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Although all the rage at the time, the '70s cop shows didn't sell very well once DVDs came out years later -- unless it was something shlocky like STARSKY & HUTCH or CHARLIE'S ANGELS from shlockmeister Aaron Spelling (where the shlock seems to be the main appeal).
It's not that the '70s cop shows aged badly, necessarily -- some of them, like disco, were fairly well-produced (like STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO) -- but, also like disco, they seemed to date right away, and it's an old genre that will probably be rediscovered in the 2050s, as sometimes happens.
What's really funny about those shows, though, is the billing issues for the guest stars... I mean, in the '60s, if you were billed as "Special Guest Star" there was usually a reason for it and it made some sense. If Bette Davis does GUNSMOKE or Joan Crawford does THE VIRGINIAN, you'd expect them to get the "Special" billing and they usually did. And by the '80s, once again, if you were Lana Turner on FALCON CREST, or just a recognizable veteran actor who'd been around -- even if you'd never been a tabloid-covered kind of celebrity actor -- you might be getting that "Special" billing, too.
But in the '70s, particularly obvious on the cop shows, ambitious agents trying to establish status-in-advance for their clientele would negotiate a "Special Guest Star" billing for the most questionable of subjects. And that has you laughing, especially decades later, when you see these half-a-century old shows in reruns, where the "mere" guest stars are all recognizable-even-today faces and names -- like the Martin Sheens and the Ruby Dees and the Leslie Nielsens and the Mariette Hartleys and the Stuart Whitmans and the Dean Stockwells -- but then the Special Guest Star is, like, Biffy McLeod or, maybe, Shirley Anaconda ... actors no one remembers at all, not just because they'd died young killed by a fan or done in from an overdose or who "turned their backs on Hollywood" and left the business to start a macadamia nut farm in Dubuque, but actors no one knew even at the time!
I mean, Biffy McLeod is the Special Guest Star??
It's got to be embarrassing, even to them, and especially in retrospect.
I'm not being snobbish, and they may have been perfectly good actors and lovely people -- but who the hell are they?? No one ever knew!
It's not that the '70s cop shows aged badly, necessarily -- some of them, like disco, were fairly well-produced (like STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO) -- but, also like disco, they seemed to date right away, and it's an old genre that will probably be rediscovered in the 2050s, as sometimes happens.
What's really funny about those shows, though, is the billing issues for the guest stars... I mean, in the '60s, if you were billed as "Special Guest Star" there was usually a reason for it and it made some sense. If Bette Davis does GUNSMOKE or Joan Crawford does THE VIRGINIAN, you'd expect them to get the "Special" billing and they usually did. And by the '80s, once again, if you were Lana Turner on FALCON CREST, or just a recognizable veteran actor who'd been around -- even if you'd never been a tabloid-covered kind of celebrity actor -- you might be getting that "Special" billing, too.
But in the '70s, particularly obvious on the cop shows, ambitious agents trying to establish status-in-advance for their clientele would negotiate a "Special Guest Star" billing for the most questionable of subjects. And that has you laughing, especially decades later, when you see these half-a-century old shows in reruns, where the "mere" guest stars are all recognizable-even-today faces and names -- like the Martin Sheens and the Ruby Dees and the Leslie Nielsens and the Mariette Hartleys and the Stuart Whitmans and the Dean Stockwells -- but then the Special Guest Star is, like, Biffy McLeod or, maybe, Shirley Anaconda ... actors no one remembers at all, not just because they'd died young killed by a fan or done in from an overdose or who "turned their backs on Hollywood" and left the business to start a macadamia nut farm in Dubuque, but actors no one knew even at the time!
I mean, Biffy McLeod is the Special Guest Star??
It's got to be embarrassing, even to them, and especially in retrospect.
I'm not being snobbish, and they may have been perfectly good actors and lovely people -- but who the hell are they?? No one ever knew!
