God, Kojak was a weird show!

The fact that he was considered sexy was the weirdest part.

Yes, it was yuge.

Have you ever seen the movie Foul Play? Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn, 1978. In it, a cop commandeers a vehicle to chase an assassin, not realizing two Japanese tourists are in the backseat. The tourists are petrified until Goldie Hawn explains to them that the man is a detective. "You know, like Kojak?" The tourists grin from ear to ear and say "Oooooh, Kojak. Bang-bang!"

So yeah. He was...kind of a big deal.

The hit 45 - but wait while he lights his fag before he gets to the singing or rather the talking.

Queen Elizabeth crushed on him.

Didn't he and Burt Reynolds use to fuck?

^Oh for fuck sake.

Odd and almost unbelievable fact: "Kojak" was the Queen's favorite TV show.

You just know the queen desperately wanted to fuck the REAL swarthy Greek (as opposed to her husband's claim) to see what it is was like.

Take a hike, Kojak!

Telly Savalas was a huge homophobe and any male on the set of "Kojak" who annoyed him, Savalas would call him a "fag" or "faggot".

Certainly not defending him, R10, but consider how long ago it was. I doubt many were very enlightened and didn't use that pejorative along with "oriental" and "colored" "jap" "nigger" "wetback" etc

Kojak was one of the few really accurate shows about NYC LE of the 1970's .

For me watching is a treat seeing "old" NYC as one remembers it growing up in 1970's; those extensive street shots of West Village, West Side Highway, waterfront, Sixth Avenue (mid-town), Lower East Side and East Village bring back memories of a city now totally gone.

Who could have known that the grandchildren or great grand children of those who fled those areas in 1970's would be paying $$$$ to move there today.

Kojack, Captain Francis "Frank" McNeil, Detective Robert "Bobby" Crocker and rest of LE on that show represented a NYPD now largely gone; done in by "equality" and other initiatives. But those guys as Kojack remiinds his boss Frank McNeil all the time, came up from the same NYC streets as the criminals they go after. It just so happens they chose another way in life. But that background gives them a nose for crime and how to work the street as it were.

Best cop show ever.

It's amazing how much more hair Kevin Dobson had on Knots Landing than he did on Kojak. Rug? Hair transplant? Bosley method?

I always thought they should have done a reboot with Vin Diesel.

Vin D. is not charismatic in the least. Wouldn't work.

[quote]Vin D. is not charismatic in the least.

We LIKE that.

Remember this guy?

People would always tell you he was Telly's real life brother.

"No!...REALLY?"

(& look what he's doing!)

The TV movie the series was based on, The Marcus-Nelson Murders, was also gritty and great.

Holy shit, that was Bill Duke in R12. I’ve never seen him that young.

[quote]The TV movie the series was based on, The Marcus-Nelson Murders, was also gritty and great.

Yes, it was very powerful and sad, I seem to remember. Quite sort of Looking For Mr. Goodbar in style and atmosphere.

I was a kid and I thought he was the ugliest thing I had ever seen.

He was no Mannix.

Confidence and swagger are sexy if you are interested in men. If you are interested in twinky little boy-men, Telly and Kojak are not for you.

Never saw it. Telly Savalas wasn't a favorite of mine. I guess R24 knows me well.

R12 that clip was hilarious. When did pimps stop wearing furs?

What should I watch for more camp? The movie Kojak or the TV show?

From Jessica Fletcher to Theo Kojak: the transition of DataLounge is complete.

Be nice! He was my step daddy since I was one!

You know you want this, baby!

Actually, I can see his appeal to women. Confidant, masculiine. Exudes something that says he'd be a beast in bed.

Ya know, I love the excitement in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. And, ok, I get VIP treatment. Now you can get VIP treatment.

And let's not forget the cool, calm sexiness of Cannon! (A Quinn Martin Production)

Thanks, R12. You put it perfectly.

Cannon had trouble getting out of his car. Loved him.

r33, the Cannon theme always sounds like the opening of a comedy, not a cop show to me. I always preferred the theme to Barnaby Jones (and my mom loved that show).

Is this the bit in the thread when someone mentions how deep and manly Raymond Burr's voice was on Ironside until the cameras stopped rolling and he became Ms Helium Heels?

I loved Barnaby Jones, mostly due to the fact I grew up watching it because my mother never missed it. She loved all of her ‘70s cop shows including Barnaby, Kojak, Cannon, Columbo, Hawaii 5-O, Mannix, Streets of San Francisco, and in later years Murder She Wrote. Those were her jams.

Definitely BDE -- Big Dick Energy. He had it. Super-confident. Telly didn't care what you thought of him.

I think Telly was the first man to make bald=sexy and cool

Loved Kojak because he treated everyone same; didn't matter if you were Park Avenue or Harlem.... But unlike Colombo those UES society matrons or men didn't dare look or speak down to Kojak; because he gave good as he got. In other words true old school NYC; "you want to mess with me, I'll mess with you baby".

Also unlike some other cop shows no one laid a hand on Kojak or any other LE if they could help it, and certainly didn't kill either. Back then every criminal knew there was serious consequences and repercussions for killing or even harming a cop. Unlike today were mayor and city council bake cookies for thugs, back then from top down NYPD had tacit "permission" to get whoever was responsible. This meant turning up heat on streets so no one got anything done; from lowly bookies to mob/mafia dons.

Every commander, detective, etc... knew what was going on in their precinct. They knew pimps, hookers, drug dealers, gangs, shoplifters, mafia, etc.... Extent people were able to operate depended upon certain factors. It also meant that when something went down Kojak like real NYPD knew where to start looking. As we see time and time again (as in clip R12) Kojak knows where to look and who to shake down for information.

Sadly as we know from real life events (Serpico) there was an incredible amount of corruption of NYPD (and many other large/urban LE) in 1970's (if not before). With so much money on streets ( drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, etc...) some cops and even commanding officers couldn't resist getting their taste.

As it relates to this forum, and we discussed elsewhere Mafia and "dirty" NYPD went hand in hand with gay bars/clubs back in day. Bar/club owners paid "protection" to both for various reasons. They do say bars like Ninth Circle started getting raided and eventually shut down because envelopes stopped arriving. Besides illegal "homosexual" activity many gay bars also had drugs and prostitution (hustlers) going on, it wasn't just some recent invention at Limelight, Tunnel or whatever 1980's or 1990's bar/club.

The hottest cop on tv at that time was Michael Douglas in Streets of San Francisco.

R42

In your dreams pal; Mr. Dennis Weaver as McCloud has Mr. Michael Douglas beat by a mile.

Second runner-up Mr. James Garner as Jim Rockford. Ok technically a private investigator, but still counts as LE in my book.

There were so many in those days.

Police Woman

Mcmillan & Wife

Starsky & Hutch

[quote]In your dreams pal; Mr. Dennis Weaver as McCloud

Years ago someone on here said he had an affair with him and it sounded genuine - but I was new here, so...

Saw a young Dennis Weaver in an old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode; he was one damn fine looking man.

R45

Early 1970's saw CBS and other major networks launch what has is now called the "rural purge". That is all the hooky, spooky, wacky, country/rural, western, military/war and so forth television shows were cancelled en masse. They were replaced by various programming networks claimed their research told them appealed to urban and suburban viewers.

Whites and others may have been fleeing NYC, LA, and other major urban areas for the safety (presumed) of suburbs, but they welcomed watching about goings on (crime in partiuclar) in cities from safety of their homes. Thus the endless wave of LE and private investigator shows from 1970's through 1980's. Even ancient Buddy Ebsen got in on it with his own series (Barnaby Jones), for which I for one am still wondering how that hot mess lasted several long years.

Rural purge got rid of shows like Bewitched (even if Elizabeth Montgomery hadn't called it quits, the show was going to be cancelled anyway), the Musters, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, etc... Their replacements ranged from variety shows such as Sonny and Cher, Flip Wilson, Carol Brunett, Tom Jones, etc... to aforementioned crime/LE dramas.

Behind all this was the battle for viewers between television and movies/films.

As WWII rolled along television largely upset the old movie/film order with more and more people staying home watching the tube. This coupled with forced (by court order) ending of old studio system left Hollywood/entertainment business up a creek. They responded by 1970's on wards by producing ever more *ahem* risky productions giving audiences what they couldn't get on television.

Television by early 1970's responded as noted above, they got rid of all those old westerns, shows about supernatural beings, cliche programming about "old family values" and introduced things totally opposite like All in The Family.

This battle between television and films got more intense when Washington got involved in response to objections by certain demographics regarding the "decline" of programming, especially "family" shows. Those around then will recall "prime time" viewing hours was introduced; a period where networks were supposed to show wholesome family orientated programming, keeping the smut off air until later when in theory children would be in bed.

Things got shook up even more by 1980's with introduction and rise of home video recording/playback machines, and cable television. Cable allowed people to see content they never would from network television. Closest thing to full nudity anyone got before then was on PBS; and even then it was the imported British or other European made content. My old man had a fit first time he caught me watching I Claudius. *LOL*

R46

Who can say...

Despite mid-western upbringing and or what one would otherwise believe from seeing Dennis Weaver in films, on television or whatever in his private life the man was a follower of yoga, a vegetarian, an environmentalist (long before it was fashionable), and so forth.

Dennis Weaver did spend many years in NYC and attended Actor's Studio, not to mention being involved with theater scene... All this being said Ms. Shelly Winters was an early pal and promoter of Dennis Weaver; my guess is she at least tried to get a taste of that herself.

Catch Telly Savalas in one of his early film appearances; the cheesy but never the less cult classic "Horror Express".

Police Woman had a killer opening theme.

I remember one winter it was really, really cold & they showed ice floes in the East River on Kojak.

[quote] Television by early 1970's responded as noted above, they got rid of all those old westerns, shows about supernatural beings, cliche programming about "old family values" and introduced things totally opposite like All in The Family.

But The Waltons came along & everyone wanted family drama & nostalgia.

[quote] Back then every criminal knew there was serious consequences and repercussions for killing or even harming a cop. Unlike today were mayor and city council bake cookies for thugs,

Nonsense. We have much lower crime rates today then in the 70s.

R54

Crime rates (especially violent) not just in NYC but else where in USA have decreased since 1970's for many reasons.

Much of it comes down to several factors; better policing (including "broken windows") and fact demographics have changed. Declining birth rates for many races but including blacks along with Latino-Hispanics meant you had less young people in so called "bad" areas drifiting into crime. The older ones (who were out there in 1960's, 1970's or even 1980's) committing crimes are either locked up, aged out of criminal behavior, or dead.

Largest big driver of crime was the infestation of crack cocaine; which largely (thank god) is gone.

OTOH there is just as much other crime out there as there was in 1970's, much of it has simply moved indoors/online. There is just as much if not more illicit drugs on streets of NYC today than 1970's, but you don't see much or any street action; rather you simply order it in like a pizza. Ditto for prostitution. Anyone who lives in Hell's Kitchen can tell you while street hustlers are gone, there are plenty of guys working indoors. Alam Wernick comes and goes into this country earning thousands for "personal appearances".

You think the police aren’t arresting drug dealers or prostitutes who work indoors?

I think of Cannon without thinking of this:

R56

No one said they weren't, taking down of Exotics, Rentboy and various other sites is proof. But equally so just as with street drug and prostituion action it is like playing a huge game of whack-a-mole.

Identifying, building a case against, arrest and prosecution of indoor drug and prostitution is vastly different than street action, and in many ways more difficult. By virtue of it being "indoors" a host of various legal and constitutional hurdles. Then comes issues resulting from advanced/modern technology such as cell phones, computers, etc.... In short days of using just websites and pay phones is largely over.

Mid-town north and south NYPD largely are aware of indoor prossing locations, and more tips come in daily. Problem is getting whores/hustlers to let them in and do things that will stand up in court repeatedly enough to make an arrest that will hopefully result in a conviction.

Despite high profile arrests for indoor drug dealing you still can order anything from weed to meth or heroin (among other illicit drugs) if you know what app to use/where to call. Hell's Kitchen, UES, and other areas are still full of indoor prostitution of all sorts.

Blame the 'rural purge' on DL Fave, Babe Paley. When I was little, I loved Starsky and Hutch.

Somehow I've never seen an episode, but now I'm curious. Why do I find him sexy?

[quote]Kojak was one of the few really accurate shows about NYC LE of the 1970's.

What is "LE"? I see several mentions of the term in this thread.

[quote]For me watching is a treat seeing "old" NYC as one remembers it growing up in 1970's; those extensive street shots of West Village, West Side Highway, waterfront, Sixth Avenue (mid-town), Lower East Side and East Village bring back memories of a city now totally gone.

I agree, though as mentioned upthread, the show was shot in Los Angeles, which makes its ability to evoke such memories of "old" NYC all the more fascinating.

LE, Law Enforcement.

My first trip to London was in the mid 70s and I was amazed how popular Kojak was. He had a wax figure at Madame Tussauds, in his own niche and it played the theme song and his voice said, Who loves ya, baby?

Ah, okay. Thank you, R62.

Who loves ya, baby!

R61

Talk what you know!

I grew up in NYC and clearly know World Trade Center/Twin Towers and other locations.

[quote]I agree, though as mentioned upthread, the show was shot in Los Angeles, which makes its ability to evoke such memories of "old" NYC all the more fascinating.

LOL- they filmed a lot of footage in NYC and spliced it in.

You see! - there's Kojak's car on what looks like Third Avenue.

OMG we posted at the same moment. R65.

And:

Telly Savalas had a wonky, short, mangled index finger that he didn't hide on the show. Another odd little detail that made him sexy. He didn't GAF.

I thought I heard some ancient H-wood gossip that Telly was hung and threw a mean fuck.

r43 "Bewitched" had nothing to do with the so-called "rural purge," and "The Munsters," which only lasted two seasons, was gone well before the purge.