"Dragnet 1967" Starsky and hutch Dixon of Dock Green

"Starsky and Hutch"

Along with "All in the Family" and "Seinfeld", "Starsky & Hutch" was among the best shows ever on the air. From 1975-1979 I had only missed the last episode because it had been moved from 9 to 10 pm, one hour past my curfew. I did however throw a tantrum and in the morning was given my first lesson on repairing drywall. Unfortunately in my anger, I had thrown the Gran Torino model I had made through the wall. Now 29 years later, I find myself forgetting phone numbers and names...but for some strange reason, I never forgot the S&H plate number, 537-ONN...SCARY. I was so happy to hear about the movie, but when I found out that they were replaced by Wilson and Stiller, I was sick. That is moronic. However, nothing was as moronic as the film. I read that Glaser & Soul had a 5 minute cameo...but I suppose for those who liked the movie and thought it was funny, they may be too young to tell time. The cameo didn't last more than a minute and it was all unlaughable comedy. The original TV show was a mixture with actors who actually have talent and chemistry. Stick to the original and don't waste a dime on renting the movie. Get the DVD collection. I have it and it is amazing. There is also a Starsky and Hutch game for 9.99-19.99. It is so much fun, and it has the original huggy's voice for the narrator, Antonio Fargas. I hope that one day before long, I will turn on the TV and David Soul will get his wish, Starsky & Hutch will once again ride the TV airwaves for a final tribute.

DIXON OF DOCK GREEN

British Police Series

Beginning in 1955 and finally ending in 1976, Dixon Of Dock Green was the longest running police series on British television and although its homeliness would later become a benchmark to measure the "realism" of later police series, such as Z Cars and The Bill, it was an enormously popular series. Dixon should be seen as belonging to a time when police were generally held in higher esteem by the public than they have been subsequently. The series was principally set in a suburban police station in the East End of London and concerned uniformed police engaged with routine tasks and low-level crime. The ordinary, everyday nature of the people and the setting was further emphasised in early episodes of the series with the old, British music-hall song--"Maybe its because I'm a Londoner"--with its sentimental evocations of a cozy community, being used as the series theme song. Unlike later police series, Dixon focused less on crime and policing and more on the family-like nature of life in the station with Dixon, a warm, paternal and frequently moralising presence, being the central focus. Crime was little more than petty larceny. However as the 1960s and the early 1970s brought ever more realistic police series from both sides of the Atlantic to the British public, Dixon Of Dock Green would seem increasingly unreal, a rosy view of the police that seemed out of touch with the times. Yet the writer of the series maintained to the end of the program's time on air that the stories in the episodes were based on fact and that Dixon was an accurate reflection of what goes on in an ordinary police station.

Police Constable(PC) George Dixon was played by veteran actor Jack Warner. The figures of both Dixon and Warner were already well known to the British public when the series was launched. In 1949 in the Ealing film The Blue Lamp, Warner had first played the figure of Dixon. A warm, avuncular policeman, his death at the end of the film at the hands of a young thug (played by Dirk Bogarde) was memorably shocking and tragic. British playwright Ted Willis, who with Jan Read, had written the screenplay for The Blue Lamp, subsequently revived the figure of Dixon for a stage play and then wrote a series of six television plays about the policeman. Thus the BBC was leaving little to chance in spinning-off the figure and the situation into a television series.