Hill Street Blues

Bochco was great at finding and casting talent, with the exception of his wife. I can still remember the storyline with Catholic schoolgirl Ally Sheedy teasing Det. LaRue. I think that was the first place I saw her, as well as Andy Garcia, Mimi Rogers, David Caruso, etc.

It's on Hulu, I'm kind of watching it again too. Daniel Travanti and that gorgeous brunette chick were great. The Bobby Hill guy is Jessica Alba's father in law. He was pretty hot.

[quote] Ally Sheedy teasing Det. LaRue. I think that was the first place I saw her, as well as Andy Garcia, Mimi Rogers, David Caruso

There were a lot of similar examples. Among them Dominique Dunne as a young woman beaten up by her boyfriend, then murdered by her boyfriend before the episode aired. Linda Hamilton for several episodes as the girlfriend of the redneck cop. And most memorably of all Jennifer Tilly forever imprinted on my mind:

The series still holds up really well. I've been watching old episodes of it. It really was innovative; there really had never been a tv series like it. But after Michael Conrad died, it went downhill fairly quickly although it still had its moments. There was a thread about "Most Annoying TV Character" and in my opinion Fay Furillo was a good candidate for that title. You had to wonder how Frank ever ended up married to her considered how utterly unbearable she was. Maybe he was drunk when he married her. Even her voice was awful. The hot Joyce Davenport had an awful voice, too. But she was so good looking I guess Frank didn't mind that she sneered and snarked all the time and that her personality wasn't exactly pleasant. Frank Furillo had questionable taste in women, to be sure.

Now that I am older I can appreciate Sgt. Phil Esterhaus ("Let's be careful out there"), he was a hot daddy

r4 I think the actress who played Faye was married to Bochco? or some other series bigwig, it's the only reason she was cast.

r3 I see Ken Olin in that shot too

r5 great minds, etc. I was just thinking that.

r1 I thought casting his wife was a stealth fuck you to her, and it worked. She was perfect for that role-maybe by playing herself. I was also impressed with him casting two ex-athletes, which is always risky (Michael Warren and Ed Marinaro).

R4 The irony was that in real life Furillo/Travanti is gay.

r9 wasn't Veronica Hamel also lesbian?

[quote]The Bobby Hill guy is Jessica Alba's father in law.

I am?

Ha r11! But he is.

I had always liked James Sikking as Lt. Howard Hunter. He was such a character.

[quote] wasn't Veronica Hamel also lesbian?

Circumstantial evidence only. Married to a guy for only a couple years, then divorced in 1981 never to remarry. Perhaps lesbian, perhaps just independent. Certainly though in her day she was classy and lovely enough that people might reasonably assume she was lesbian.

As for Mrs Bochco, maybe he just had a thing for former Bunnies.

Well she must have really loved him back r14, because she was actually in that shit show "Cop Rock". I was in high school when that was on and my best friend and I used to watch it in horror for the 5 or so weeks it was on. He really has a thing for "be careful out there!".

I had a crush on Charles Haid. Woof!

I was only 9 when the show ended in 1987 but for some reason I can recall it well. The theme tune takes me back to my childhood. Even though I was too young to appreciate it. Is that weird?

I always laughed when David Caruso was featured as the King of the Leprechauns, or whatever his gang was. Least scary gang, ever.

me too r18! Oh no, the ginger gang is coming!

It was ALL about the casting.

As the poster upthread said, there had never been anything quite like it before.....and what was different was the casting. Actors (most of whom we'd never seen before) who looked like real people and yet were very sexy in their way.

Watching episodes now, it's incredibly apparent that the character of Howard Hunter had Asperger's Syndrome. Was that even a diagnosis back then? Anyway, he had a lot of the symptoms. He was a highly intelligent man but incredibly socially awkward and his interests were very limited. His conversations tended to focus on firearms and military leaders and battles. After a cancer scare he had an affair with a nurse he met in the hospital but she ended up dumping him because his was so "myopic" ("you have your interests and that's it!"). He later breaks down in tears, wondering why he can never seem to maintain a relationship with anyone ("All I want it somebody to be with. Is that too much to ask?"). He has a fling with Grace Gardner, but she dumps him to go back to Phil Esterhaus. He always seems alone and friendless and incredibly lonely. He even attempts suicide. And the character seemed to be bullied by the writers! In episode after episode he was humiliated and getting into accidents. More than once he's referred to on the show with pity ('poor Howard"). I didn't think much of it when I first watched the show but now I feel a lot of compassion for Howard Hunter, who was a very decent man dealing with an undiagnosed affliction.

And then he went on to play second fiddle to Doogie Howser...what an outrage.

R21 Aspergers existed as a diagnosis, but was rarely applied in the U.S. at that time. Everyone knew someone like that. They were just considered odd and or annoying. It's not surprising that the writers were able to create a character with Aspergers even if they didn't have a name for it. They were less likely to get any sympathy from other people, or helpful therapy, because no one understood what was going on.

Really? REALLY? No mention Of MY Jennifer???

No [17] I feel the same way

The best police series ever, for the first few seasons. After Bochco was out, and his then wife Bosson among several other cast members left, it became boring.

Bosson absolutely grated.....

Ah, Daniel J. Travanti....so fucking hot.

Were there any men in that squad room who were not hot in some way??

Daddy heaven!

Hubba....

[quote]I always laughed when David Caruso was featured as the King of the Leprechauns, or whatever his gang was. Least scary gang, ever.

They were The Shamrocks, and Caruso wore that dumb leprechaun hat and he even smoked a little pipe. In in fact he did everything this side of saying "Who stole me Lucky Charms?" It's a miracle he had a career after that, although as I recall they sort of let the Shamrocks fade away about halfway through the first season.

THEY'RE ALWAYS AFTER ME LUCKY CHARMS!

Didn't Travanti alway wear a toupee on the show? His hair always looked...strange. I liked "Hill Street Blues" but it got tiresome; Belker always on the the phone with his mother, sleazy LaRue always trying to pull of some dumb prank or scheme, the show all too frequently ending with Furillo and Davenport in bed beginning to fuck or just having fucked. And the Grace Gardner storyline got OLD very quickly. I guess it was considered very titillating and original at the time; an insatiably horny older woman who uses sex instruction manuals and heated lotions during sex. But it got ridiculous very fast. I wonder if it would have continued if Michael Conrad had not passed away from cancer? At any rate, I always wished Grace Gardner would have just run off with a football team or something.

[quote] He really has a thing for "be careful out there!".

I agree with your friend about "Let's be careful out there". Several years ago I downloaded that same clip and placed it in the folder with my other music videos. It's a very good musical summary of the Hill Street roll call scenes.

But there was another I also downloaded which was pretty real in its own way.

As for Howard Hunter, don't forget that one episode when he became a cannibal. That might have been a first for network television.

The whole fucking country watched that show together!

Homicide: Life on the Street was another show that had great casting, Elijah Wood, Paul Giamatti, etc. . It was also one of the most egregious cases of network interference in TV history. Really, it was ahead of its time. It belonged on HBO in the early aughts.

"Hill Street Blues" was where Dennis Franz first got noticed. He played a bad cop called Sal Benedetto. Benedetto ended up committing suicide, but Franz made such an impression that he was brought back as another cop, Norman Buntz. After the show ended he did an truly bad spin-off called "Beverly Hills Buntz" but he got a role on another Bochco series, NYPD Blue and won four Emmys playing Andy Sipowicz. After that show ended he seemed to go into retirement. A shame; he really was an interesting actor.