on twitter.com at ndpayoleta. Looks like you're back. You're ready to continue the arithmetic analysis for this episode there, Eppie? I'm back. I have my DM-42 with me and I'm ready to dig down into into rockford's books again all right well i'm done with this delicious avocado taco well let's get back to the show then and we are back uh well that was super fun yeah agreed it is it is back to the two of us for the rest of this uh episode well the two of us and the rest of our audience

true true never alone without our audience it was really nice to talk to gg yeah that was a it was a lovely surprise um uh and uh a great look into some of the, some of the personal life of James Gardner. Yeah. Um, uh, just kind of a, a, not something I ever expected we'd be able to do when we set out to do this podcast. Yeah, definitely not. Not a goal on my plate. Although when we started to do this, I think our goal was just to enjoy the Rockford files. And I mean, so, so far I feel like we've been, been nailing that. So good job it's a pretty low bar though i gotta say it's easy to enjoy the rockford files well uh as you said we while we may be alone in physical space alone together space cyberspace while we may be alone on this information

super highway as we speak yes We of course carry the ghosts of all of our listeners along with us at all times, which is to say that we put out the call for some questions, because we figured this was a good opportunity since we weren't talking about a specific episode this time around,

to do a little Q&A, field some questions from the audience, and yeah, maybe do a little more expansive talk about non-episode specific things that come up through this conversation. I am down for this. I like this plan. So we put out a call on our Patreon

over at patreon.com slash 200 a day. And on Twitter to get some questions. And I think we've got a solid, solid set here. So thank you everyone who sent us in a question. We really appreciate it. Uh, as always,

if you are interested in this kind of thing, the Patreon is the place where we make a point to reach out, get, get the, uh, audience involved uh because those are the folks who are uh financially supporting us and that's awesome and we appreciate that and want to make sure that you are you feel our warm embrace uh we're we're

warmly embracing your ghosts on the super information super highway is what i'm trying to say here i i love this, maybe post-apocalyptic, or just this idea that this is the future destined to all podcasters to wander the wastelands on the information superhighway carrying along with them the ghosts of their... Not that I wish that any of our listeners became ghosts. Please don't become ghosts. Well, now that we've mixed every metaphor we possibly can,

let's get into it. All right. So we got a number of questions from a number of people and a couple of them kind of cluster into topics so i think we will jump around a little bit in terms of question asker in order to address similar questions which mostly only applies to to where we're going to start off with um because it's actually directly relevant to part of the conversation that we just had with gg indeed. We had a couple questions about the remake reboot effort for the Rockford Files. So from a couple of our patrons, Dylan Winslow wrote us to say,

there was an aborted attempt at a remake series in 2010, and that is on IMDb, if anyone wants to pull up the casting credits for that, which never aired because by all accounts, as we heard from Gigi, the pilot was awful. But in your opinion, is the idea of a modern Rockford Files feasible? Laying aside how much of the show's success is a result of James Garner's own personality and charm, how well would the Rockford Files fit into the modern TV landscape? And would that hypothetical

version of the show even be recognizable? This is similar to a question from Peter Harrison, who is also a patron. Would you like to see a return of a Rockford series, obviously with a different cast? Personally, I think most reboots are terrible, but I could see a series which does not copy, but uses some of the best elements of the series in a new creative way. And before we get into answering, the actor that we couldn't quite remember that Gigi was trying to remember is Dermot Mulrooney, Dermot Mulrooney as Jim Rockford. The subject of an SNL game show

called Dermot Mulrooney or Dylan McDermott. The other thing that jumps out to me from this cast list on this reboot is Alan Tudyk as Dennis Becker. Okay, let's talk about this cast. I like Alan Tudyk. He was in Firefly, which was like the first thing that pops into my head. He was also in... Oh, right. Yes, obviously. That's why I recognize his face. Okay. And Tucker and Dale versus Evil, I think is what it's called i quite enjoyed that film uh he's he's good he's good but um uh not the first choice i would

make for our hapless uh detective dennis becker but like again you know i i'm not a uh a casting producer casting director casting director uh so i don't So I don't know what to see in people to put them in spots. But I think I said this in the interview with Gigi. I think it's wrong to try and recreate the magic that was the Rockford Files. I think it's better to find characters that have relationships with the same dynamic energy, not necessarily the same relationships, but like the same dynamic energy that is in the Rockford Files. If I were to do this, if they were like, hey, Epi, you're one half of 200 a day. Right. Someone comes at 200 a day and says, all right, you are clearly the experts on what made this show great. I'm not saying that we are. However, this is Hollywood fantasy.

The answer is yes, we will do it. But I would set it today and I would have it be descendants and relatives and people in the same way, like I said before, like the same way that Star Trek The Next Generation is in the same world as Star Trek. But like the casting crew couldn't be more. Well, they could be more different. You know, I would take a look at the Rockford files and I'd say, okay, I wouldn't give Jim Rockford children. Like, so some kind of, you know, nerd, nerd level canonical stuff, right? Is that he has a nephew, right? Yes. Who wants to be a PI. And there's a number of people that he's close to. He has like found family, right?

Yeah. So one potential direction could be something like, sure, it's the Rockford Files, but is it Scott Becker, right? Right. Yes. Except not really who his dad wanted him to become a cop to, but he actually ended up a PI because he had Jim as a role model, you know, growing up or something like that. Right. Like that one's fun because all I really know about him is that he's a little. Well, right. And he's a cipher in the original show. So you can do anything with him.

Yeah. Yeah. I think both of these questions get to the direction i think we're going we would go which is there are elements of the show that make it the rockford files that aren't james garner yeah so at what point can you have those elements in the show and still call it the rockford files and not have james garner in it and have it still count uh and i think the biggest difference in t in the modern tv landscape and i feel like we talk about this all the time is how contemporary television is long-form storytelling

and so like is it even possible to have a you you know, the new Rockford Files be an episodic show that does not have, that has character continuity, but not plot continuity in the same way that the original does? I think that's the big question. I have wild casting suggestions that I could make. Okay, let me just make my favorite wild castings. I'm terrible at things like casting. So this is your jam right here. Call it the Rockford Files. Only in so much as it's still called the Rockford Detective Agency.

There is no Rockford at the helm. At the helm is Leslie Jones playing Gandalf Finch's daughter, who has taken over the Rockford Files. I mean. daughter who has taken over the rockford files i mean because i think she could do like the middle zone temperate between the two of them right that character the character that that uh can do rockford's like is the the only person in the room who really knows what they're doing uh but is like not necessarily listened to by everybody and can be, you know, and can have like all these other cast of characters around that that are like Angel and Gandhi and all that, not paying attention to her and all that. And also just be charming and do the whole be able to run cons and things. all of that aside, if we free ourselves up to do creative casting like that, then I think, I think you're right that the, the real problem is, is that the format of the show, uh, and modern

audiences, it's not something modern audiences necessarily want out of a show. I think they would, they would want something more, well, I don't, I don't know modern audiences, but yeah. I mean, I think the format for it now would actually be more like, and I'm speaking a little bit out of my butt here because I haven't actually watched it in a long time. But at least when it was originally airing, the BBC Sherlock series with Benedict Cumberbatch. Oh, yeah. Cumberbatch. Benedict Cumberbatch. Oh, yeah. Cumberbatch. We bet it in Cumberbatch.

And just kind of like the BBC style in general, where those episodes were of varying length, depending on what the actual story was. Right. And there are only so many in a season and stuff like that. And it's almost more like a series of serial movies rather than or these days, a 13 or, you know, episode season or whatever. So something more akin to the 90s. Yeah, more like the 90s movies would actually probably be a better fit for a show that if it was in any realistic fashion was happening now would be probably on some streaming service. Right. Yeah. now would be probably on some streaming service right yeah and probably be counting on nostalgia of fans of the original show to watch it but it also wants to appeal in some way to modern audiences but there's really a big question mark as to like how feasible is this whole thing

how long would it actually run if it was if there were like three two-hour episodes run if it was if there were like three two hour episodes and start off with that and then those are each individual self-contained stories why why don't we make a mint here okay why don't we why don't we launch the rockford cinematic universe right okay so people love cinematic universes because i mean you could do an angel show right like you could do you could i don't know if there's enough appeal to angel as a protagonist right which gets to another question that's on our list so maybe we'll circle back to angel right right but like doing this this podcast with you i became very aware of backdoor pilots and things like that. And noticing that a lot of the Rockford – like Lance White, Gabby and Gandy.

There's definitely things going on in the Rockford Files with an eye towards a greater – Yeah, towards spinoffs. So why not lean into that? Why not do – like reboot it as a movie, The Rockford Files? Right. And I don't know how you would do that. Like obviously I'm glossing over the entire question here, which is how do you recreate The Rockford Files? But then do your Gabby and Gandy film after that.

film uh after that and then do your your lance white films and uh your tv series that is just dennis becker lapd yeah that would be awesome if it was all the if that all had happened in the like 80s right yeah exactly there's people yeah i feel like it is a pretty heavy lift to to be like hey this show that you might remember and have good feelings for because james garner was in it now watch this spin-off with these side characters that maybe you never saw with new people as a cat you know yeah yeah so i got a question for you yeah if we're doing this if we're remaking the rockford files and or we're doing it modern day right so now we have smartphones and now we have uh teslas right does that work does the rockford files work in today's technology so someone comes to me is like all right we want to do rockford files we want to do it modern day we're going to cast it with contemporary actors

but we want it not to suck but we want it not to suck um and i don't know and in terms of like casting which actor for which part or whatever, I'm terrible at that. That's not my value. But here's where I would start with my pitch for this thing. The central character is not Jim Rockford or, or Jim Jr. Or anything,

you know, it's someone, I don't know, like a Batman Robin situation. It's like someone in the halo of the Rockford world who has picked up the mantle. Somebody has to answer those answering machine messages. You know, someone has moved into the double wide trailer that still lives in Paradise Cove. And they're the PI and they have some kind of canonical connection to Jim Rockford that is expressed but not particularly important.

I think you use the modern, the contemporary setting to situate the characters and their relationships more than anything else. So the angel analog, is that necessarily an ex-con trying to run, you know, run con games and doing their best to stay out of the reaches of the law um or are they uh an early adopter bitcoin enthusiast yeah yes like a true believer in a in a technology that is just not going to pan out and so they're always they're they always have some angle on making something work. Like there's still con games, but it's not about tricking people into betting on the wrong pony at the track.

It's about getting people to invest in your new Bitcoin startup. Yeah. Or like a multi-level marketing scam. Somebody who uses the word disrupt a lot, right? A serial entrepreneur who's always getting, you know, venture capitalists to invest in the Uber of motorboats. And then they always are able to skip, to exit without getting totally burned. And they leave everyone else holding the bag.

Right. Like that would be the angel of today. Yes. I think you still have the triumvirate or the Holy Trinity of, if you will, of like our PI, someone in the legit police force and a lawyer. Yeah. The three of them are all connected. And that dynamic, I think, is pretty universal in TV and pretty understandable. And fundamentally, they're all friendly with each other, even if their jobs put them at odds with each other. And don't forget a Rocky. I think there needs to be someone.

Well, see, that's the thing. If like in a perfect world, James Garner would be the Rocky. Right. Unfortunately, we don't have that perfect world. In the perfect world, it would be about a trucker who James Garner was the Rocky to try to get him to do P.I. work. But yeah, the father or the mentor. A nice, friendly, if a little bit naive bastion in this world. Right. Like I think having them be a family member is pretty important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you have the whole halo of additional characters.

And those are more specific to the demands of particular plots, I suppose. In terms of figuring out crimes and mysteries and con games and everything. How long did Leverage run? That worked fine. I mean, that's a different show, but you can. Yeah, yeah. The content is just, you just need to be smart about making good stories with contemporary content. I don't think there's anything.

If anything, the Rockford Files was really fun in one way because he was always using technology. And to us, it feels old because it's old to us. know, our PI in this show is the one who's using iPads and mobile hotspots to set up some kind of secondary email server to misdirect someone, you know, like doing all that stuff. I mean, I think that's kind of the heart of my question there is that I think that like one of the difficulties of doing a new Rockford Files is that you would want to consult actual experts on this sort of – you don't want the hand-waving, oh, he types fast. Let me just – to just say, oh, so he hacked into this and retrieved this data or whatever. And you don't have to get technical too. this data or whatever and you don't have to get technical too like you want those moments of him knowing where to stand in an office to look over someone's shoulder to see them type their password

you want uh all of those tricks to like really convey to the audience that this rockford whoever this is if they're in fact a rockford or he at all but uh this character is knowledgeable and doing the things because we see rockford's cons yeah we see him and that's part of the fun of the show and i think uh it would be too easy and it wouldn't work to just say oh and so we hack this computer right like you have to have someone i mean i think this character to be in like the real spirit right would be more social engineering yeah tricking people into telling them their passwords because everyone has terrible password security because we're human right and like going through people's trash cans and like that kind of stuff checking for post-it notes in the drawer

like under you know just like being frustrated by like not being able to to get into you know a password protected thing on the computer but then going into the trash can and finding the text file of like passwords that someone never deleted yes exactly those little things that are very human and very like oh this is how actual people act and then this modern rockford character exploits their knowledge of how normal people behave. That would be one of the biggest, I don't want to say difficulties. It's just something they have to do. Right.

That's what would make it a spiritual descendant. And I'm trying to think if there's like other bits like that, that just kind of have to have, I mean, obviously there has to be car chases. Right. And they have to be creative we um what did i just see oh condor man have you ever seen condor i have not seen condor man it's very difficult to get a hold of condor man was a disney movie uh about a comic book artist who made a character named condor man. And for some reason, because Condor Man can

fly, this comic book artist tried to assemble a wing thing that allowed him to fly. Very Icarus-y kind of. Somehow gets mixed up in an international spy thing and manages to convince the CIA to build all of his Condor Man gadgets. It's goofy. It's funny. But it has these car chases that are kind of fun because you can see that they're doing actual stunts with the cars. I guess what I'm saying is if you have the car chases, how do you contend with Fast and the Furious? Right?

How do you contend with car chases that aren't car chases? That are superheroes that look like cars again to be like the successor to the rockford files you would have to do actual car stunts yeah i think i was going to say there it should be like a no cgi thing and that's yeah i understand that most a lot of tv even if it looks like it's not cgi there's cgi for like backgrounds and stuff like that. But practical effects in the sense of have actual people driving cars and the car chases are not about causing destruction. No, they're about the clever resolution. Car chases are about achieving a goal, right?

Yeah. All right. I think we need to move on against some of these other questions, but do you have any final thoughts on? We've dodged the casting question. Right. We can't do that, clearly. Yeah, get the characters far enough away from the canonical characters that you're not recasting Jim and Dennis and Beth. There are new characters that have some kind of relationship to the old characters.

I mean, Stuart Margolin's still out there, right? Yeah, he could be the Rocky. Yeah, that would be amazing. And Joel's retired. Yeah. He invested his last big score in like a national trucking company or something. So he doesn't thrive, but he actually, you know, his retirement is funded by trucking. Yes, that would be lovely.

you know his retirement is funded by trucking yes that would be lovely uh and you know make sure that you're i just make sure that your characters are always doing the work yeah don't hand wave things i'm not saying that in general hand waving they're hacking so we got through that i'm not saying that that's a bad thing for television or movies in general like there's a lot of story that could be told by just saying yeah we hacked that let's move on but i think that in the rockford files in particular that's where the action is if it's a if it's a con we need to see the work because that's where that's where the fun is yeah yeah and i i think metaphorically the same thing deal with the car chases and everything else. I think you just have to decide what the episode is about and then show it people doing that thing. Yeah.

We do see Jim Rockford at City Hall or at the Department of Records going through records. And it's wonderful. Right. I think that's a good place to move on from this question. Sounds good. It's a good one. That was a good wonderful. Right. I think that's a good place to move on from this question. Sounds good. It's a good one. That was a good question, yes. We will go on to another question from Peter.

Hypothetically, how do you think Rockford would have gotten on with some of the other TV detectives of the 70s and 80s? Like Columbo or Harry O. I actually don't know Harry O. But that's fine. There's no shame. So Harry O is a show that I was not familiar with. Yeah. David Jansen is the world-weary private investigator.

I'm down with that. So unfortunately, not sure about that one in particular. But I think writ large, the question of let's consider the greater 70s detective TV universe. Let's consider the greater 70s detective TV universe. Well, I will defer to you for Columbo because I think you're the expert on that. Here's the thing. Columbo and Rockford are both in L.A. and they're both solving crimes. Columbo is LAPD, homicide.

Active cases. Right. And Becker is LAPD. Yeah. So theoretically, Dennis Becker, as a sergeant, every so often is, you know, on these cases where Columbo has been assigned. That would be amazing. But I think so. But, you know, their worlds never meet because Columbo is always dealing with high society, right? Yeah. Because that show is all about class.

So he's always dealing with these high class people who have committed a murder. While Jim, while he touches high society in individual moments, that's not his world. So like in this shared universe canon, there would be like exactly one big crossover, right? Where their two worlds collide. In terms of how they would get on as fictional characters meeting each other, I think they'd probably get along fine. But I do – I want to point out the heavy weight of literary history that rests upon our shoulders at this very moment. Comic book fans will attest to this. It's a common joke in comic book fans that when two superheroes meet up, meet each other in the streets, they fight first. And then they team up, right? But that's not solely the realm of superheroes. If you pay any attention to your Robin Hood legends, every single one of those merry men that Robin Hood meets, he fights with before they join up. And we know these fights. Like, you know that Robin Hood and Little John are on this log that's over this river and they're fighting with quarterstaffs.

And it doesn't end there. It goes all the way back to the dawn of the written word, to the epic of Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. And they fight when they first meet. That's what they do. The point is, is that this is such a trope throughout all of literature that like two protagonists can't exist in the same work without first coming to blows, right? So one of the things about this question that delights me is just finding the way in whichombo encounter would start with rockford doing something that is in fact illegal right like a breaking and entering or picking a safe or something like that yeah uh so colombo you know tracking him down to talk to him about it and being a cop jim you know isn't going to give him the time of day yes

and maybe that ends in a car chase where jim speeds away in the rock in the firebird and columbus car doesn't start yes and yeah and then you get this begrudging respect and that turns into an actual like hey no we're both on the same side we're both yeah i think jim would jump to conclusions about columbo first. And that would be the cause of the altercation. Yeah. And then they would come together over a bowl of chili at the taco stand. Yeah.

And there's other ones out there that I think are pretty straightforward. Like, I can't imagine Jim and Magnum P.I. I think Jim will start off treating Magnum PI like Lance White. Right. I think that's the... I feel like Jim would, yeah, have that, would feel competitive with Magnum. Yes. Right. And Magnum would be like, oh, little buddy.

They'd have that dynamic for sure. Yes. That's good. One team up that I would love, and I think they they get along like a house on fire, is Rockford and Jessica Fletcher. Yes. I honestly think that if there's any altercation to begin with, it's him treating her like Rocky and not realizing, you know, that she's, I don't want to say sharp because I don't want to disparage Rocky there, but like is is savvy about. Yeah. She would show him up early. Yeah. And he would be like, oh, I see.

Now we're we're now we're partners. Yeah. And then she's the one who actually makes the first big discovery. Yeah. Because I could see him thinking of her as just like a meddler or an amateur or just like i think there is at least one or two episodes that has like uh somebody who reads detective magazine or something like that that uh rides along with jim and just that same general thing but oh man i would i would love to see that crossover would be pretty pretty good and i got the perfect name for it cove to cove um i really haven't watched that

much of it because i actually didn't get super into it but uh have you seen uh any of kojak i okay i can remember kojak from being a kid i really can't tell you much about it other than i like talisa wallace because of seeing him uh seeing him so much that I adopted his haircut. Which you maintain to this day. Yes. I don't have anything smart to say about like as fictional characters, how they reflect each other or whatever. But I do think the image of here's a big case that has gone to the other city. And so one of them is pursuing, you know, pursuing someone.

So we have Jim ends up in New York or Kojak ends up in L.A. And then they end up having to team up, you know, to take down this this, you know, mob boss or whatever. That that that end of episode brawl to take down all the goons while the police show up would be epic. Yes. And I think like most of my other answers to this would tend to be more in the 80s than the 70s and take place in that time period between the last rockford files episode and the first rockford files movie but like there's a bunch of them that i would love to see just to watch jim roll his eyes at them So I think it's easy, may not easy, but I think it's,

it is most fun to be like, all right, how does this team up work out? Right. Right. But there's plenty of just shows that Jim could just be in just to lend a sardonic air to elevate the material without being like about Jim Rockford. Like,

yeah. And like they would name the character John Stoneford. For instance, I could definitely see a Jim Rockford parody in a moonlighting episode. Sure. Yeah. And I can definitely see Bruce Willis's character's name is David Addison. I have a lot of jealousy because obviously Maddie Hayes and this John Stoneford character would get on. It would just be implied that they're flirting with each other

at one point. And then that would be it. Like that'd be lovely. I would watch the hell out of that. And I wouldn't be surprised if that is a legitimate episode of Moonlighting that I haven't seen. Are there any detective or police protagonists that Jim would be like an active opposition to? Yeah, that's a good question. That's the other thing is because these are all protagonists of their shows, it's kind of like they're doing the right thing. They end up making an accommodation with each other's style in order to achieve the goal. Remington Steele. Do you remember that?

I haven't actually seen it, but I've looked it up because we've talked about it for this show. So the premise to Remington Steele is that Laura Holt is a detective, but nobody takes her seriously because she's a woman. So she hires an actor named Remington Steele. Or no, no. She hires an actor whose name is not Remington Steele, but he takes on the persona of Remington Steele. Or no, no. She hires an actor whose name is not Remington Steele, but he takes on the persona of Remington Steele.

She makes up the character of Remington Steele. Yes. As, quote, the detective. And this guy, Pierce Bronson, plays him, and he gets a pretty high opinion of himself and his abilities to be a detective. So that character, Remington Steele himself, I can see Jim and Remington like being at odds.

Right. Jim would have no time for him because he's not an actual detective. And then on top of it, and I almost hate to say this because this I feel like I'm going to actually this is this is where I think Jim would be in the wrong. But I think on top of that, Jim would moralize about laura hiding behind remington yeah so i think like that would be an area where it's like it's not it's not your business buddy yeah i see that my one uh immediate thought for that and maybe we'll move on from here is uh i think that jim rockford and hercule poirot would have very little to talk about. I think Jim would find Poirot extremely pretentious. Yes.

It's not that he's ineffectual, right? But it's because his method is so cerebral. Jim would just be like, we're not doing anything. Yes. Those episodes would be a race where Jim is out doing things and Poirot is like walking around and having his fussy little finger foods and talking to people about things that don't seem related. And then at the end, they both come to the same conclusion from completely different

directions. And then it's like, uh, Poirot? Yes. That's good. That was a good question. Another good question. Thanks, Peter. And Peter has a final question that I think we'll hit it quick

because it is a non-Rockford question. How did we both get into tabletop game design? I was in college pursuing a degree in English with an emphasis in creative writing and standing in abject fear of the future. And we started working on role-playing. We were playing role-playing games together. And we started working on Dread. And I was adapting some of the things that I was learning in the creative writing world to games. And I put that game together.

But it took me, I think, five years after leaving college and pursuing the lucrative career as a temp worker in New York City before I actually published the game. And that's my short and punchy story. Like I published it. Well, I think the punch part of this is that I published it. And when you're in college in the late 90s, pursuing a career in creative writing, it's all about finding someone to publish your stuff. And when I published my own game, that changed my outlook on how anything is possible. It just completely broke my mind. And I've been picking up the pieces ever since.

And yeah, that was it. Yeah, so I guess top line is just that I grew up playing RPGs, D&D from when I was a kid, and then I got into more things as I got a little older and ended up

as listeners to our Plus Expenses have heard, ended up working at a game store when I was in high school, that kind of thing. And I think as is fairly common for people who are into gaming, had ideas for a game. So what happened, what ended up being kind of the crucial thing for me was that at my high school, uh, our senior year, everyone did a, like a capstone,

like project essentially. And you could either do, you could do an internship somewhere. You could do a, a independent study, um, or you could do like a, a self-directed like project doing my project,

uh, was writing a role-playing game, wrote it, play tested it a couple times just you know with my friends that i played games with yeah and so i ended up uh finishing that game it's awful uh but finishing that game printing a couple copies of kinkos and that was yes my first game and then i just had the bug from there uh went off to college, was doing, you know, college stuff, still working on games. And then I actually found the website, The Forge, when I was looking for resources on designing

games, because I felt like that must exist somewhere. So finding The Forge brought me into a community of game designers. Having that community to be a part of is what kept me going i think and like led pretty much directly to my first couple published like published out in the world as opposed to published but i don't give them to anyone because it's bad um games and yeah and then it's just off to everything else that happens in a career from that right like yeah all the ups and downs and whatnot you briefly wanted to uh touch on how we ended up hooking up yeah i like from my memory you probably have a better memory than me i mean i knew you from the forge i think i think i might have posted twice on the forge so you you might have gotten

like nerd nyc was another was an area where i did a lot of posting and i knew about dread yeah because we all knew about Dread. Because it was the Jenga game. No longer the Jenga game, but a Jenga game. My first actual memory of meeting you was at, was that a Dreamation, I think? At like, let's all go out to dinner thing. And you were still living in New York at the time. Yeah.

And just remembering that it was really fun to hang out and talk to you. And then... It was fun to hang out and talk to you and then it was fun to hang out and talk with me and then i think the and then the kind of games that you were doing and just your general like you know personality and everything was a good fit for us when uh me and and kevin allen jr decided to do the the booth at gen con and i think that's where we really like started being more involved in each other's lives that is the the uh the crucible in which one uh forges a friendship right i don't know why i thought that would be pertinent to this question and here we are today talking about the rockford files as you easily would have predicted right way back when 2007 or whenever we... 2008. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Oh my god.

I know, right? So yeah. There you go. bonus for our patrons over at patreon.com slash 200 a day. This show will remain free to all for as long as we do it, but if you want to help support us and get access to the new Plus Expenses audio feed, you can become a patron for just $1 an episode. Of course, each episode we extend a special thanks to our Gumshoe-level patrons.

This time, we say thank you to Jim Crocker. In addition to supporting the show, he sells our games at conventions east of the Mississippi. See where to find him at JimLikesGames on Twitter. Shane Liebling, if you play games online, you should check out his free dice rolling app, Roll For Your Party, at RollForYour.Party. Kevin Lovecraft, you know you can hear him on the RPG Actual Play podcast, the Wednesday evening podcast all-stars, over at MisdirectedMark.com. Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Bill Anderson, Dave P., and Dale Church. And finally, big thanks to Victor DeSanto and our

detective patrons that you can follow on Twitter. Eric Antener, at Antener, Brian Pereira, at Thermoware, and of course, Richard Haddam, who you can find at Richard Haddam. Help out the show by leaving a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. Tell a friend who you think would like it. And check out patreon.com slash 200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you. Back to the Rockford Files. Yes. What do we got?

So we have a couple of questions here from Brian Pereira, who is a detective level patron over on our Patreon. And we very much appreciate that. Yeah. So we have a couple more kind of trivia ish questions here. So we'll do our best because even though we talk about the show a whole lot, we're not super good at trivia details. So we'll see what we can do. Every episode holds the promise of a shocking star in the cast uh rick springfield stephanie powers rob reiner rito moreno but the show guarantees a cavalcade of

recognizable character actors who do we feel are the best stars uh and or the best character actors uh i think we'll start with that because there's a couple other parts to this question. So I am terrible with remembering actors. Anytime it sounds like I know what I'm talking about on the show, it's because we paused. I Googled and IMDb'd, found someone, pulled them up, and then cut out that whole period of silence while I was doing that. Which is to say that off the top of my head, it's mostly characters that we've really found interesting on the show. So we've talked about them. I mean, I think Rita Moreno is just great. Her character on the show is great.

Her presence on the show is great. The dynamic she brings to the standard cast is really, really interesting and unique. I want to do a quick shout out to James Hampton, who you may remember as Aaron Ironwood. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because he's also a co-star of Condor Man, and I saw that recently. There's no star power there, but he did a great job. I think, I mean, that's part of the crux of this question here is that, like, it's hard to think of bad acting that takes place in the film, in the Rockford Files or anything like that. Every so often there's someone I think that we find a little flat or a little like maybe just not in tune.

But I can't recall a time where we're like, oh, yeah, that was a bad performance. There's characters, when you see them, you see why they became reoccurring characters. Like, Rita Moreno's character could have just been for that, but she comes back. And Isaac Hayes as Gandhi is another one where, you know, you see him and you're like, Isaac Hayes as Gandhi is another one where, you know, you see him and you're like, I can see why you would want to bring this actor back and to have them play the same character. Yeah, I think Tom Selleck is also in that like standout category of just so fun to watch for me. I'm just kind of thinking through, you know, who pops in my memory of guest stars. We did spend a lot of time talking about John Saxon. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he was in A Portrait of Elizabeth. Oh, he was everything in that one. Yeah. Well, and that was interesting because we looked up because, like, his character on the show was clearly showcasing things about why he was famous at the time. Yes. Which was, like, karate stuff. Yes. on the show was clearly showcasing things about why he was famous at the time which was yes karate stuff yes so like without that context it was just weird and then with the context that made it a little more fun actually yes there is a difference i think between you know it's not really stunt casting but like we're gonna cast someone who's hot right now i think rob reiner was a little bit

like that where yeah they cast him because he was like available and and pretty hot and then like as time has gone on because he's rob reiner you notice that he's in that episode i i don't know if that's my favorite guest star performance like it's fine yeah no i yeah and i think so like saxon is like that if he was still some kind of name in movies and tv maybe he would have popped out more versus doing the research and seeing why he would have been a name at the time a little bit of non-rockford trivia john saxon's character in uh the bionic man or i'm sorry the six million dollar man is the first one to get the bionic sound effect. He played a robot, though. You know who I really like?

We haven't done the episode yet for this show, but in the sixth season, there's a two parter with Lauren Bacall. Oh, lions, tigers, monkeys and dogs. It's I really like that episode. And she is really she is really great in it. The utility award will have to go to Jack Gardner. He's in 26 episodes. And he's someone different in every one. You'll remember him as man in washroom, uncredited.

He plays man in airport, officer, court clerk, officer, maybe the same officer, bidder, mailman, gang accountant at rink, which might be my favorite role for him. Oh, right. Cause he's the accountant in, um, uh, the feeding frenzy. Feeding frenzy. Yes. Oh God. I can almost tell you what calculator he had.

And here I say, i don't know trivia uh bailiff bartender court deputy jack bartender hubbard restaurant manager sheriff delbert bassett first guard bartender again that's three bartenders that probably aren't the same bartender but maybe janitor gas station attendant workman number one, but that's a two-parter. Oh, he's in Lions, Tigers, Monkeys, and Dogs as Captain McEnroe. And then in Only Rock and Roll Will Never Die as Captain McEnroe. And then in Hawaiian Headache as Captain McEnroe. So we get to see him recurring at the end. Yeah.

That's cool. So thank you for tuning in and listening to me read off IMDb. Uh, but I think it's, I think it's great that Jack has. Yeah, no, yeah,

it's great. And also that was very much, that was a thing that like he was on set. There's a lot about Jack in, in, uh, James Garner's, uh,

autobiography. Yeah. Go pick up the autobiography and read it to learn all about Jack Garner. In terms of the character actors, I mean, we do have lots of goons and lots of, you know, faces that we recognize because they've been in everything. But again, just in terms of when I think about character actors that really jump out to me, Strother Martin from Trees, the bees and tt flowers playing tt flowers like he was so fun yes such an interesting screen presence and also just like totally inhabiting that role and like really emotional um i don't know if he counts as a guest as a guest star or a character actor necessarily but uh he but he really was great.

Fairly recently we recorded the Profit and Loss, both Profit and Loss. And Ned Beatty was in that one, and he was really good. I really enjoyed seeing him as a heavy. He's apparently in another one, though, the Return to the 38th Parallel. Yeah, we haven't done that one yet.

Yeah, so I think there's some of our standouts and favorites uh one kind of um artifact of the way that we're doing the show is that because at least i don't know about you but i generally am not watching watching it other than for the show so the episodes we haven't seen are very far back in my memory yeah yeah so i definitely more biased to the stuff we've talked about in like the last year. Cause that's what's, you know, in my head for the last six months even. But I will say this about this question and I think this is important. Uh, it is putting a bunch of episodes on my to see list. Yeah. Abe Vigoda. Oh yeah. We, I don't think we've done an episode with him in it yet. Have we, or maybe we have. Yeah. We haven't done one with him in it yet have we or maybe we have yeah we haven't done one with him in it yet well that's on the list then um all right the last part of this question is uh who

did continuity the two headlight to four headlight firebird haunts and distresses us to this day so my only response to this is that i do not notice continuity errors in television and movies. Yeah. I am blind unless it's like really, really egregious or someone points it out to me. I very rarely actually notice those kinds of things. I think recently we did an episode where Rocky's moving some, putting some groceries away and the box of cereal that he's holding changes between one shot and the next. And I did not notice that except that I saw it in the IMDb trivia.

And so I noticed it because I'd read it before we watched the episode. If I hadn't read it, never would have noticed. And they're completely different. One's white and one's like brown, like they're not even similar. So I don't notice a lot of those things. I think I miss a lot of the continuity too.

But also I think part of why I miss the continuity is the hazards of our job. Typing notes as fast as I can while watching the episode. I definitely don't catch a lot of the continuity stuff. I'm trying to think. I feel like there has been some continuity that I have caught, though. So maybe that's a continuity problem right there with our show. Like in terms of the, you know, the different body styles of the Firebird and stuff.

According to, so I'm looking up, there's a little chapter about the Firebird in Ed Robertson's 30 Years of the Rockford Files. in Ed Robertson's 30 Years of the Rockford Files. And so there's a factoid here that they always had three cars on hand so that if something broke down, they would still have a car. Or if Gigi needed to borrow it for school. There was a new model of car each season until the last because James Garner liked the 78 model more than the ones previous to that. And it also had a, it had to have a custom interior because they didn't make the same interior after the first couple model years.

So they actually, that tan interior, that had to be custom done by a third-party company every year. Wow. So how about that for continuity? So with all of that going on, I would not be surprised if every so often, maybe they have three cards at the beginning of the season, and then one of them actually got wrecked and they had to get a new one. And for whatever reason, there was a two and a four headlight model available in the three that were on set. You know, like that kind of stuff.

That seems reasonable to me. One thing that I think it's easy to forget for people who aren't, not that we're in the business, but just from reading about it and being kind of tangentially involved with people who do work in TV is that, especially for this kind of show at the time, they worked on super, super tight schedules. Like they would shoot these episodes in a week, which is really fast. Like they would shoot these episodes in a week, which is really fast. And James Garner prided himself, him and his staff on the ability to keep to this really tight turnaround.

There's lots of moments where we're like, oh, this dialogue was like 80 yards in. Like it sounds different. It's probably because they shot it and then they had to change the dialogue. Yeah. So they just changed it in post, right? They're not on that location anymore or whatever there is a wonderful youtube video done by uh somebody who worked on the movie shazam about how filmmaking is problem solving and it's about continuity things and realizing that because you're shooting oftentimes shooting things out of order and

and whatnot you you end up in situations where you're like oh how do we make this make sense in the context of the story you're gonna have some sort of problem to solve in every scene but that's kind of the fun of it and when you come up with a solution that actually make things better it's awesome but working with movies has kind of ruined video essays and film analysis a little bit for me because you just never know if something was part of a brilliant plan or if it just happened to turn out that way because a problem had to be solved on the day. We'll put a link in the show notes. Not only does it point out like how many things you have to juggle and like all the things you have to keep in mind, does it point out like how, how many things you have to juggle and like

all the things you have to keep in mind, but it also points out how sometimes better stories come out of trying to solve these little continuity problems. It's a recommend there. All right. Next question. What is the longest lag between the story starting and the title popping up? Thankfully, Brian has saved us has saved us having to answer this because he goes on to say that The House on Willis Avenue took almost 14 minutes and is noted that his wife wanted to have this question be addressed.

I was not going to go through every single episode. Yeah. Count each one. And that's not something, you know, that I keep track of really. Every so often I'll notice when it takes a long time. But in doing some internet sleuthing, The House on Willis Avenue is the one that comes up as having the longest gap.

So I think you might already be on top of it, Brian. So 122 episodes times 14 minutes. If you wanted to research this, how long will this take? 122 to 28 hours. That's all. Okay. I mean less because most of them do come up in the first couple of minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Under 28 hours. So yeah, less than a day if you needed to do it. 14 minutes. When you consider that most normal size episodes are about 45, that's a third of the way into the episode before they tell you that you're watching the Rockford Files is bold how late in the series is that episode uh it's season four okay they've

earned it uh no this is a two-parter well still a two-parter when it airs you still they're still cutting up into 245 minutes but yeah that makes a little more sense with it being uh slated to be a long piece uh the only other thing i was going to say about the titles is that i appreciate how they even though there is the stock opening the phone call the answering machine message and then the credits once the credits end they definitely shaped the opening credit like crawl and the title with the music with the action of each individual episode ah i think we i usually kind of mentioned it when it when it talks out to me when we do our reviews but i think it's indicative of the like amount of care that they had in the editing room that it was

like a cohesive getting into the episode experience with the titles and it's not always just like here's all the guest stars playing over the action. Yeah, I agree. Um, and then here's a question that I'm not sure if we can answer for sure, but I think it's fun to look at which episode did Jim come out the best financially?

I have a candidate for this one. I hoped you would. We cannot prove this within a shadow of a doubt, but it's the one where he ends up with all the paintings. Oh, right. That is the big ripoff. Our episode 38. That's the one where Jim goes to your it has that great opening. Yeah.

Like silent movie opening in paris where he goes and like uh speaking of good guest stars yeah and and cons his way into talking to uh she's not in the episode after that but uh yeah suzanne summers suzanne yes anyway yes and so that's the one where there's the uh uh insurance scam where the guy kind of fakes his own death and he reimagines himself as this primitive artist in coastal California. If I remember right, the resolution is that he ends up basically escaping justice. Right. But thanks, Jim, for not turning him in by sending him a bunch of original paintings. Yeah. Which I think,

I think Rocky finds them right in the truck. So it's hard to determine how much these paintings are worth, but it does seem like he was hot stuff at the time. So it actually does seem like there's a, yeah. Cause there's a, there's a moment where Jim is astounded by how much those sell for. Yeah.

And I can't remember what that was off the top of my head. Okay, so here's the thing. At least at the moment that the episode ends, his books look good. Right. But here's the thing about accounting. An asset is only worth what you can sell it for. the thing about accounting an asset is only worth what you can sell it for we can assume in the basic understanding of how fate works in these in these episodes that uh this guy's fame dwindles swiftly after the episode because we can assume that that rockford doesn't make a ton of money

off of it and retires uh but also it's a season one and they may not have fully established in season one that Rockford is always on the small end of the change stick, you know, like the that was a really mixed. Yeah, I mean, I think it's more it was more for the joke than for establishing some kind of statement about his finances. Right. But taken as as read that they are valuable to some degree that's definitely a candidate the other one i think unless i'm wrong

but i think as we talked about this because there's a bit of a surprise but um but in the queen of peru which is season four so that's the one with the family from the rv yeah and from indiana and the rv oh right So he's investigating the stolen diamond. Yeah. They end up stealing his or taking his grill and the diamond is in the grill. And we have the comedy of errors trying to chase them down to get the diamond. It's a great episode. It is our episode 29, The Queen of Peru.

The conclusion of that one is they recover this very valuable diamond. And because the dad works for an insurance company, he's not eligible to claim the finder's fee or whatever. And then I remember talking about how we both expected there to be another twist that would keep Rockford from claiming the finder's fee. But there wasn't, right? I think you're right. And it was just like a diss on Carl Rongo.

Yeah, yeah. And that Jim actually was going to get like 5% of 10% or like whatever the finder's fee was for this really valuable diamond. Okay, so this question leads to a theological question, which is the gods of this universe, do they pay Rockford only when it's funnier to do so? I think so. That seems to make sense to me. That's great. We'll have to keep an eye out for that. Yeah, so those are not necessarily the canonical best outcomes for Jim, but I think those stick in our minds as surprising. I think it's always surprising when Jim actually makes some money. And that's part of the thing. There are definitely some episodes where he makes like his bread and butter money.

And you know that he's done that. But almost every time when there is a big thing on the line, just gets pulled out from underneath jim at the very end like for whatever reason and these are two moments when when the the fates had decided otherwise just had not paid close enough attention to jim's bottom line and he managed to sneak out with something um all right so we have a couple couple more questions and I think they're actually pretty juicy. So let's get to them. Sounds good. From Joe V. Greathead on Twitter,

while watching Hotel of Fear, another Twitter handle, Purple Adams, was regularly asking, why are Jim and Angel friends? Even after watching the majority of four seasons, I had trouble sorting this out with what Angel was doing. Yes. Epi, why are Jim and Angel friends? I don't think it's a great secret that I do love moments in these shows when they show that characters who are otherwise almost always at odds are actual friends. Like it's not that you see the reason it's that you see them when there's no

nothing coming between them and you see them being friends and you're like, Oh yes, of course these, these two people get along. So I spent like, I can probably think of some times where that happens with Jim and Dennis. Uh, I can think of some moments where that happened with jim and gandy

another it might be another polish wedding uh in the beginning of the episode jim and gandy they're talking to a guy about getting a skip trace that's that's the terminology i was looking for and the guy that they talked to i think he uses a bunch of acronyms or things like that. And as they're leaving, Jim and Gandhi make fun of it. And like one of the big punch lines is one of them says, A-OK. Oh, right. And they both laugh at it. And it's just that little moment, right?

Like that's a moment where you're like, oh, these guys are also friends. And I was trying to think of those moments with angel and i i can't i cannot remember a moment where jim is not exasperated about angel in some way or the angel's not trying to pull something over on jim well what about when angel like calls jim because he has a he has like a tip or he has something that he wants yes he was trying to get jim to like you know fund a con of his or something right but he's calling jim not anyone else right and he's like yeah you can get in on this con with me yes you know i just need you to you know lend me 20 bucks or whatever I'm not saying that they're not friends. Sure.

And like one of my favorite moments in the whole series is it's the episode where Angel hides the money in Jim's car and they have that fight. And Angel's like, because you're my friend, it really hits Jim because he realizes it. because you're my friend it it really hits jim because he realizes it so i think that the series definitely shows you that they are in fact friends through that sort of stuff yeah but like why and we kind of talked about this in um uh drought at indian head river where it's like yeah like when jim gets so fed up with angel's behavior why after, after this moment, does he even still talk to Angel? Yes. The meta answer is because Jim and Angel are very fun to watch on screen, and they have great chemistry, and they make for fun TV.

The in-universe answer is a little more reliant on their backstory. My theory is this, is that if we talk about the four closest people to Jim, we're talking about Rocky, Dennis, Beth, and Angel, right? And I think that that's a non-controversial statement to make. Let's ignore Angel for a moment. You've got Dennis, who's a cop, Beth, who's a lawyer, and Rocky, who's his dad. None of them, like Jim can't be himself in front of any of them. He can't because Jim has this side to him, this extra legal side, the side that like in the early episodes, the fact that Jim was once a con is like a bit of a problem with Rocky.

with with rocky and uh obviously uh dennis and jim get along but dennis is suspicious of jim in times like so angel fills this role of being the the friend that jim can talk to about cons he's the friend that doesn't judge jim for the fact that he spent time in prison even though he was right uh exonerated uh it was pardoned um so like i i it's easy to draw that conclusion they became friends in prison together yes right and so like there's a bond there that i think one can infer similar to uh the occasional episodes where jim has someone from his military past show up, right? Like, two into 556 won't go. He gets in on that case because he has a bond from serving under this captain or whoever who's now dead. He can't just ignore it because they did have that experience together.

Yeah. Also, Jim has a very functional reason to keep Angel around, which is every so often he needs Angel in order to run cons. Yes. Right? Like in... Not smoothly. Right.

I was thinking if there's one in every port, which is like a big con game episode. But even recently when we talked about Counter Gambit, the real necklace, fake necklace switcheroo thing, Jim had to go to Angel to impersonate the fence in order to orchestrate that whole thing. Angel every so often when Jim needs a favor from Angel, even though he ends up giving him money, you know, paying him off as well. Who else in L.A. can Jim just call up and be like, hey, I need you to do a kind of dangerous thing that isn't to your benefit, except that I can give you some cash. Yes. the sense that there's that many people he can call on to do that kind of thing or that angel is his access into those war into the world of active con artists right where he's more like semi-retired right uh yeah i think so and but okay so all that said i want to point out that the question uh why are jim and angel friends and specifically that question being asked while watching an episode and

specifically watching the episode of Hotel of Fear is a very rational question. Oh yeah. And well, and Hotel of Fear is all about is an angel episode. Yes. Like Angel is not good at responding to stress. Yes.

Right. So you see the word and Angel episodes, you see the worst of Angel and Jim is the one who has to like save him because who else is going to do it? Right. So you see the worst and Angel episodes, you see the worst of Angel. Yes. And Jim is the one who has to like save him because who else is going to do it? Right. While in when Angel is in a non-Angel episode, they are more like buddies and less of that like, Angel, why are you doing this to me? Yeah. Right. But it's totally valid. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's a valid one. I mean, he's a bad friend. Yeah.

Let's be clear. The series relies, I think, heavily on the actual chemistry between James Gardner and Stewart. Yes. When they're acting, it's easy for me to read into this antagonistic relationship a caring core. this antagonistic relationship a caring core. Rockford is exasperated with him, but that doesn't make it easy for Rockford to discard him. Well, and Jim also has that, I don't know if like caregiving is the right word, but Rockford has that sense of responsibility for those who can't take care of themselves,

right? Like so many episodes hinge on him talking himself into helping someone who can't afford him because they're in trouble and he's the only one in a position to help them in the way that he thinks they need to be helped. And Angel, I think sometimes intentionally and sometimes just because he's Angel triggers that aspect of Rockford's personality because who else is going to take care of Angel? Right, exactly. So there's a book that could be written here by like a couples therapist or something that could talk about that part of the dynamic too, which is not necessarily healthy, but has kept Angel alive, definitely. And because the two of them have such

a great screen chemistry is fun for us to watch. Yes, exactly. So I don't know if there's a satisfactory answer in there for someone watching and being like, what the hell is up with this guy? But in the context of the show, I think there's a lot of reasons and they are complicated and I think intentionally dramatized. Yeah. It's a good question to ask of the show while you're watching it. Like, you know, be like, I want to see what they're doing here that makes it realistic that these two would be together as friends in this regard here. If anything, the show could do a little more of that with Angel in particular, because of all the characters, he has the least on screen.

We see their dynamic as positive to keep him hooked into Jim of the other revolving characters and the most like, look, they're just friends. Just let's just go with it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right. Oh God. Are you ready? This is probably the easiest question. The simplest one. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. No problem. So we'll go ahead and end on a quick one and get out of here. Zella Kate on Twitter asks, if each of you had to pick one and only one episode as your favorite, what would you pick?

Well, I think obviously it would be... I agree. That is the one. Bye, everyone. Bye everyone. Bye. So obviously this is one of those answer could change on any given day, depending on how you feel kind of questions. And I assume we are limiting our scope to the episodes that we've talked about for the show.

Yeah. We have spent so much more time thinking about those and they're so much more recent than the ones we haven't watched uncomfortable being like at this point in the show when we're almost halfway through yeah well we're picking from a from a big pool that is not necessarily the full pool of episodes i'm i'm actively trying not to pick more recent ones we've seen because they happen to be because there's also that bias too right like yes yeah yeah uh so how do i do this all right here's what here's what we're gonna do we're doing this live i don't know about you but

i haven't really gone through super hard i'm in the 200 a day rockford files files right now yeah i'm i'm looking at our website episode page and just scrolling through. We're going to consolidate here. We both get one, which means we get two. One for you, one for me, right? Pick a top three. Okay. And let's see if any of them overlap.

And then if there's a rough of these three, I would say this one. Okay. Quick question. Yes. Two-parters. Two-parters count as one pick. Okay. Oh, Zellicate.

What have you done to us? Yes, you tossed the golden apple. Okay. Alright. So we've done a quick assessment of what we've gone through so far and separately made a short list. Yes yes and then we will arbitrarily declare one of those each to be uh the favorite so this is not best episode this is favorite episode yes right okay all right all right you go first chicken little's a little

chicken is on my list was that on your list is on my list as well few because that one will be on and then i'll pick a different one as my favorite, so we'll get our two. Sure. Okay, so I just want to say why I chose this one. And I think it's one that has just stuck with me. There might even be textual evidence of us referencing it more than others. Yeah, we probably reference it the most. Because we talk about, because when we ever, we make a joke about the urban horticulturalist yes that's from this episode because this is the one that has the two

mob bosses and they're both really interesting it has the con that goes wrong at the end so well written and just yeah okay and i guess ironically considering how much we're talking about jim and angel just now but like it is 100 a angel gets into this deep deep well yes but then at the end of the day jim needs angel's help to spring the trap at the very end right yes that's good i have the trees the the bees and tt flowers well i'm glad you have it i almost picked that one so that's a that's a two-parter we did relatively recently of the two partners we've done it's definitely my favorite uh we were talking i was talking about struther martin earlier in this uh discussion about how great he is as tt flowers yes the structure of how they utilize the two episodes broadcast to actually do a little bit of narrative time looping is really cool. Like it's subtle, but the way they use that structure to frame the overall story is really, really smart. At the end of the first episode, that amazing escape sequence.

Yes. And it's socially relevant and it just has a lot of good stuff in it. I just really thought it was a strong episode. I think I probably mentioned this during the episode, but there was a time when I was on vacation and I was with a lot of family and we were all very tired at a point where if nobody did something calming for the whole family,

we would have been a little bit on each other's nerves and i had said oh emily and i've been this is back when it was on netflix i said we've been watching the rockford files and my dad was like i remember that show and so we put this episode on the when the first part of this episode ended we're like are we going to bed and everyone's like no nice yeah it's great so does this mean that these are our two favorites like are we going to bed and everyone's like no nice yeah it's great so does this mean that these are our two favorites or are we going to pick favorites out of out of our stew here i think we're going to list our stew and then figure out our two favorites let's list our stew what's up what else is in your gumbo uh gear jammers and if i had to pick gear jammers

part one uh but i don't necessarily have to pick but it's because of gear jammers part one that i choose gear jammers uh i love this peek into uh rocky's life that just just completely changes everything about that character uh as you as you learn that he's he's got a romance going on and he just kind of just yeah no it's it's a wonderful look into Rocky's life. Yeah. No, that's good. I'd agree the first of the two is the more impactful one for sure. Yeah.

All right. I also am a big fan of Quickie Nirvana. Oh, again, I almost picked it, but didn't. Again, I almost picked it, but didn't. So this is the one where Sky is a woman seeking some kind of spiritual enlightenment and bouncing from practice to practice. And Jim ends up involved in her business because she does some temp gig for a shady concern and things escalate from there. I think this episode gives some of the most clarity into the Jim Rockford moral universe, right? Like what his moral code is and his structure for making decisions.

And in a way that is like, even if I don't necessarily agree with it, I see it like it is a compelling set of principles. It's not, you know, it's not just like by the need of the plot. It feels like the plot is built out of the character in that way. Skye is a great, she's not an antagonist, but a great foil for Jim. And I think we actually talk in that episode about foils, about the role of the foil in a narrative.

There's a lot of really good jokes. It's a very funny episode. It's hilarious. There's a lot of good sight gags. Yeah just it's just the show just hitting on all cylinders and i think and it won an emmy for that episode so i feel pretty good about that pick and the ending is is out of character for the rockford files i would say maybe not like completely out of character but out of character the ending is a very like downturn ending. And so it sticks with you. It's a twist, but it's a twist that grows out of the characters as,

as established. It's not a twist that throws everything you thought you knew into doubt, which are ones that I don't really love so much. Um, and it adds gravity to what could otherwise be a kind of flighty episode. So yeah, it's the whole package. Yeah, one of my faves for sure. And then the other one I have is A Portrait of Elizabeth. And I mean, we talked about it earlier this episode. I could go on forever about how fun it is to watch John Saxon versus Jim Rockford or John Saxon's character's name, David versus Jim Rockford. But that's not why I picked it.

That's certainly a piece of it. Like, it's just entertaining. But the reason why I picked it was just that it, I don't think there's a clearer picture of the complex relationship between Jim and Beth than that episode. And it's just done so well. This isn't straightforward and this won't be straightforward. And there's no clear answer to this.

Yeah, that's great. That's a good one. But I think I'm going to go chicken. Little's a little chicken. If I had to pick one, that's my one. After talking about it, I don't know. I might be talking myself into Quickie Nirvana over TT Flowers.

Can we have a tie? No, we did this. We've hedged so many bets on all this you have to pick one and only one well quickly before i pick my one and only one other runners up on my list tied tied for position i don't know which i would pick over the other our paper palace the rita moreno one that we just did recently and queen of peru yeah one that we were just talking about in terms of making money totally different episodes but both just super super compelling in their own way. And I think they're both extremely good.

Okay, so you're going with Chicken Little? Yeah. So you're lucky you're off the hook. All right. Well, I think after talking about it and recapping it in my mind, I'm going to go ahead and say Quickie Nirvana is my choice. Well done. I think the two of them is a really interesting package.

If you watch those two back to back, I think that would be, I think that would show you a wider gamut of how the Rockford files can work than some of these other choices. I would agree. So tune in next time for when we make different picks on this question. But yeah, hard question. That was tough. Yeah.

Those were good questions all around though i want to uh thank our our patrons if this ended up being a super long episode your fault patrons because you gave us too much fun stuff to talk about yes but uh speaking of overly long i think it's probably time for us to go ahead and wrap this up uh thank you again to everyone thanks again to gg garner for uh giving us some of her time. Please go check out her initiative in the name of the great James Garner. JGARF.org

Help out some dogs. Order a shirt. This has been a fun little break, but we will be back next time to talk about another episode of the Rockford Files. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Excellent.