In this weeks episode of the Police Squad Rewatch, Cory and Nathan are undercover and highly explosive as they discuss season 1 episodes 3 & 4, "Rendezvous at Big Gulch" (Terror in the Neighborhood) and "Revenge and Remorse" (The Guilty Alibi).
Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood):
Written by:
Story by: Pat Proft
Teleplay by: Nancy Steen & Niel Thompson
Directed by: Reza Badiyi
Original airdate: July 1, 1982 (as episode 5)
Synopsis:
All is pretty calm in the city, until special guest star Florence Henderson is shot dead, and it comes to light that 2 gangsters named Rocky and Leo have been extorting local businesses for protection money. They approach Jill at the ballet school, but she can’t pay and she’s beaten.
Sergeant Frank Drebin Detective Lieutenant Police Squad heads the investigation. When Jill won’t cooperate in identifying her attackers, Frank is partnered with Officer Norberg and the two men open a new business to draw in the local thugs. The ruse works, and when Rocky and Leo attempt to extort Frank and Norberg at their newly acquired locksmiths, he stands up to them resulting in a drive-by shooting and rock throwing. Analysis of the rock at the lab reveals nothing.
The gangsters approach Frank once again, and this time are beaten by Frank and thrown into the street, where the other business owners erupt into applause for Frank's heroism. Rocky and Leo return to their boss, Dutch Genderson, who vows to have Frank killed.
Dutch sends his best girl, Stella, to seduce Frank and lure him back to her apartment where she can claim he was an intruder and shoot him dead. Frank is, of course, well prepared and avoids the trap, and now with the upper hand lures Genderson into a trap of his own.
Frank picks up some further evidence on Genderson’s shady dealings from local shoeshiner, Johnny. Frank confronts Genderson, who is surprised to find that this supposed local locksmith would actually prefer to join his operation rather than turn his evidence into the police.
Frank is tasked with killing a local tailor, but at the last moment is taken by Rocky and Leo to actually kill Jill. However, yet again the 2 men are no match for Frank and he overpowers them, saving Jill’s life.
With Genderson, Rocky and Leo sent up to the Stateville Prison, the streets are safe once more and Ed starts to pour Frank a hot cup of coffee as the freeze for the credit roll.
Arrive on the Scene:
Director Reza Badiyi is the step father or actor Jennifer Jason Leigh through his second marriage to Barbara Turner. He moved to the United States in 1955 from Iran, and later graduated from Syracuse University. He went on to work closely with Robert Altman as his Assistant Director on The Delinquents and Carnival of Souls. Getting into television, he created the opening sequences for Hawaii Five-0, Get Smart, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He also directed episodes of Get Smart, Mission Impossible, The Mod Squad, The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky and Hutch, The Rockford Files, Hawaii Five-0, The Incredible Hulk, T.J. Hooker, Cagney and Lacey, Dinosaurs, Deep Space Nine, Buffy, Mortal Kombat; Conquest, and Early Edition. We’ve seen him before, he directed 5 episodes of Sliders in seasons 4 & 5.
Long time ZAZ writing collaborator Pat Proft gets a story credit in this episode. He wrote the scripts for all of the Naked Gun movies, both Hot Shots movies, and Scary Movie 3, 4 & 5. He also wrote the original Police Academy.
Peter Lupus appears as Norberg in this episode. He started off his acting career in small TV appearances. In the mid 60’s, he went by the name Rock Stevens, and played muscled side and lead characters in B-movies like Muscle Beach, Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon, Goliath and the Conquest of Damascus, Challenge of the Gladiator, and Giant of Evil island. He then landed the role of Willy Armitage in the series Mission Impossible. Police Squad is probably his most notable role after that ended, but he did have other minor one offs in other TV shows such as The Love Boat, and other movies like Pumpkin Head II: Blood Wings, and cameos in MI spoofs Mission Irreparable and Mission Imposter.
Special guest star Florence Henderson is best known as Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch. She is gunned down while singing in the kitchen, surrounded by bottles of vegetable oil (she was a commercial spokesperson for Wesson Oil at the time). Henderson later made a cameo appearance in Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult, as herself nominated for an Oscar.
Al Ruscio played Dutch Genderson. He’s a steadily working TV actor going all the way back to 1958, with many appearances in well known and short lived shows. He also played Leo Cuneo in The Godfather: Part III, and Police Commissioner Farley in The Phantom.
Robert Costanzo played Leo. He’s also a long working actor in TV and film, going back to his first appearance as a police officer in Dog Day Afternoon. We’ve seen him in both Quantum Leap and Lois and Clark. He’s probably best known for Total Recall (Harry), Dick Tracy (bodyguard), Die Hard 2 (Sergeant), and as the voice of Detective Bullock in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, The Batman Superman Movie: World’s Finest, Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, The New Batman Adventures, Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, and Batman: Arkham Origins (video game).
John Ashton played Rocky. He worked pretty steadily in TV from the early 70’s doing bit parts. After Police Squad, he made a small appearance in Buckaroo Banzai as a highway patrolman before landing the supporting role of Taggart in Beverly Hills Cop, alongside Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold. He later returned for Beverly Hills Cop 2. Aside from that, his most notable roles were in movies such as King Kong Lives, She’s Having a Baby, and Midnight Run. He’s still a working actor today.
Revenge and Remorse (The Guilty Alibi):
Written by: Nancy Steen & Niel Thompson
Directed by: Paul Krasny
Original airdate: March 25, 1982
Synopsis:
Tensions are high in the city after the near shooting and poisoning death of special guest star William Shatner. Late at night, an unseen figure replaces a judge's gavel. The next morning, the judge arrives in court and one strike of gavel causes an explosion.
Lieutenant Frank Drebin and Captain Ed Hocken suspect a revenge killing since the judge was known for harsh sentencing. They check a list of his convictions with known bombers and arsonists and land on the name Eddie Casales.
Frank and Ed arrive at Casales’ last known address and find his ex-wife, Lana, packing Eddies’s clothes for donation to the charity she runs. She’s clearly upset that she had to divorce her jail-bird husband while he was in prison, and send the investigators to Club Flamingo to see Eddie’s girlfriend, a lounge singer named Mimi Du Jour. Mimi clumsily covers for Eddie’s whereabouts on the night of the bombing, and when Eddie arrives, he too claims innocence before asking Frank and Ed to leave.
At the lab, Ted informs Frank that the explosive used in the judges killing was made up by anyone with a high school knowledge of chemistry, and is unlikely the work of a master bomber. Ted also turns Frank onto decaf coffee after witnessing an abrupt moment of anger.
Another attack occurs in the form of a car bomb, killing the former District Attorney who prosecuted Eddie Casales 7 years earlier. Frank and Ed play hardball in their interrogation of Eddie, but he sticks to his story of being with Mimi during the bombings. With no evidence he is quickly released.
Frank tries to turn Mimi into informing on Eddie, but instead learns that Eddie was actually the one who divorced Lana, and not the other way around as she had previously stated. Frank also learns from local shoe shiner, Johnny, that Eddie has season tickets to see the Milwaukee Brewers.
Frank calls Lana and tells her that Eddie believes she or Mimi has ratted him out to the police. He offers her police protection, just as they have done for Mimi, but Lana declines. Frank and Ed stakeout Mimi’s apartment as the bomber approaches, and it’s actually Lana. She manages to initiate the detonator before Frank can stop her, but Eddie has already defused the bomb.
With Lana safely run into the Stateville Prison, Frank reveals to Ed that Eddie only lied about his alibi because he broke parole to see his team play out of state. Frank is more than happy to overlook the mild breach, as the men raise a cup of coffee to their success, and Officer Norberg ruins the freeze frame illusion on the credit roll.
Arrive on the Scene:
Joyce Brothers also cameos as herself, asking Johnny for his advice. We’ve seen her before as the insensitive coroner in National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1, and as Steele’s Tag Team Partner in Spy Hard.
Hank Robinson played the Cook in this episode. He is an actor, but he was also a baseball player and did a lot of side jobs as just an extra. He actually has 13 credits, in various projects, where he plays a Baseball Umpire, including in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, Brewster’s Millions, and 3 different episodes of Quantum Leap. He was also in an episode of Voyagers, where he played a pedestrian.
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