TV Cops. How They've Changed

TV Cops. How they’ve changed.

Before I start this article, I want to point out that there was a TV cop show that was very popular in the past. This cop show believe it or not stared some officers that never pulled their guns in the show. Its true, … at the end of this article I’ll tell the name of this cop show.

Miami Vice staring Don Johnson which became very popular for its series and proudly flaunted cool cars, great clothes, great music and a Miami filming set surrounded the activities of two undercover police officers driving around in a cool car with chrome wheels. This was a great idea for a cop show, and probably why it became as popular as it did. This wasn’t the only cop show with two undercover cops in a cool car with chrome wheels. Years and years before Miami Vice became popular, … a television show called Starsky & Hutch Staring Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul played two undercover cops driving around in the ultimate unmarked squad. The car, a red and white Ford Gran Torino with chrome wheels and a very tough sounding exhaust system added the perfect touch to this television series.

Aside from the time era between the two shows, they didn’t have to many differences between them. The themes weren’t the same, but they were similar. The two cop shows have a common connection between them that most people don’t realize. This connection is a person. Paul Michael Glaser who played Starsky in the series Starsky & Hutch actually directed some work in the series called Miami Vice.

In the sixties, seventies and eighties, many cop shows became popular on television. Dragnet, Adam 12, Columbo, Police Woman, Hunter, T.J. Hooker and certainly a lot more. These earlier cop shows didn’t use the graphic shootings, bad language, and partial nudity that were found in newer shows like N.Y.P.D. Blue which gave you the extra dramatic blood, bad language, occasional partial nudity, plus … police officers demonstrating poor social behavior, stereotyping, racism and how to be socially abusive to others. I’m not knocking down N.Y.P.D. Blue at all. It’s a great series! It just shouldn’t be watched by impressionable children under a certain age.

Being in a position to sit back and watch the differences between the early cop shows and shows like N.Y.P.D. Blue can be very educational as to how much these shows have changed. However, the strong content seemed to peak during the popularity of N.Y.P.D. Blue. Since that series was popular, recently released television cop shows are trimming back the swearing and bad examples in behavior, plus adding a entertaining twist to the shows. A couple of great examples of what I’m talking about are a couple of cop shows focused around the activity of Federal law enforcement. ‘Bones’ and ‘Fringe’ have moved in the direction of cleaner safer cop show content without sacrificing any popularity. This is proof that it is possible to have currently released television cop shows without the overkill of content that leans to just a adult viewing audience.

People complain that our society is more violent now than ever before. True, but our fight to regain control in this matter could effectively start with the shows we watch on free over the air television broadcasts, and closely govern how our children watch paid and subscription television services. There is literally a universe of television programming out there dating back over forty years. I say pull this material out of storage, dust it off and play it on the air. You couldn’t ask for a better time to do this either. With America going to digital television signals, and stations adding more channels between the channels, … this universe of material could be aired with no problem at all. Shows, movies, comedy, drama, … its all out there just waiting to be viewed again.

At the beginning of this article I promised to identify one cop show where the stars of the show rarely if ever (probably never) had their guns drawn. That show is ‘CHIPs’, that’s right … think about it for a minute. In spite of the lack of gun play, this show did really well. No swearing or social abuse either.

Reporter Joseph Toth
Washington Micro Bank BBS