Two Hundred A Day - Episode 87: Season Two Draft Special

Episode Date: July 11, 2021

Nathan and Eppy have talked about every episode of Season Two, and celebrate with a draft of our favorites! Both a retrospective of the season and a walk down memory lane for our own show, we really had a great time assembling this list of ten great episodes of The Rockford Files. We borrowed this format from The Incomparable (https://www.theincomparable.com/theincomparable/) (a recommended listen for geeky pop culture fans!) Spoiler Alert: Here's our final "teams" from our draft: Nathan picked: * The Farnsworth Strategem * Joey Blue Eyes * A Portrait of Elizabeth * The Italian Bird Fiasco * The Hammer of C Block Eppy picked: * Chicken Little is a Little Chicken * Gearjammers (pt 1 and 2) * Resurrection in Black & White * The Aaron Ironwood School of Success * Girl in the Bay City Boys Club We have another podcast: Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday) at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files (http://tinyurl.com/200files)! We appreciate all of our listeners, but offer a special thanks to our patrons (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday). In particular, this episode is supported by the following Gumshoe and Detective-level patrons: * Richard Hatem (https://twitter.com/richardhatem) * Brian Perrera (https://twitter.com/thermoware) * Eric Antener (https://twitter.com/antener) * Bill Anderson (https://twitter.com/billand88) * Chuck from whatchareading.com (http://whatchareading.com) * Paul Townend, who recommends the Fruit Loops podcast (https://fruitloopspod.com) * Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app (https://rollforyour.party/) * Jay Adan's Miniature Painting (http://jayadan.com) * Matthew Lee, Kip Holley, Dael Norwood, Dave P, Dale Church and Dave Otterson! Thanks to: * Fireside.fm (https://fireside.fm) for hosting us * Audio Hijack (https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) for helping us record and capture clips from the show * Spoileralerts.org (http://spoileralerts.org) for the adding machine audio clip * Freesound.org (https://www.freesound.org/) for other audio clips

Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidae Ravishaw. And this time we're zooming out to talk about not just one episode of The Rockford Files, but 22 episodes. Though not all at once. Yeah, this is a 48 hour long podcast buckle up no we are uh as those of those of you who have been listening to us recently uh will have heard we have been finishing out season two of the rockford files uh if this happens to be the first episode of the show that

you're listening to uh our format is not to do the show linearly. We do jump around, not only within seasons, but between seasons. However, we got to a point where we realized we only had a couple season two episodes left and thought it would be a fun project for the kind of first half of this year to finish out a season. And so the last episode of our show was covering the last season two episode that we had to do, The Real Easy Red Dog. And so now we are here with our season two retrospective, which I pretty much decided, I pitched this idea to Epi and Epi agreed,

to do this in the format of a draft. idea to epi and epi agreed um to do this in the format of a draft so we are going to do our rockford files season two best of draft yeah um i i'm i'm excited to do this uh m when she found out that this is what we're doing she made the joke that this was going to be our clip episode and i don't know like what preparations you did for this. I did slightly more thorough preparation than I did for our Malibu Madness, which had kind of a similar format. Actually, I can't really compare them that way. But the point is that one thing I've learned is that clip episodes are actually probably more work than a normal episode. episodes are actually probably more work than a normal episode. I was joking with you just moments ago that I had shotgun this whole season to prepare for this. I got out the DVDs and I watched the opening montages to each episode to remind me. And then I get hooked and I just start watching.

And then I remember that I've got a lot to get through and i'd skip forward and try and look for things that i thought would be standoutish about the different episodes and things like that so um i i tried to go through every one of the episodes but uh that like you said is 22 episodes it's hard to keep 22 episodes of rockford files distinct in your head digesting it that way yeah yeah okay so what i'm hearing is that you did a lot more work than i did in preparation for well no but like the results probably aren't any probably on par i have i have a really bad memory so like if you if you were to tell me oh rockford files um the reincarnation of angie i would be like i remembered that title that is a title sure uh so i had to refresh my memory on a lot of these yeah i mean i did as well i did

not really have time to do any watching. I did mostly just skim the entries, skim my notes, and kind of clicked into a couple things to read the, if I couldn't quite remember stuff that was going on, between the episode summaries in Ed Robertson's 30 Years

of the Rockford Files and the IMDb reviews, actually. Between those two, I was usually able to jog something out where I was like, oh, right, that's something that I remember stands out about this. So that all said, I'm absolutely sure that if you wanted to go back to our episodes about these episodes and listen to what we said, especially the older ones where I do not remember what we said about it, I may have reversed course.

I may have completely changed my mind about something. That was my big fear too. I may not bring up something that we spent the entire episode talking about. Just want to be clear as possible that we do not remember what we say. How you digest the episode is definitely going to have an impact on your thing. Okay. It's going to come up at some point. Well, at some point during this, I don't think this is going to be a surprise to any listener.

At some point, we're going to talk about Chicken Little is a little chicken. Spoilers. Yeah. Literally, I saw that episode, watched like some bits of it, like I said, in this way that I'm doing it where I'm not watching the whole thing through. And then I went to the next episode, which is two into 5.56 won't go and i realized i had to stop and walk away from the rockford files for a bit i was like i'm i'm gonna end up hating this episode and i don't think i hate it this episode just the proximity to something that you have an existing opinion of.

You know, at that point, I think I was maybe a third of the way through. What is Chicken Little? Let me see here. That's episode nine. So, yeah, you're about halfway through. Almost half. Yeah. So I was just like, blah. So, yeah.

And I think probably later ones in this list suffer from the fact that I haven't. Because they're at the end of this whole thing which it's just the way the cookie crumbles so for me I was thinking how there's definitely going to be a little more like recency bias probably just because I remember ones we've done recently better except for the ones that we did way back at the beginning of the show because we imprinted on those really heavily because they were like some of the first ones we did yeah they're just so stuck in my brain that yeah yeah so there's this like reverse bell curve like i remember the ones that we did early in our show so like in 2016 yes and then i remember the ones we've done in the last couple

months and everything in between i'm like i'll i'll have to look up the details anyway so that hopefully is not underselling this um Um, cause I think we'll, we'll find things to say. I am. Yeah. I'm not worried. Um, so the draft format,

this is stolen pretty much wholesale from a, uh, kind of a geeky pop culture show called the incomparable where they do these kinds of things on the regular where they have a larger panel. So it's more fun. Um, I'm sure, but,

uh, but you know credit credit where it's due um but the format is this we are assembling a top episodes of season two list by drafting the episodes going back and forth so once epi picks an episode from his personal list of top you know 10-ish whatever episodes, then I cannot pick it. So, you know, there's a bit of a what's going to go number one. Right. We're going to be generating a list, a numbered list, but the numbers don't mean anything.

They're all good episodes. This is just kind of to give us a fun structure to talk about the season. However, our little twist is that we both have secretly picked a couple. I think I said two to three. Yeah. I grabbed two of them. I have like two and a half. Okay.

Like I have one that if it, that I don't think is going to come up, but if it does anyway, these in, I, when I was making my list, I called this the hall of fame. Um,

so these are episodes that if you pick it, if you pick one that I've, that I've carved out for the hall of fame. So these are episodes that if you pick it, if you pick one that I've, that I've carved out for my hall of fame, I get to say, ah, I already got that one. All right. Yeah.

And, and vice versa. I guess the remaining question is, do those also go on the list or do we have our top list? And then we'll also have our hall of fame picks that are kind of on the, on the side. That's a really, wow.

We did not think this through we're doing it live we're doing it live uh i say we we put it in the top and then just we let people know what the whole because i just right now realize that uh depending on how this first coin toss goes i may not i may only have one hall of fame pick but let's let's do it so essentially they're just they're just protected from sniping yeah yeah that's fine this may be again over determined yeah we're we're just going to talk about some episodes that we like it's going to be great i yeah i will be honest i don't 100 understand how this goes i'm just going to depend on you telling me whether i won or lost i mean we all win we all win in the end yeah well okay it's not about who wins it's about who has the best team

right yeah so at the end we will compare our our our episode teams and i think they'll have a different character does that make sense okay so here's the deal right if i understand this correctly sorry audience so as two game designers we have to have structure. Yeah. This is called playstorming, where we are figuring out the rules as we go. The important thing here is that Nathan and I have to have some tension between the two of us. Right. Because if it's just a list of the top 10, we would say this, no, this, and then we'll both go, oh, no, you're right. Yeah. And then switch, you know, and we can't have that.

So what this is, is we each have chosen 10. Right. We're each going to come away with our top five. Right. And there'll be no overlap. There'll be no overlap. Do we go back and forth? We go back and forth.

Okay. Who's going first? You're going first. You're getting the first draft pick. Am I? I think as a reward for your extra research and preparation, and also as an apology for not actually having thought this through before we started recording. Unless you would rather me go first in order to serve as an example. Why don't you go first to serve as an example?

Oh, boy. We may be able to work out all the mechanics right now. Great. I have a suspicion about what you're going to do. I right now. Great. I have a suspicion about what you... I'm probably wrong, but I have a suspicion about what you're going to do, and I think I'm prepared for it. Okay. Okay. We'll get into it.

Dear listener, thank you for bearing with us. We'll get to the fun stuff starting now. We're going to take a quick break to say thank you to our patrons over at patreon.com slash 200 a day. Thanks to you, we are a 100% listener-supported show. We extend special thanks to our Gumshoe patrons supporting this episode. Chuck from whatsyourreading.com, Paul Townend, who also recommends the podcast Fruit Loops Cereal Killers of Color at fruitloopspod.com, Shane Liebling, check out his dice rolling And finally, we can't thank our detective patrons enough for their generous support.

Eric Antenor at Antenor on Twitter, Brian Pereira at Thermaware, Bill Anderson at Billand88, and of course Richard Haddam at Richard Haddam. We follow them too at 200pod. Why become a patron for as little as $1 an episode? In addition to supporting the show and exclusive episode previews, our patrons get Plus Expenses,

a bonus podcast where we casually chat about media we're enjoying and the things going on in our lives. An episode of Plus Expenses comes out in advance of every episode of 200 a day. 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 so season two of the rockford files great season i think we can we can agree on that my first pick on my top 10 list is episode two the farnsworth

stratagem oh all right angel get back on your jackhammer, Rocky. You look busy, huh? You sure he thinks I'm Farnsworth? He doesn't know, Jermock, but I told him the bank number called you on. Did I sneak that in there? Hell yeah. I guess there's no secrets now. Now that you've mentioned it, we can just say whatever we want about the situation, right? Yeah. Because that was my number two pick.

So, yeah. You sniped it. Yeah. So, episode two of the season, it is episode four of our show. So again, this is one of those that we imprinted on real hard because we did it real early.

However, I think it was deserved because this is an all-timer con game episode of the Rockford Files. So in the Farnsworth Stratagem, Dennis and Peggy buy into a condo or a timeshare or something, but it's run by the mob

and they're going to lose their investment. Plus, I believe they got, I think, Deal? They got Lieutenant Deal to buy in or something? One of Dennis' bosses also is buying into this thing and then it turns out it's run by the mob and they're gonna just take like lose all their all the money and not have anything to show for it um and so dennis calls in jim to help him out

and the way that jim decides to help him out is to con the owners into thinking that there's oil underneath the property and to sell the mineral rights or to buy the mineral rights from him or whatever, something like gas, natural gas, natural gas. Yes, yes. And so it's a elaborate sting in order to get the mob owners to, you know, release like pay some the amount of money that is needed to get um uh dennis and out of the out of the jam and etc etc uh but i mean what happens in this episode is that they end up setting up a drilling rig outside of this condo building uh we got rocky and we got angel as like rig workers and they both bring in crews of their buddies which is

very funny Rocky's buddies and Angel's buddies are different kinds of buddies yeah Rocky's are actual oil riggers right yeah yeah there's a romance angle with uh Jim working with the like assistant of the owners of the place who turns out to be conning him but he figures out that she's a fraud and then she she decides to switch allegiances because he's a better con man basically yeah yeah it's good it's if i remember correctly the ending like the kind of reveal like kind of the final sting is a little muddled it's a little hard to tell exactly who knew what at the very end but it didn't really matter there's the thing at the end where jim just confesses to the mob right if there's no oil how come you put up this rig because i wanted people to think there was i'm telling you the truth mr christian you're not a

man i'd lie to another guy ll not a guy Lloyd would lie to either. He made a mistake with me once. He's not dumb enough to do it again. So like the man told you, sell. You don't give me much choice. I give you no choice. It's against my will. Sure.

Now you just remember that Lloyd brought you into this thing, not me. You remember that. Sure. Yeah, it's great. I mean, the things that i wrote down like i said it was my number two pick i like we get jimmy as an oil tycoon which is great yeah you get uh lots of great stuff with uh because dennis needs jim's help is just that's all good some really good angel material in it there's i caught the scene where angel is on foot walking away from the whole thing

because he got threatened and they have to like convince him to come back and that whole exchange is just yeah it's just great uh the romance stuff is really good too i it's played well and subtly and they're sort of like can they trust each other you know that kind of thing that that was going wonderful patter about how cons work like he's explaining to her how the con works and she knows how con works it's just like that and i think also it just gets sort of this honorable mention as it is the episode that has the i I think one of the only surviving Rockford Files reaction gifts left on Twitter's interface. So it's the one where he takes the hat off. Yeah. And yeah. So anytime I'm looking for a Rockford Files reaction gift, like I'm usually

ending up with that one because it's the only one I can find i think one of my criteria for for my picks was kind of thinking about whether how they stood on their own versus how they stood as kind of like part of the series right yeah and uh this one it works i think the best ones uh and most of the ones that i picked are great standalones but also get additional layers if you've been watching the show. Yeah. And I think this, this, uh,

just with all the Dennis angel and Rocky stuff, like, yeah, it pays off for that. I mean, I'm going to say before, like, before we go any further,

like you, this, this was a very good season. Like it's just, it's just very good. Um, all right. Yeah.

So that was my, uh, number one pick the foreign strategy over's just very good um all right yeah so that was my uh number one pick the foreign strategy over to you epi all right my number one pick uh i've already hinted at uh i guess several times is chicken little is a little chicken you remember tom little no come on you remember him he came in about a month before you got sprung little tiny guy in c block working the laundry used to throw spinach on the guards from the catwalk above oh chicken little right yeah no i never met him i heard about him what are you in an ink man or something yeah well his main date was forgery but his specialty was big big swindles municipal bonds had a beautiful hand now what about him and anyway he's missing and he owes

me two grand uh episode nine our episode 10 in our archive oh wow that was very close um so if you were here for malibu madness chicken little is a little chicken like with the distance in many categories um lots of good stuff the urban horticulturist uh is a person that will stay with me for i brought you over here i invite you to dinner so we can sit down and discuss everything and instead of a little honor and decency you feed me an ice cream sandwich you know kind of going through it this time around there's so many good little details in it this is the episode where um jim goes to talk to dennis at the police station and he doesn't have a quarter to lend dennis for the vending machine so dennis like jimmy's it open and or does something like

rigs the the the thing and they both get beef stew for lunch out of the vending machine which i don't there's just something incredibly rockford files about that it's just my notes on this one so this was my my number three pick oh okay yeah yeah uh and my notes on this was that it's another all-timer just because we talk about it constantly um but that it like really shows off the like quirky nature of the humor of the show yeah um and like the beef stew is part of that. The two different mob guys, the urban horticulturalist and then the guy with the broken arm is fantastic.

So it's like a real Rockfordishness Sunday. Like it's just all layered on top of everything. The showdown in the church at the end and Jim explaining the shell game. I don't understand it. Do it again. Come on, Angel. I have worked this con at least ten times in different ways. The whole idea is to keep your eye on the P, as they say.

Or, in this case, keep your eye on the right briefcase. And to set it up so you have an accomplice who will make the switch at the right moment. And that'll be Rocky. Has he come in the funeral? Hey, that's nice. He said he wouldn't miss it. No, Jim, I think this is really, really confusing. Angel, when this con is in the hands of a master,

it's a joy to watch. And then it going wrong. It's all, yeah, it's all there. Angel getting to attend his own funeral. Like, there's so much in here that you forget that there's so much in here. If you listen to the eulogy, it's all this, like, all this puffed up stuff about how great he was. Just those subtle, even those subtle little touches of, because during that part, you're watching stuff happen. You don't, and the fact that the eulogy itself is also a joke.

Like, it's all, yeah, it's all there. And you, I mean, like you had just said about how like ones that fit, that work on their own, but also, you know, get more depth. I think this one would work on its own. But like having watched it, the opening scene is angel stuffing a bunch of money into the firebird's door and if that doesn't fill you with a sense of dread having watched the rockford files like um yeah it's just so many like just wonderful bizarre angel moments too like that um there's one where i think rockford brings back. He thinks he's bringing back Chicken Little and his brother, but he's actually bringing back two goons that are looking for them. Right.

And Angel comes out of the trailer and he just shouts, no, Jimmy. And then he steals Rocky's truck. Yeah. And Rockford turns around and punches, sucker punches one of the goons and hurts his hand right doing it right because the guy has a gun in his in his waist in his like waistband right he punches him in the gun yes and then they they they take jim's car and he he tries to stop him and they're like what and they got a gun and he goes you might need to fill it up like it's just yeah oh it's exquisite uh yeah actually my notes

in here i'm like i think this one aside from being like my favorite season two episode this probably goes on the list of top 10 television episodes i've ever seen there's something about this one that just sang to me heart and soul so uh yeah that's that's my's my number one pick. That's a great pick. So my number two, and I'm interested in your take on this. My number two is one of our more recent episodes, Joey Blue Eyes. Now listen, pal. Beth here said you can help me, that you're done time. Now I've been on my own all my life.

I got this here joint, but i'm up to my knees and airtight clauses and holding companies that don't hold nothing now best said you can help me and i figure you're an ex-con well maybe we should parley now i don't need a comic i need a guy who can help me out of this jam well listen mr domino joy just call me joy interesting yeah i not on my list but almost made my list so i think that um i was afraid of recency and so i i kind of i i figured i'd embrace it because i was going because you know i did not have a really scientific method i just kind of like looked through the episodes wrote down the titles of the ones that's that i felt stuck out to me on kind of a first pass and as it turns out there were like there were almost 10 of them and then i was like okay let

me see why you know what what else is there that i you know i'm not really thinking about this one just i i just liked it so much when we watched it yeah so it's episode 17 of of the season our episode 85 so this one i do kind of remember what we what we said about it but uh the again the the rockfordishness of it is really special in and it's in a totally different way than either of farnsworth or chicken little like it's i mean it's all it's more focused on jim um and beth so maybe that's where it kind of slots in, because those other two don't really have much Beth. Like, I don't think Farnsworth has, I don't think she's in it. And I think she might be in Chicken Little.

She is, I think, briefly. Briefly. Again, like, I have a whole mush of Rock Profile episodes in my head right now. Because I think the shell game thing is at her apartment, maybe. Yeah, they're discussing it at her apartment. Because they're hiding out. So, like, you know, kind of almost completing a trifecta i guess no no she she might not be in it because that might be the one that she's away and they stay at her apartment right yeah yeah because

that that i think is the one with the canon uh um uh answering machine message where she talks about her cat right Right, right. And how he's got to take care of it. But yeah, so Joey Blue Eyes is just like, I don't know, James Luisi as the bad guy is just such a joy. The guy who plays Joey Blue Eyes is such a joy. I really liked that the story didn't rely on murder,

that it was dramatic and had stakes, but didn't revolve around someone getting killed um the script's super tight the acting's all really good um and it has some con you know some of the little con stuff going in the the fake shooting is great uh yeah so i guess this one in particular is less that it's like it's less that it's an example of like of like core rockford files and it's more that it kind of stands out because it's a little different yeah but in a way that feels of a piece of of the whole season um so you know maybe as time goes on this one would drop a little bit but no it's a great choice so that is my number two pick it makes me feel a

little safer about mine well my number two pick we already had, the Farnsworth Stratagem. So I'm on to my number three, which is Gear Jammers Part One. We're raising money to send the lobbyists to Washington, you know, to fight the big fleets. Rocky is one of the organizers. Joseph Rockford, my father? Hey, Jack! Yeah? Listen, it's pretty busy.

I gotta go. Yeah, hey, listen. Do you know what time we left 4 30 on the button as usual as usual saturday afternoon right is this the only two-parter in this season yes might be the only two-parter right and i mean i'll go ahead and say actually gear jammers actually not on my list so if you want to encapsulate this one and two as your pick, I'll allow it. Sure. I mean, there's definitely some stuff. Yeah, we might as well talk about two while we do it. I chose Gear Jammer Part 1 because it is, I feel like, my favorite Rocky episode.

And it's just the wonderful secret life of Rocky that we uncover as we go through it we learned about mary ramses uh and uh who's this woman that he buys champagne for every saturday i think is what it is it's uh rocky has witnessed a crime and is trying to figure it out for himself and jim is trying to find rocky before the mob does all right and that i think is what you would get in the you know uh announcers commercial for it coming up next on the rockford files uh will jim find rocky before the mob does you know that kind of thing uh in it there are um like i said lots of great rocky stuff lots of good stuff with dennis being concerned about rocky uh well there's a couple really good chase moments in it uh in in particular in in the part one i feel like there's

a chase there's in it that has like everything from a rockford files chase he's being tailed he pulls up to the construction site and they pull up alongside him. So he pulls back and does the J turn. He does the hiding in the parking lot. It's one of these where one of the cars goes around the corner and loses hubcaps because it just, you know, it's pulling too tight of a turn. And then eventually they get him or he gets them into an underpass and he pulls a gun on them. You know, I've been in this business a long time i've run into a couple of guys who can stay with me they got a little sloppy doing it nobody ever made it look easy just like to say it's an honor to be tailed by somebody who can

drive as good as you do now get up on the roof and then pulls the the uh the guy's tire and sends him off. It's great. And then part two has the great semi. The semi chase. Yeah. Where Rocky gets to drive it. So if we're throwing part two into it, then fine. Then there you go.

That's a freebie for me. The mystery itself isn't all that juicy. It's great what it does to involve rocky in it but it's just this sort of like uh chance to train it on the edge there's a lot going on in this season with rocky disapproving of jim's work right yeah and this uh is one of these episodes that um that kind of uh puts that in the forefront in a really entertaining way. That is my second pick. I didn't put it on my list, A, because I knew it was going to be on your list.

And B, I think because the mystery itself is not super, like I couldn't really remember what the actual plot was and most of it's in the second episode like what is going on like what did what rocky saw and what it means yeah so the actual story itself didn't really stand out to me in my memory sure yeah so that's kind of what put it on the next the next tier below the ones that are on my list. Just, you know, just didn't have all of the stuff that I'm looking for. But, yeah, all the good stuff that you say. Absolutely. It's all in there. Yeah, lots of good character moments and good chase.

Yeah. So my next pick is... Uh-oh. So part of this is, you know, we're not bound to any particular order from our list. So, you know, because there's a bit of strategy here. All right. I'm going to go ahead and pick one of my protected entries because I thought it might have been picked by now. So I thought I might get it for free.

But I am going with a portrait of Elizabeth. Oh, you just sn sniped me. Yes! We could at least have stayed till intermission. I was falling asleep, Beth. It was a beautiful concert. I told you I'd leave you cab money. You know, sometimes you make Dave look pretty wonderful. Well, he is wonderful. You put a

tennis racket in his hand, you could stand him in the window of any sporting goods store in town. You're jealous. You're right. Ever since Dave showed up, I have been taking seconds. I'm on a secondhand date, listening to secondhand music. Now I'm getting cussed out in secondhand legal terms, most of which I don't understand. This is the last time I'll ever go to a concert with you.

That's great. We'll just stick to the Rams and the Dodgers. Brother! That one, so, I mean, I did my list. I tried to keep an order on the list and that one even up to the point when we were already recording i was moving it up and down the list so yeah episode 16 um our episode 11 another one of our early ones. Yeah. Another all timer. Specifically, again, with many of our recent ones, because they have been more Beth related episodes.

Yeah. Been talking about it more. But part of the joy of the first three seasons before Gretchen Corbett leaves the show is the Jim and Beth relationship. Yeah. It's not even will they, won't they? And that's kind of part of what makes it interesting. It's more like they did and maybe they do. What does that mean? But they're also both like fully functioning adults with their own lives

that don't require needing to be around each other all the time and often require calling in each other when there's trouble, which is, you know, a stressful way to have a, have a relationship, a friendship or a romantic relationship. Yeah.

And so a portrait of Elizabeth, very much by design, like this episode is about that. And it like clearly is meant to be about that. Right. But also it has a, one of, one of the great Rockford files guest star villains

oh god yes uh in in john saxon uh rest in power um yes just uh as dave um who is this you know crooked master criminal who's manipulating beth as part of this like uh is are they stock certificates or silver certificates or something it's a um bearer bonds bearer bonds yes again in a very rockfordish um thing yeah so he's he's manipulating the situation where where he can use some of best's legal acumen to get him out of the country, essentially, with these, like, ill-gotten bearer bonds. Yeah. But he's also a painter. He is also a wonderful dining companion.

He's also great at karate. He is such a Moriarty. Yeah, yeah. He is the Moriarty to Jim Strelok. Yeah. And it's just this perfect balance of character story and action i think is is where i came out in my notes uh kind of revisiting it um mentally all the character stuff is great but like the mystery of like what is he up to and why is he doing the things that he's doing it needs to be unveiled and that's handled really well and then

there's good you know jim has to do stuff he has to leap into action um in order to take this guy down and yeah that's all handled really well as well so he's gonna look petty and right and yeah jealous and everything is just yeah there's a whole paint attack yep yeah the whole paint attack to foil foil uh the the villains escape and the bear bonds are on the back of paintings that he's made of beth like yeah yeah so there's like some poetry that's really but but it's also funny you know like just all the things that's all yeah it's a it's a yeah like i said that was next on my list as well that one again great standalone episode probably benefits a little bit from having watched at least one other episode that has beth in it i think yeah um and also kind of informs some of the other

episodes that have beth in them they definitely get it across it's not like it it's not like they just assume you know it they they definitely do the the their due diligence and they get it across it's not like it it's not like they just assume you know it they they definitely do the the their due diligence and they get it across which is great um but yeah i agree like it it definitely lends something to it if you are invested in some aspect of the jim and beth averse yes absolutely um yeah so that is my pick number three nice well let's take a little break uh we want to make sure that you know where you can follow all of our other projects and interests online epi where can our listeners find you uh you can google epidia i am the only one out there that i know of uh you can go to dig1000holes.com.

That's the number 1000. Or you can go to worlds, plural, without master, singular, dot com and find my work there. How about you, Nathan? My internet home for all things NDP is at ndDesign.com You can find all of the links and information for all of my various games including the World Wide Wrestling roleplaying game my zines and podcast projects of which perhaps

there may be more than one. You can also find me on Instagram and Twitter at NDPayoletta As always if you want more information about the podcast go to 200aday.fireside.fm and now back to the continuing adventures of jimbo rockfish we're we are officially halfway through our list of 10 our big list of 10 our big list of 10 yes so now i'm sitting here thinking

i have i have one on deck for my next one but But now I'm wondering to myself, should I stop playing safe with them? Right? This is the part where I'm like, because we've got a portrait of Elizabeth in there. We've got Chicken Little is a little chicken. We've got the Farnsworth Stratagem. We got the hits. Yeah, we got the hits. Is it time to go to the B-sides that are destined to be classics?

Right. And so I'm looking through my list here going, what can I throw at you? I'm ready. So weird, because there's one here. Okay, I'm going to go further down in my list here. I'm going to bump this up to number three here. I'm going to go with the Resurrection in black and white.

That is what I bumped down for Portrait of Elizabeth. Oh, excellent. good good choice when i hire operatives i usually get a chance to call the shot well i'm not an operative i'm a private detective you hire me you get the whole product yeah complete with a phony real estate pitch how about that the things that stood out about this one to me um okay there's great chem again chemistry we i we really enjoy yeah in case you're detecting a theme yeah but that's also i mean i think maybe it's worth saying that's also a strength of the show like not only is there great chemistry and the recurring cast one of the strengths of what made it a popular show was that they cast good actors that primarily had great chemistry with James Garner.

Yeah. As a show that wants to stay popular, that's something you do. And they did a great job. This is episode eight from this season, from season two. It is our episode 73. Yes. So the general plot of it, and again, my brain is mush at this point, but if I remember correctly, she's a reporter who's trying to get a man who has been charged with the murder of his wife or girlfriend, and she thinks he's innocent. Right. And it's a cold case.

It's a cold case, yeah. Which, Jim, if you own the t-shirt that has Jim's telephone book ad in it, you know he accepts cold cases. So the things that stood out in this one, as I went through it again, that I just kind of made a note of, number one, the back and forth between the two of them over who's in charge and who takes the lead on everything was great. Because she's an investigative reporter

and he's a private investigator and they both think they know how to do it to that end we get amazing business with the printing press oh he pulls out his printing press and she's she's like that's such a clever idea we learned that he had done a job for someone and a printer who made it to his specifications, which is wonderful, too. It's got a backstory. Followed that up with this scene where they're going to check out this house and they're arguing over whether they're going to go in as realtors or inspectors. I love the printing press, but I don't love the real estate approach. I think we got a much better chance if we go in as surveyors. Here, wait a minute. There there well now why is that better well as surveyors you can prowl around and ask

all kinds of technical questions but with real estate if she's not interested in selling she'll just slam the door and we're cooked look i know what i'm doing i'm opening up a lot of interviews i'm pretty good yeah yeah so much and he just barrels into the realtor what they just keep upping each other while they're in the con they keep like laying down uh more stuff for the other to yes and yeah well it's going on and that's great but also during all of that jim and the woman they're trying to con are making these eyes for each other that are just like it's not spoken of but the way it's filmed it's very clear that she's letting them in because he's got a great smile and you know just oh it's just wonderful um and then the other bit that i just like was great was the whole gun escalation thing you get in the beginning you

get a lot of great jim lines about his sense of self-preservation where he's like yeah i'm a chicken like i want to live you're not armed no but you're a private investigator why don't you carry a gun because i don't want to shoot anybody And that eventually leads to him carrying a gun. I can't remember. There might even be a, like he carries the gun, but he's just going to wave it around or whatever. And then eventually there's a boat chase. It does end with a boat chase, yes.

She takes pictures of him with the gun, which ends up in her national press story, which gets him in trouble so it's just this this way that the rock for files can often take like a little motif and just run it through the whole thing and that motif has a whole tale of its own to tell it's not one that i talk about a lot and i i'm like i've been sleeping on this one yeah it's a sleeper i think i really i yeah the character so susan is the journalist played by joan van ark um that character and her chemistry with jim really is what kept this one in my mind and a lot of that is also that they have almost the antagonistic relationship and you can

see a version of the story where it turns into a romantic thing by the end but this just this story just isn't about that and they i think they even they almost make a joke about it at one point because she says something like i've done all kinds of things for stories i've slept because she's gonna sleep on his couch like he offers for to sleep in the bed and he'll sleep on the couch and she's like i've slept on pool tables there's a moment there where that could have turned into more of a innuendo and it just doesn't um yeah which is which is great uh it also has that like scene where they go to talk to the guy who's like fading like in the old like in the old folks home oh yeah and he kind of has dementia and can't really he's the lawyer yeah oversaw the case or

whatever and like it's a actually a really poignant scene kind of in the middle of all this other fairly fun fun yeah almost screwballish yeah kind of plot um that really gives it a a real emotional weight where you see where you see that her compassion and interest in other people is like what makes her a good reporter yeah um and that stands a little bit in contrast to jim and how his interests are not necessarily exactly uh going to keep him uh in the conversation in the same way uh yeah it's it's a sleeper It's one that's not on top of mind of like, here's all the great episodes we've watched, but going through the list,

I was like, Oh yeah, that one was really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is definitely one of the ones where, when I brought it up and like I said,

I, I mainly brought them up to watch the opening montage and to kind of refresh my memory. And I just kind of just settled in, just kept watching. Yeah. On double speed. Cause that was the other thing. Wow.

I applaud you. That goes back to my transcribing days. If I have to watch an episode, I get up to three times the speed. After that, I can't. But if I have to, I will. A little peek behind the production curtain. When I do the editing of the show, I usually have it up on about not quite one and a half it's about like 1.35 or something on my little slider bring my voice up a little bit i bring us i

bring us both up a little bit because that's like fast enough to where it actually does save time but not so fast that i stop paying attention yeah so there So there you go, everyone. All right. Oh, man. Okay. I only have two picks left. If you choose these correctly, you can put me in a pickle. And we will save the ones that don't make it

for our honorable mentions at the end. Sure. It won't go unlauded. So here's where I'm at. There's one that I want to be on this list, but I think you're going to pick it. Yeah, go for it. So if I don't pick it, that means I to be on this list, but I think you're going to pick it. Yeah, go for it. So if I don't pick it, that means I get two other ones.

You see the people that I leave behind? Right. It's a sinking boat. Here are the episodes you can save. But if I'm wrong, then it's not going to make it, is the thing. Oh. I guess I have one more chance to make this choice again. Okay.

it is the thing oh i guess i have one more chance to make this choice again okay so then my number four is going to be all right i feel like this is a bit of a bit of my my off off meta pick okay go for it but it is uh episode 19 of the season the italian bird fiasco, which is our episode 61. Which theory do you support? Well, I think 18, 19 at the most. I think 24 is just out of the question. You see, I know how slowly he worked, and I just don't think he could have ever done 24. Slowly he worked, and I just don't think he could have ever done 24. However, if he worked late and, you know, worked like a little beaver,

he might have turned out 20, 21. Who knows? He might even have done 24. Could I have my bird back, please? I've written five papers supporting the 24 theory, but of course you knew that. Of course, of course. I was just fooling.

It's a good episode. I, it's on my, what are the, what are they called in? does baseball have it where you have on deck? Well, whatever in the hopper. It's not on your short list.

It might be on your long list. It didn't make the top 10, but it might've been 11. Who knows? Um, um yeah so another kind of a sleeper um but one of those once i was like what do i like about this one again i just kept thinking of more and more things yeah this is the one where there's the three birds and jim the three bird statues yeah and jim is hired to buy them at auction one kind of one at a time, and they each end up being shattered. So clearly the guy who's hiring him is after whatever's inside.

It turns out he's a diamond smuggler, and they're supposed to be inside, but they're not. So it's interesting because it's a con game episode where Jimim's kind of the subject of the con at least at first and then he has to figure out how to turn it on on uh the art dealer that has hired him who's uh kit from night rider yes so that's the thing i was looking at this and i was like oh this is full of people that are great so it's uh william daniels is the the the villain here um so kit from night rider yeah uh also uh mr feeney from uh boy meets world it also has ron silver in it who is like one of my especially in the 70s when i don't expect to see him is kind of low-key one of my favorite like oh he's in this guys yeah so that's great um the the

woman who's the other art dealer uh played by camilla sparve um she's super fun she has this like euro kind of yeah she says she's canadian but it's all a lie anyway it's there's there's these different layers of like who's telling the truth, who's lying to who, who's hiring who for what. Yeah. It's a layered, layered episode. Yeah. There's a whole store,

big store con on Jim where like William Daniels, uh, has this whole hotel room that's all kitted out as this, you know, as this art dealer has all this stuff. And then Jim goes back and it's all gone. And like, there was no,

it was all a ruse. He never, you know, rented it or whatever. Yeah, so it just has all those great layers. Jim has to figure all kinds of stuff out. But yeah, it has the dramatic start with the guy getting thrown off the roof, and then it has the great all-time Jim-doesn't-get-paid reveal. So, um, $45,000 from $50,000 leaves $ 5,000. Well, I didn't break the damn things. I've been

doing some preliminary figuring. Now, from the 5,000, there's of course, uh, English inheritance taxes and English income taxes. Oh yes. We shall have to, of course, inform your IRS. taxes. Oh yes, we shall have to of course inform your IRS. And there's the rate of exchange to consider. Oh yes, and then there's one minute. Do you think there's going to be

enough left for me to pick up this tab? Well, I really don't know, Mr. Rock, but that rather depends. Do you intend to keep on drinking? Yes. Another bit of a sleeper where it would be like, you know, you've watched our first six picks. What else on here? I'm like, this one's very Rockford-y.

We are going to, in the end, we're going to have 10 out of 22 episodes that we've chosen. Right. So it's a prime season. Plenty of great things to choose from. It's a prime season. Plenty of great things to choose from. But some of them are going to be less of the classic tales and more of the, this is a good example of this sort of Rockford Files. Right, right, yeah. Yeah.

And this is a good con game episode where Jim isn't running a con. Yeah. Which is fun. A fun thing to watch. Yeah, so that is my number four. All right. So you've got one left. I have two left.

This has got me thinking. All right. You know the scene from Rocky where he's training, like in the first Rocky, and he's training and he goes to the meat packing and he just starts just wailing on the side of beef? Mm-hmm. That's this episode. This is the meatiest of meaty Rockford Files episodes.

I am, of course, talking about the Aaron Ironwood school success. I stretched the truth a little bit. You ought to expect that from me. Now, listen, old buddy, you said you had my check. How about forking it over? Not until you tell me what's going on i don't know anymore now you're going to give me my money or am i going to have to take it from aaron i don't want to fight you i never took you when we were kids but i've grown up

i didn't put it on my list but i did look look at it and go, oh, it had that really meaty fight. It did. So that's the thing. Like when I when I first came across this, because this is early on in the season. It's the first episode of the season. Yeah, it's the first episode of the season. Our episode 23. And so the first thing I did is I typed out the Aaron Ironwood School of Success.

And then I typed out beefy fighting boxes before I even, I was just like, you know, I'm going to list the things that are good, the things that stand out. And then I started watching this one and, uh, there's,

there's a lot of really good Rockford stuff in it. So the thing is, Aaron is an old friend of Rockford's that Rocky remembers from when they were kids he was like a almost family he was like he like lived with them he was an orphaned or something like that in an early age and um so it's aaron is setting rockford up uh to take a fall i i watched this one pretty swiftly so i like i cannot recall the the nuances of the con that's being played on Rockford. What I do remember, though, is all of the stuff coming from Rocky about how he should be more like Aaron because Aaron is such success when Aaron clearly isn't. Not clearly, but eventually it comes out that he isn't.

Well, he's at the top of a pyramid scheme. Yeah. So he's living large, looking like a success, but it's all a house of cards that's about to fall. That's that's about to fall down. Of course, there is the beefy box scene, which is worth it alone. You should go watch that. That's great. This is where they have a punch out, drag out fight in like a loading dock.

Yeah. There's other good ones. Like there's some good stuff with like goons where he gets into meaty fights with them. Ones where they pull guns on him and he just takes off running just lots of good action along those ways but also and this is the thing and i don't i don't know why this qualifies it but this absolutely qualifies it this is the episode where he has the limp that everyone comments on and he has a different story for why he has it and it's never explained and i mean we know the actor had surgery right that was the thing but for some reason it's just so wonderful that throughout the episode people just commenting on this limp and and he just keeps coming up with a different story about

why it happened so anyways that i think it's just and just a completely fun episode and i i wanted to uh i wanted to give it some of its uh its dues there yeah um yeah the meaty fight definitely stands out also there's a great aspect of aaron telling jim one story that he kind of means jim to see through that's still concealing the actual story which is basically that he's in hock to the mob and like yeah you know they're gonna come after him and he's trying to he tricks jim into taking over ownership of the business right right yeah uh which is worth nothing and has all its assets frozen because it's a pyramid scheme um yeah there's also something to where it's kind of like weirdly very resonant still because his thing he's like a

motivational speaker and kind of like a prosperity gospel like it's not religious like it's not presented as religious but it's still in that yeah it's in that vein where it's like i'm gonna teach you how to make a million dollars and that ain't pie in the sky and it ain't maybe you'll make it because if you follow just exactly what the school manual tells you, you're just flat going to end up rich and there's no two ways about it. Dare to win, I said. Dare to make money. Spit in her eye.

Dare to turn your life around. Make a million dollars by the end of the year. What's it going to cost? Only $5,000. And yeah, that's still with us. It's aged well, I guess in in terms of the premise just a quick aside some of the production stuff about this season um i was just reviewing again the uh ed robertson's book so the rockford files the first season did extraordinarily well had great ratings and like destroyed its time slot um so in the second season the i think cbs

um one of the rival networks to counter program against it moved hawaii 50 into the time slot on like friday nights to counter program and so the network was obviously invested in how it was doing and and it's you know how the scripts were coming along and stuff something that was a concern i think we've mentioned this before but i think just not for a while so yeah so over the summer as they were like you know getting production started uh they were concerned that the the the humor of the series was turning into being at Jim's expense and showing him as not being smart. Right. When a lot of the appeal of the character is that he's kind of smarter than everyone in the room, right? And that's what people really liked about the character was that he always kind of had an angle and always was a step ahead.

I guess at the time that this conversation was happening, of the nine scripts that had already been produced seven of them all revolve around the theme of rockford is duped or swindled and then has to figure it out and that includes chicken little is a little chicken aaron eyewood school of success italian burr fiasco it's our it's our list um so like the density of those in the first blush of scripts was a concern. And so they ended up spacing them out across the season and kind of rushing other stuff where he wasn't, you know, duped to fill it out. So I think watching the season, I don't think it feels like that. I think some episodes are like that and most are not. But they did decide to put this episode in the first slot, which was exactly that concern.

Yeah, yeah. As things turned out, it continued to do better than Hawaii Five-0, but it did gradually lose ratings, you know, just in general. You know, probably because it was a second season show and wasn't as new. Right. And then they kind of leveled off and continued having, you know, a good audience, just not that great audience,

et cetera. But I thought that was an opportune time for that, that aside, just because, yeah, they decided, oh, you're worried about this.

Well, let's get this one out of the way. First thing, first thing in the first thing in the season i mean then the second one is the farnsworth stratagem so it's like right now they recover quickly but uh yeah yeah um all right so this comes to my last pick yeah oh again do i think you're gonna pick this as your last one or do i throw out a line right it's tough right i guess if you were gonna pick this one that at least I'm forcing you to go elsewhere.

So for my last pick, I'm going to episode 14 of season two, The Hammer of Seablock. Yeah. All right. Introduction of Gandalf Finch. You believe me now? Yeah, Gandhi. Yeah, I think I do. Hey, Rockfish.

You're the first one, man. The first one. Yeah, well, even if we subtract the 300, I still owe you for a couple of days, so... Want to keep working on it? We can do it. Oh, thanks, Fish. fish man you're all right i gotta tell you i struggled with this one it's not actually on my list okay we'll talk through why it's on your list and then i'll explain why i didn't quite make it to my top 10 i totally

understand this not being on a on a top list yeah which almost is why i wanted to include it on its own i think it's a great episode yeah that's the yeah go on so yeah episode 14 it's uh our our episode 48 um and it's the introduction of isaac hayes's character uh gandalf finch which i think is a fan favorite character. Yeah. So Gandhi knows Jim from when Jim was in prison and he's finally gotten out. I think he was in jail for like five years, right? Yeah. For the murder of his girlfriend, which he denies having done. But he was charged for it.

And he's kind of a violent guy and no one really believed him so he's coming to Jim because he just doesn't really know anyone pretty much yes he's just out yeah so he's just out but he specifically wants to clear his name now that he's out

yeah and the episode kind of revolves around revolves around Gandhi first trying to get Jim to help him out and then kind of getting himself into trouble, trying to do it himself and kind of pulling Jim in to help him get out of the trouble he's getting himself into. Yeah. And it ends up in a pretty dark place. And I think that's why I thought it was a standout episode yeah here's the thing like the character stuff is great uh isaac hayes and james garner are a great combination jim and gandy are

a great combination um the episode is pretty dark it has some humor especially at the beginning but it's pretty dark it's about this murder they end up discovering that the woman killed herself in such a manner as to implicate gandy because he was so bad to her yes and that was the only way out that she could see right it's a big twist it definitely has like a twist ending it's a really good murder mystery uh and everything you said like i do think this is a good episode and probably deserves to be on the list the only thing that bumps it off the list for me is that the other gandy episodes don't work are more fun yeah they don't work with this one existing right like that's the thing the next the next gandy episode kind of reboots. I mean, that's kind of a modern term. Yeah, but it does.

Yeah, it kind of re-envisions the character and kind of is like, ignore that backstory. Yeah. Yeah, I really enjoy both. Like, I thought this was a really good episode, and I really enjoyed the other Gandy episodes. The fact that they don't mesh doesn't trouble me. It doesn't make me, you know, know i'm not like we need to fix that because i'm okay with fiction being messy like that but like it does mean that like it just reflected out on my opinion of this episode if i was to rank the gandhi episodes this is probably

my least favorite gandhi episode yeah just another polish wedding, right? I mean, yeah. I mean, quick draft on just another Polish wedding, the other one, and then the Hammer Seabuck. The other one is good, I just can't remember its title. Anyhow, yeah, and then this one also has kind of like questionable ethical move from Jim where he's kind of like trying to excuse Gandhi. Yeah, and it's tough. In a kind of an irresponsible way, trying to give him some kind of out to like be like, oh, you know, you did what you could. And it's like, yeah, it sounds like you were a pretty bad partner. So maybe you need to sit with that. And he does.

So maybe you need to sit with that. And he does like, it's not irresponsible in terms of like showing us someone who doesn't experience consequences for their actions. Yeah. It does just kind of give a moment of like, Oh Jim, like you're right. You're being a good friend,

but kind of at the expense of giving a pass to this kind of behavior. Yeah. Which is not my favorite move, but it does stand out so yeah i guess a problematic fave yeah no it's a good one it's definitely good and like the script is great like this like it's as one would expect it's really well written for what it sets out to do it is you know knocks out of the park just what it sets out to do it's kind of like okay we did that now let's step back a little bit because everyone likes isaac hayes and everyone likes the idea of dandy but we'd like him

to be a little less of a bad person going forward so yeah so there's my there's my fifth entry to the top episodes worth watching yeah kind of a kind of an outlier so now i have one left yeah you have you have the big that's the I picked first. That means you get the last swing. You know what? I'm gonna go... I'm gonna jump one down my list here. Call it audible. I'm gonna change it. I'm gonna go

with a classic. But I'm gonna go with the girl in the Bay City Boys Club. No, but the cases are unrelated. There were different people involved every time. Were they all criminal cases? And I know where you're going with that. And you're wrong.

There has never been any organized crime in Bay city. Looks like there is now. So that is my half hall of fame pick. Oh, is it? So since we're, since, since we're at the end,

you get it.'s yours this one uh okay so this is number uh it's it's episode 13 lucky number 13 just before the hammer of c block but it's early for us it was an earlier one that we did episode 12 yeah and so this one uh the moment it started i just got all of these really good nostalgic feels but okay so the things that it has that i think stand out that are um like worthy of inclusion on this list it's got the our we talk about the drive-thru gambit where where jim he's being tailed by her uh and he goes through a drive-through and just tells the drive-through to call the police uh and say that he's being shot at by this car so that the cars would pull him over and it gives him a chance to then turn around and tail her and

like there's a lot of good stuff there's another great one where he's got chemistry with um she's she's a district district attorney or the assistant district attorney uh blair brown is the actress yes you know a lot of good stuff going on there but i think fundamentally the standout here is the the foot chase inside the boys club at the end and all of the tricks and back and forth that you know, spraying the fire extinguisher on the ground to make it slippery and throwing a ball down the stairs to get them to follow that direction. You know, just lots of good, clear, physical action that shows Jim's strategic side in the middle or his tactical side in the middle of a chase. A lot of that throughout this episode. Also, Angel's in this episode also angels in this

episode right uh and you get some really good um moments there's like one where angel like just takes the goon sides against jimmy it's just so yeah so this is on my list as i said it was kind of my my half hall of fame pick um i didn't really remember the plot like there's a there's like a gambling club that is basically hooked into so it's it takes place in bay city so it's hooked into the bay city kind of like business and politics community and it's kind of a forum for corruption jim's investigating it for someone else and it turns out that that investigation doesn't turn anything up i just don't yeah i don't recall the the full thing yeah but basically this da ends up following jim because she's also trying to break this gambling ring situation and all revolves around the that's the boys club

and her higher up might either be dirty or just afraid to deal with the situation. I remember that being an important bit. Yeah. Jim is hired to find out if the poker game is fixed. He's hired by a DA who's being blackmailed by the guy who fixes the game. And this is the DA's bid to kind of get out from under everything. And then the DA gets murdered. And so the assistant DA, the Blair Brown character follows Jim and et cetera,

et cetera. Anyhow. Yeah. I don't remember the actual story. I do remember liking it. Yes. Also, this one stands out kind of as a curiosity because it's the only episode.

And in fact, the only thing directed by James Garner. Oh, right. Yeah. episode and in fact the only thing directed by james garner oh right yeah the story is basically that they lost a director and well someone's got to do it yep make it happen but i think you did not not even just a good job but part of what makes it so memorable is these yeah like you say these physical action sequences that just have so much clarity about where everyone is at all times yeah and that's not so easy and even in the rockford files sometimes there's sequences where it's like i'll just see what happens at the end yeah um so there's something about i think just his experience with doing so much physical action himself that really translated

well to to how that was all structured so um again, yeah, kind of a sleeper. Yeah. But a good pick, I say. I concur. So there they are. Those are the 10, the top 10. Those are the top 10. So here's our teams.

My team consists of the following five episodes. The Farnsworth Stratagem. Joey Blue Eyes. A Portrait of Elizabeth, The Italian Bird Fiasco, and The Hammer of Seablock. Now my team is Chicken Little is a Little Chicken, Gear Jammers Parts 1 and 2. I'm just going to take that. The Resurrection in Black and White, The Aaron Ironwood School of Success, and the Girl in the Bay City Boys Club. I feel like I got Dennis and Beth and you got Angel and Rocky. Yeah, that seems about right. I was actually thinking, because I know I had some of the ones that we watched more recently a little bit lower on my list, but I was trying to avoid that bias, and I think I overcompensated for it, too, I think.

What's on your honorable mentions? So these are the ones that I noted for my list that did not end up on either of our lists. Yeah, I have two. Pastoria Prime Pick, I think, is a good one. It's a great gym- the road episode i have a soft spot for like we are constructing a world of lies around around the protagonist stories yeah which is what that is that was that was the number 10 on my list and uh my main thing about that one was that it just was a solid noir it's a really

good episode that doesn't even have to be the rockford files although it does help that it is right yeah yeah that was a nine on my list and then my other honorable mention is uh episode so that was episode 11 our our episode 14 is Pastoria Prime Pick. And then the No Cut Contract, episode 15, our episode 19. So this is one where Rob Reiner plays the, like, slimy minor league football quarterback. And he's just a great antagonist without being a villain. Yeah. There's just so much. Again, we talk, you know, it's all chemistry chemistry chemistry he and jim have amazing chemistry he's so slimy he's such a cornball

jim just keeps calling him on his on his stuff um and he keeps trying to wiggle out of it it's so good uh there's a dick butkus cameo, which is pretty fun. There's a big pool-related finale. It is one of the ones where Jim gets suckered into a story. Rob Reiner's character has these tapes of the mob because the mob's involved with his franchise or whatever. And then they shake him down and he says that he hired Jim and that's where they are. But that's just a lie.

He picked his name out of a phone book and that's how it all starts. Another one of those like looking through and being like, oh, that one's actually really good. You know, when you go through them like I did and you're like, oh, I can't wait to watch this one. Knowing that you're not going to be able to, you're just going to skim it. But still, yeah, that one was in my on deck as well the two that i have left are um the real easy red dog which is a very recent was that the most recent one we did yep yes that's the last one we did and assuming this airs in order that it will be our latest episode which i believe is 86 yeah so i don't need to tell anyone about it uh go watch it

it's a part of it was just i think probably could have been that you know it's the more recent one in six in my head but also uh that opening where jim is sitting down with the meal like he brought the fixings for his sandwich yeah watch the game and she's trying to explain this murder to him while he's trying to make his sandwich and watch the game at the same time. And then finally has to, like, focus on something. It's great. The chemistry between them is great, as always. And then it's just a really good deal episode. Great deal episode.

And it also has that, like really uh particular writing where like everything is a pay everything has a payoff yeah yeah yeah so it's like it's a really if we were doing like top 10 scripts or like top 10 best written episodes or something that one would have been on my list for sure because it stands out to me again maybe just because we just did it but it really stands out to me for like the real tight quality of the writing in that one yeah uh and then this one i have to this is really this is kind of an embarrassing one uh the reincarnation of angie which i say it's embarrassing because i look at my notes that i wrote down to remind myself of all the things to say about this episode and none of

those notes remind me of what this episode was about uh this is the one where uh angie she gets a phone call from her brother right to tell her to go to a safe right and then her brother gets abducted and i think he's killed and she gets a hold of jim to try and help solve this out and puzzle it out it's it's a sad story uh we learned that like most of her what she knows and understands about her life isn't necessarily true it's filled with wonderful trade crafts there's a great whole sequence early on where she meets jim at a bar because she she calls jim again because of the phone book um because she's been followed to the bar and she just wants help she doesn't know jim she just picked him out of the phone book and jim's like we'll stack two cigarette you know

two boxes of cigarettes on top of each other so i know who you are i'll come and he sees has her point out who the guy is and then he manages to sucker punch this guy twice in the course of a single conversation. I just felt like it was worth it for that inclusion alone. That one I kind of like remember there's so many good things about it. But yeah, again, it just doesn't really gel together in my memory of like why it's good. It has really good dialogue. Yeah. It has a good like focus on some like class stuff that we don't see a whole lot because her brother's rich, but she's not. And so there's some stuff with like her only having so much to pay Jim and him trying to reject him being like, you know what, don't worry about it.

And she's like has the pride of like, no, I have this money. I will pay you for what you're doing, even though it's the only money i have she asks him how much and he says it's 200 a day and she goes oh just because you have me in a tight spot doesn't mean you can change the price and he's like no that's she has like 23 yeah it's just like i'll pay you for a half hour yeah it also has uh it has that good moment at the end where like she trips and he, or like he trips and she goes to help him. And that's the cover for him getting a gun from someone. Like there's that sequence where there's some physical thing and it's like,

was that them working together or is that like him taking advantage of a moment or is that her setting him up? Like there's just a good kind of tension to how that's all staged. Yeah. And it has a, it's the one with uh david huddleston in it um aka mr lebowski so oh yes yeah yeah no that's definitely a that's definitely a good one as well um yeah i mean you know looking through like there's stuff to say about pretty much all of them that we haven't mentioned. I think maybe the only one that's jumping out to me real quick as I'm seeing, like, is there anything else that I should have talked about? Is maybe the Great Blue Lake Land and Development Company.

Yeah, that was another one that I had in the hopper. Which, again, is a good Jim-out-of-town one. It's one where he leaves the, like, $10,000 in the safe and then it's gone. And is he who's lying to him and why? He brings Rocky in for another con. Brings Rocky in for another con. And then like the dude who is not Angel. Yes.

And it has the good helicopter chase. Yes. At the end. Yeah. Overall, like the season, like I said, this is kind of tough because there's a lot of good ones and there are no bad rock for files episodes um you know there are some that are like less good than the others but even making that assessment of some of these is like i wouldn't call any of these not good or even worse than the average episode up to uh the time of

recording i i was you know moving episodes up and in and out of the hopper and up and down the list uh trying to figure out because it's yeah it's tough they're definitely ones that like are classics in my head which we nailed good on us um right and then there's a bunch of them that i'm like yeah there's the good ones there's the sleepers it was fun it was a really neat way to kind of do a retrospective of like uh um man 22 episodes uh yeah that's a season sure is and now we only have to do this uh four and a half more times yeah are we gonna do this for each season i mean we could we don't i mean we don't have to towards the end i think we'll we'll uh our brains will be yeah pretty busted but yeah this is fun i

enjoyed it yeah good season we can recommend it yes if you're gonna watch the rockford files you should watch something from season two or season one or season three or four or five is pretty good six you know how many two-parters are you in for i guess yeah really do you want to watch anthony boy or the other half of season six oh man i do like anthony boy it's hard to talk about um like the urban horticulturalist and uh dave devereaux i think that's his name but john saxon's character and not also talking about anthony boy like just stand out the holy trinity of of bad guys yeah yeah um all right well yeah there you have it uh we've completed season two we are over halfway of the entire series yeah these are gonna happen with more frequency aren't they and now we need to figure out some other organizing principle

for our next couple episodes we have a couple there's a couple that people have mentioned um it's like oh you know hope to hear you talk about this one so maybe we'll we'll probably start pulling some from that list uh we need to hit a movie we need to hit a movie for sure it's been too long um and uh you know probably the other thing is that a lot of what's remaining is two-parters. So, you know. Yeah. We're starting to run in, especially with five and six. So we're starting to run into some time, you know, setting aside the time to do those properly. Yeah.

But we'll figure it out. It's going to be a busy, busy summer. It'll be exciting, though. Busy Rockford Files summer. Yeah. Hot Rockford summer. That's be exciting, though. Busy Rockford Files summer. Yeah. Hot Rockford summer. That's what everyone's saying. Yeah.

Quarantine's over. Hot Rockford summer. Go get vaccinated if you're able to. You haven't already. And then you, too, can join in in hot Rockford summer. Yes. But, yeah, if you have any thoughts or feedback or suggestions for the next things we should talk about you can get in touch with us um we are slowly building uh some some stuff for our answering machines so if

you have anything any questions or any feedback that you'd like us to read on the show, you can email 200adaypodcast at gmail.com. You can tweet at at 200pod or hit us up on our Patreon, patreon.com slash 200aday. You can also leave comments on individual episodes on our website, which is 200aday.fireside.fm. I believe that is all. I think you got it. I think I got it i think i got it i mean if you find another way to reach us then go to one of those previously mentioned ways and tell us about it and uh we also you know we have a couple other things that have come across our transoms um some some rockford related books and uh oh yeah other things so we may have uh we may we may have some

more to say about that stuff in the near future as well. Yeah, we may do a book report. But, you know, we have to make sure we actually do the reading. Yeah. Not like how we used to back in school. Oh, boy.

If only my only responsibility was to sit down and read books. That sounds nice. Yeah, thank you, as always, for joining us. was to sit down and read books. That sounds nice. Yeah. Thank you, as always, for joining us. And yeah, that's it for season two. But we'll be back next time to talk about an episode

from another season of the Rockford Files. The double speed version. Yay!