WOW... this is really an amazing upload. Honestly, I learned a ton about the time when this episode aired. I love that you credit sources... the best part is that I now have some interesting books to track down. Thank you.
I watched all this live in the 70s as Murikka started to wake up. Thanks for helping make this show and those working on it as famous as they should be. The talent, tech, writers, Arnold as auteur/producer; OMG study the work of all those workers. Keep 'em laughing! "Two of 'em. About THIS long."
@@tvsbesteps I just made two other comments (sorry for spamming) .. but I do want to chime in with my thanks for the citations and links in the description as well! ☮ (edit: the first link: "Barney Miller - S03E11 - Hash" .. is sadly gone now)
Jack Soo was the BEST deadpan delivery of anyone in his time and truly loved by everyone on the set, then they did a memorial episode that clinched it.
I can remember my Dad laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath! 😂. He had 3 shows, Archie Bunker, BM and MASH. Remembering Dad this weekend, he passed on Memorial Day 1996.
Among the greatest of victories on our way to adulthood were the times we got to refer Dad to something like a TV show which would become a favorite. Person, I lost my Dad at 22. He was 43. Heart attack. One of the reasons I'm still here is that on that morning I stopped on my way out to (his) car, I hung out for a few minutes to chat with him as he read the paper in the sun on the chaise longue. He was gone when I came home. He remains the smartest and most well-read person I, at nearly 70, have ever met. He freed me from so much human travail, he even provided me with the power of the mind to survive Mom's suicide at 15, his own death and the murder of my fiancée ten months later. I loved him so much I became him, to the best of my ability. He KNEW how "weird" I was in my asynchronous development and at age 13 he came into my room and told me, "I don't care if you grow up to be a poet whose poetry is only read by other poets, Just be the best." I never heard "So what are you going to DO WITH YOUR LIFE?" Not a bit of it, not once. But I have not been able to escape the feeling that he and I are somehow closer than father and son. I still miss him like a layer of skin.
I still watch many of the TV shows dad used to watch when I was a kid. Hogans Hero's, B. Miller, Rockford Files...I just couldn't get in to Star Trek, (sorry dad), I miss you but these shows help me smile.
Add Chuckles Bites the Dust to the list from Mary Tyler Moore. One to think about was Wings when Tony Shalhoub was talking about dating the really big faced women.
What a contrast! Dad was a Seattle PD for 25+ years. We weren't allowed to watch "fake tv shows". Dragnet, Highway Patrol, Adam-12 off limits. Acceptable were Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Wagon Train. They were real to him!
My grand father was a beat cop in Elizabeth N.J. before being made detective in the mid eighties.. He said the exact same thing, that B.M. was the closest thing he's seen to an actual P.D. ❤
I'm a doctor and my doctor friends and I have often said that "Scrubs" was the most accurate portrayal of training to be a doctor. It's ironic that the most accurate depictions are in sitcoms and not dramas.
My father often said the same thing - he retired due to heart attack in '76 after around 20 years on the job but after recovering worked another 20 years as a civilian dispatcher for our local PD. He often laughed at the other 'cop shows' on television with how unrealistic the majority of them were.
What was special about this one is the actors didn't just act f'ed up, but that looked it too.! Their eyes were all gleaming and half lidded! I thought for years that maybe they were stoned.
I was 12 when that ep aired in a house that never missed BM. It was hilarious then and still is. That show is an absolute classic. Watching all those years ago, all that backstage nonsense never showed. I found it consistently brilliant and consistently hilarious, even with some of the cringier moments obviously played for humour not for hurt. The cast was brilliant, everybody was great, and Linden made the perfect straight man in a room full of all kinds of comedy. Ever see James Gregory ("Inspector Luger") in absolutely anything else and not say, ":Hey, it's Inspector Luger." Immortal. Long Live Barney Miller.
Luger gave me the best laugh ever. Talking in front of the family of a kidnapped tycoon - "remember that one; sent the body back in mason jars, one a week for a year"
In the early 2000s, I taped episodes of Barney Miller for my mom (I was away in college and had a station on cable that had the show; didn’t have the station back home). Mom REALLY wanted to see the pot brownie episode again. I was so excited when the episode came on. I continue to quote from this episode from time to time. It was a treat to discover this show by way of my mom; such a positive, inclusive, charming, hilarious show!
I remember watching late night, Barney Miller reruns with my dad in the early 1980's. It was such a simple but good memory of hanging out with the 'old man'; and as a young teen realizing I was liking the show, too. Fast forward 40 yrs later I purchased the complete Barney Miller Series and I have, finally, seen every ep from season 1 to series finale: May 20, 1982 (man, it's been that long). The cops knowingly consuming brownies that are baked (indeed) with hashish is quite humorous. Max Gail as 'stoned' is the memorable standout.
"Fast forward 40 yrs later I purchased the complete Barney Miller Series and I have, finally, seen every ep from season 1 to series finale: May 20, 1982 (man, it's been that long)." I did too (albeit I hadn't seen it all that much before); I had at first got the bigger edition that included that first season of Abe Vigoda's Fish spinoff (I never touched it, though, because I thought the main event of Barney Miller was far funnier, having finished all of that). Eventually, I downgraded and got Shout!'s newer condensed edition that just has the Miller show in itself (no Fish), while retaining the other bonuses of the original version.
This was a ground-breaking sitcom, on several levels. Amazing writers and direction! And the episodes still hold up and are as funny now as when originally aired. Absolutely loved the guys, Inspector Luger, and Dietrich. :) And the side character actors were always brilliant. Damn good show!
My grandfather was the chief of police in a small town in Connecticut. He always said that Barney Miller was the only show that really knew how it was in a police station.
I laughed so hard when this episode originally aired, that my sides hurt. But I had no idea of the background or how hard it was to get it on the air. Thank you so much for telling it.
1976: Sophomore (means 'wise fool' and how appropriate) year in college, stoned the fuck out, watching this first broadcast with buddies. When Soo said MOOSHY MOOSHY MOOSHY we all fell down. But for me, when he put out an APB his legs, 'Two of them. About this long." Well, it's 2024 and I'm still laffing. Ed note: I had, by then, actually eaten hashish. Try it. ;-]
I was the kid who would park my butt in front of the TV every time Barney Miller aired. My parents didn't understand, until I convinced them to watch the show and see for themselves.... My entire family became fans, it was the one show that we all agreed on.
Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine author, said of the war for the Falkland Islands of 1982 between the United Kingdom & Argentina: "The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb."
No: Maggie the Milk Snatcher had to prove menopause hadn't softened the edge she'd needed to display as part of her image. After all, she was worse than and main spine-stiffener of Saint Ronnie the Senile in terms of the anti-soviet sabre-rattling-OMG-here-come-the-rooskies BS of the RW 1980s. Remember we were going to "win the nuclear war"? I do...
One of the best TV episodes EVER. I was just a kid, but I still laughed my ass off. Barney Miller is one of the few old comedies that stands the test of time. I've tried watching many shows I liked as a kid and found them intolerable as an adult, but not Barney Miller. It's still just as funny now as it was then.
I've done the same with many shows I grew up around as a boy, but had never seen (50s-80s)-- quite a few hold up for me (and are selects on DVD [Miller being one of them]), but many of them never approach that level.
I was a 11 or 12 when this episode originally aired. It was hysterically funny for all the reason noted in your story. One thing that stands out for me is the laughs weren't over done out of character. Back then drug use could often be stereotyped as a user bouncing off the walls or manic, wild. In the Hash episode, the characters are having normal reactions to being stoned and that's what makes it relatable. Even today, the episode still holds up and is still very funny. Barney Miller is still one of the best shows ever. Moshi Moshi.
Barney Miller is eternal...still, to this day...a fun watch w/a great cast. My...how I miss those days. RIP to all who have passed...but, thanks for all the laughs...!
Norm McDonald had a hilarious episode where his bosses son wanted to be a chef, so Norm had him make a big meal for his dad so he’d see his kid had a passion for food. His secret ingredient was pot. It was a Fricking hilarious episode.
I laughed hardest when I saw this episode as a kid when it was obvious that Harris (Ron Glass) knew they were hash brownies, yet he kept eating them and didn't tell his coworkers. He was in on the joke the whole time.
Glass had a perfect "Harris" character moment in the show, when the usually impeccably dressed detective shows up the morning after. Realizing he'd chosen a garish tie while still buzzed, he reaches into his desk to pull out a plain black tie to wear instead - perfect, because Harris was *exactly* the kind of guy who'd keep a back-up tie handy in case of a fashion emergency. Not a joke or anything, but one of my favorite moments of the episode I fondly remember close to a half-century later.
@@joestrike8537 I'd pick the stakeout episode where he decides he's done with it and announces that he's leaving and starts walking out. Dietrich responds: "Dressed like that?" and he immediately does a 180 and walks back inside.
I'll never forget the night this episode aired for the first time. I was practically rolling on the floor it was so funny. It was the stuff of coffee break conversation at work the next day.
I saw this with a room full of stoned college students and OMG we were DONE laughing. I mean, you had to HIDE BEHIND A BARN to smoke a joint FFS*, and here were the cops... * Hey, Kids: illegal was/is NOT A JOKE.
Back in the days before streaming and home video and a zillion channels, when enough people watched the same show at the same time to share their appreciation the morning after!
Best written show ever. I’ve watched it every night since 2013. That’s when I got my unedited dvd box set of the series. I watch it from start to finish. Then repeat. I was in my teens when the show aired.
Whoa … that Dragnet episode (3:48) way back when the kid says “marijuana will one day be packaged, taxed and sold … just like alcohol” was soooo far ahead of its time. Prescient.
@@michaelmcgovern8110 Yes. Like he'd just climbed down Mt. Ararat after seeing the face of Yahweh. Awe stricken. The wonder and terror of Fish on hash brownies... how do you just go on living the same old life after that?
In real life, Abe Vigoda (Detective Fish) was extremely fit and healthy, probably more than anyone else on the show. He had a regular fitness regime that included swimming.
I love, love The Barney Miller show. These cops were just regular people who wanted to keep citizens safe and bad off the streets. As a black kid growing up they taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid of the man in blue. 🚔
A whole LOT of people got started from this and Night Court. Casing is an ART. Finding LOOKS is EASY, finding TALENT is HARD; finding TALENT that is NOT A PAIN IN THE ASS is a blessing.
@@michaelmcgovern8110 Night Court, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller,..these types of shows were a great vehicle for actors starting out. I'm glad I could grow up watching the start of some phenomenal careers!
REALLY well done! This has nothing to do with anything, but I totally remember that 1977 Fall Preview cover of TVGuide. God that look on Hal Linden's face when Jack Soo is singing is great. One thought: it's important, when talking about the 'Red Scare' to careful of phrases like "outed as a Communist". This implies that the subject was actually a Communist, but the reality is that MANY of the people whose lives were affected by HUAC were not actually Communists.
I loved this episode so much when I was younger.. much younger. It's been so long. "Where are my legs?" was a phrase and concept that stayed with me my entire life. Gr8! Peace ☮💜Love
MY Dad didn't watch much TV, but he would watch Barney Miller. I loved it as a kid and even more now. I love the credits for the incredible theme and the beautiful shot of the Twin Towers, even though I get a little choked up at the same time.
I loved this show, I remember as a kid my Father cracking up in the den when it was on TV. I could always tell what he was watching by the level of laughter, MTM, MASH, Barney Miller, All in the Family.
See Also: Quarrantine 1 and 2 - they FOUGHT for those story lines. And it was pointed out to me today that the last person to thank Barney as the station closed was a long-running gay character, all excellently-turned-out in a nice elegant expensive success-suit, like he's normal or something. ;-]
I remember my parents "making me leave the room" when "Trilogy of Terror" originally aired when I was 8 years old. I was a horror aficionado and had seen previews for it earlier in the week, and REALLY wanted to watch it! Instead I watched a movie about people on a lifeboat on a small black and white TV at the end of the hallway from the living room. Little did they know that I spent most of the time watching Trilogy from down the hall because of the way the living room television was positioned.
As iconic as Jack Soo's line "Mooshy mooshy" is, he has another line in that episode that I like just as much: "Hey, whaddya say we guys go down to rhe beach, and shoot some clams?"
How amusing it seems that there was all this 'controversy' on the subject with the time of initial broadcast and within a decade this episode as well as all the other ones were in syndication and on air in the afternoon. I think I not only watched most of the series on their initial broadcasts but I know I watched all of series multiple times in syndication.
I saw this episode in 1976. It was, and is, one of the funniest episodes on television. In retrospect, the Seventies was a decade when television had guts.
the reliance on tupperware was nowhere near like today's plastic production world. covered dishes still were brought in foil-covered pyrex or corningware, and most baked desserts would be put in a foil-lined shoebox-or even an old hatbox if y'all's people is fancy and dress up a lot for church and stuff
My parents made me leave the room when something inappropriate was on TV and definitely by 9pm bedtime. Somehow I still managed to watch Saturday late night The Love Boat & Fantasy Island though.
This episode got my sub. I remember in the 80's, watching Barney Miller reruns with my pop who passed 20 years ago. This brought me great memories of him laughing so hard at the last of the great comedies like MASH, Cheers, and Barney Miller. Great video.
One of my all-time favorite episodes of any show, but of BM in particular. Love the cast and the writing. Amazing how so many of the topics still strike a chord today so many years later.
10:34 - It would be easy to make jokes but I actually find it kind of reassuring that Hal Linden was literally the lead in a sitcom before he understood that he was the "straight man" or what purpose that role served in comedy.
similar to the epiphany leslie nielsen had when working on "airplane!" when he realized it was precisely his typecast career as a serious toughie that sold the absurdity of the hijinx going on around him, it changed his entire career arc and to a degree his offscreen personality too. hence, the "fart machine" he liked to keep in his pocket when talking to journalists or whoever about some sort of serious story, he'd let that thing rip and make everyone first wonder, "did that just happen?" and then "is this ...*still* happening? at some point somebody has to say something!"
I still remember this being the first episode of Barny Miller I had ever watched. I loved the show but overall none of the episodes I remember lived up to this one.
Great episode. I remember it well. At 12.11 there is a shot of the TV schedule circa 1976 with Mork and Mindy, Taxi, Soap, etc all on! Compare this to the limited choice and quality of today’s content over a multitude of viewing platforms. Are we devolving?
Dietrich was my favorite. “ where the hell did you get an atomic bomb?” Dietrich hadn’t been in the squad room all day. All wondered what the thing was all day. Dietrich enters the room and the first words out of his mouth are ^^^
During its broadcast run, amid the many cop shows on television at the time, many real-life police officers considered this the show that best depicted the realities of police life.
I was a kid when "Barney Miller" premiered in '75, so I didn't get it, but now, just like with "MASH", I've rediscovered it as an adult and now I DO! This is one of the cleverest, satanical, well-acted, and well written sitcoms of the 70s.
I saw this when it aired and was too young to know what it was all about. I asked my very conservative parents, who stammered and stuttered over an answer they really didn't know and certainly didn't have for me. I'd forgotten all about that.
WOW... this is really an amazing upload. Honestly, I learned a ton about the time when this episode aired. I love that you credit sources... the best part is that I now have some interesting books to track down. Thank you.
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it!
I watched all this live in the 70s as Murikka started to wake up. Thanks for helping make this show and those working on it as famous as they should be. The talent, tech, writers, Arnold as auteur/producer; OMG study the work of all those workers.
Keep 'em laughing!
"Two of 'em. About THIS long."
@@tvsbesteps I just made two other comments (sorry for spamming) .. but I do want to chime in with my thanks for the citations and links in the description as well! ☮
(edit: the first link: "Barney Miller - S03E11 - Hash" .. is sadly gone now)
That was from a time when the TV Guide was competing with the Bible for the most popular thing in print.
I didn't get to see it till later I was only 4 at the air date .but it was absolutely hilarious l always loved the solo bass to kick off the show
Jack Soo was the BEST deadpan delivery of anyone in his time and truly loved by everyone on the set, then they did a memorial episode that clinched it.
My favourite line, which is probably a few words off, was from Fish - "The first time I've felt good in 20 years, and it has to be illegal."
I can remember my Dad laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath! 😂. He had 3 shows, Archie Bunker, BM and MASH. Remembering Dad this weekend, he passed on Memorial Day 1996.
Same here. Cheers and Taxi got my dad crackling and laughing so hard, he ended up being the entertainment. My pops passed St. Patrick's Day, 2004.
Among the greatest of victories on our way to adulthood were the times we got to refer Dad to something like a TV show which would become a favorite.
Person, I lost my Dad at 22. He was 43. Heart attack. One of the reasons I'm still here is that on that morning I stopped on my way out to (his) car, I hung out for a few minutes to chat with him as he read the paper in the sun on the chaise longue.
He was gone when I came home. He remains the smartest and most well-read person I, at nearly 70, have ever met.
He freed me from so much human travail, he even provided me with the power of the mind to survive Mom's suicide at 15, his own death and the murder of my fiancée ten months later. I loved him so much I became him, to the best of my ability.
He KNEW how "weird" I was in my asynchronous development and at age 13 he came into my room and told me, "I don't care if you grow up to be a poet whose poetry is only read by other poets, Just be the best." I never heard "So what are you going to DO WITH YOUR LIFE?" Not a bit of it, not once.
But I have not been able to escape the feeling that he and I are somehow closer than father and son. I still miss him like a layer of skin.
I still watch many of the TV shows dad used to watch when I was a kid. Hogans Hero's, B. Miller, Rockford Files...I just couldn't get in to Star Trek, (sorry dad), I miss you but these shows help me smile.
This Episode and "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly" are 2 of the most memorable sitcom episodes of all time.
Oh!! That one too!!!
FACT!
Add Chuckles Bites the Dust to the list from Mary Tyler Moore. One to think about was Wings when Tony Shalhoub was talking about dating the really big faced women.
Check out my video on that! Also a classic!
@@tvsbesteps You're referring to Turkey Drop.
“Mushie mushie…” Jack Soo was friggin’ AWESOME!
The best.
Never has such a profound statement been uttered on television. I live my life by those words.
This will always be one of my favorite tv moments. I still laugh every time I see it.
Soo:
Would you like some more coffee?
Unsuspecting Civilian (holding up empty coffee mug):
No, but is there any more of THIS?
My immediate reaction on seeing the thumbnail: "Mooshie, mooshie, mooshie!"
My uncle was a police detective in Jersey City, NJ for almost 40 years. He said, "Barney Miller
What a contrast! Dad was a Seattle PD for 25+ years. We weren't allowed to watch "fake tv shows". Dragnet, Highway Patrol, Adam-12 off limits. Acceptable were Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Wagon Train. They were real to him!
My grandfather (longtime cop)always said the same thing!
My grand father was a beat cop in Elizabeth N.J. before being made detective in the mid eighties..
He said the exact same thing, that B.M. was the closest thing he's seen to an actual P.D.
❤
I'm a doctor and my doctor friends and I have often said that "Scrubs" was the most accurate portrayal of training to be a doctor. It's ironic that the most accurate depictions are in sitcoms and not dramas.
My father often said the same thing - he retired due to heart attack in '76 after around 20 years on the job but after recovering worked another 20 years as a civilian dispatcher for our local PD. He often laughed at the other 'cop shows' on television with how unrealistic the majority of them were.
Correct assessment, one of the funniest episodes ever. Fish's saying he hadn't felt that good in 20 years and it's illegal was the best line.
What was special about this one is the actors didn't just act f'ed up, but that looked it too.! Their eyes were all gleaming and half lidded! I thought for years that maybe they were stoned.
I was 12 when that ep aired in a house that never missed BM. It was hilarious then and still is. That show is an absolute classic. Watching all those years ago, all that backstage nonsense never showed. I found it consistently brilliant and consistently hilarious, even with some of the cringier moments obviously played for humour not for hurt. The cast was brilliant, everybody was great, and Linden made the perfect straight man in a room full of all kinds of comedy. Ever see James Gregory ("Inspector Luger") in absolutely anything else and not say, ":Hey, it's Inspector Luger." Immortal. Long Live Barney Miller.
Oh yeah!
Luger gave me the best laugh ever. Talking in front of the family of a kidnapped tycoon - "remember that one; sent the body back in mason jars, one a week for a year"
@@jodycarter7308 And that voice! Like a busted chainsaw.
The Inspector stoled the show when he was on
That’s what defines a classic. It’s still hilarious. Watched it with my 11yo nephew and he was even laughing.
In the early 2000s, I taped episodes of Barney Miller for my mom (I was away in college and had a station on cable that had the show; didn’t have the station back home). Mom REALLY wanted to see the pot brownie episode again. I was so excited when the episode came on. I continue to quote from this episode from time to time. It was a treat to discover this show by way of my mom; such a positive, inclusive, charming, hilarious show!
This episode is one of the funniest episodes in all television history.
Along with the werewolf episode
@@donchristie420 OMG YessssssshoooowwwlllLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
@@michaelmcgovern8110 ow oww owwwoooo
This was one of my dad’s favorite shows. I still catch it occasionally. Brilliantly written. Great cast.
A classic. Lots of Barney Miller episodes were great.
I remember watching late night, Barney Miller reruns with my dad in the early 1980's. It was such a simple but good memory of hanging out with the 'old man'; and as a young teen realizing I was liking the show, too. Fast forward 40 yrs later I purchased the complete Barney Miller Series and I have, finally, seen every ep from season 1 to series finale: May 20, 1982 (man, it's been that long).
The cops knowingly consuming brownies that are baked (indeed) with hashish is quite humorous. Max Gail as 'stoned' is the memorable standout.
"Fast forward 40 yrs later I purchased the complete Barney Miller Series and I have, finally, seen every ep from season 1 to series finale: May 20, 1982 (man, it's been that long)."
I did too (albeit I hadn't seen it all that much before); I had at first got the bigger edition that included that first season of Abe Vigoda's Fish spinoff (I never touched it, though, because I thought the main event of Barney Miller was far funnier, having finished all of that). Eventually, I downgraded and got Shout!'s newer condensed edition that just has the Miller show in itself (no Fish), while retaining the other bonuses of the original version.
“Get those brownies analyzed….
NOT THAT WAY!!!”
!!!HARRIS!!!
This episode was great. Jack Soo was hilarious.
"When that bell starts to peal....."
This was a ground-breaking sitcom, on several levels. Amazing writers and direction! And the episodes still hold up and are as funny now as when originally aired. Absolutely loved the guys, Inspector Luger, and Dietrich. :) And the side character actors were always brilliant. Damn good show!
My grandfather was the chief of police in a small town in Connecticut. He always said that Barney Miller was the only show that really knew how it was in a police station.
On seeing a difficult situation:
"Well, keep a good thought!" - Capt. Barney Miller
"Well, that's lunch!" - Detective Harris you go ron !!!GLASS!!!
I laughed so hard when this episode originally aired, that my sides hurt. But I had no idea of the background or how hard it was to get it on the air. Thank you so much for telling it.
You’re welcome!
1976: Sophomore (means 'wise fool' and how appropriate) year in college, stoned the fuck out, watching this first broadcast with buddies. When Soo said MOOSHY MOOSHY MOOSHY
we all fell down.
But for me, when he put out an APB his legs, 'Two of them. About this long." Well, it's 2024 and I'm still laffing.
Ed note: I had, by then, actually eaten hashish. Try it. ;-]
I was the kid who would park my butt in front of the TV every time Barney Miller aired. My parents didn't understand, until I convinced them to watch the show and see for themselves....
My entire family became fans, it was the one show that we all agreed on.
Barney Miller was a masterpiece. The writing was at a level that we really never see any more.
One of the best prime time episodes in history.
I still remember watching that episode and how funny I thought it was back then. With the repeated "Mushie, mushie, mushie" line.
The main memories of being 9 years old: Seeing Star Wars for the first time, Elvis dying, and Nick Yemana saying "mushie, mushie" in Barney's ear.
Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentine author, said of the war for the Falkland Islands of 1982 between the United Kingdom & Argentina: "The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb."
Brilliant quote from a brilliant author.
No: Maggie the Milk Snatcher had to prove menopause hadn't softened the edge she'd needed to display as part of her image. After all, she was worse than and main spine-stiffener of Saint Ronnie the Senile in terms of the anti-soviet sabre-rattling-OMG-here-come-the-rooskies BS of the RW 1980s. Remember we were going to "win the nuclear war"? I do...
Back when you could see a new episode of a tv show during Christmas.
One of the best TV episodes EVER. I was just a kid, but I still laughed my ass off.
Barney Miller is one of the few old comedies that stands the test of time. I've tried watching many shows I liked as a kid and found them intolerable as an adult, but not Barney Miller. It's still just as funny now as it was then.
I've done the same with many shows I grew up around as a boy, but had never seen (50s-80s)-- quite a few hold up for me (and are selects on DVD [Miller being one of them]), but many of them never approach that level.
I was a 11 or 12 when this episode originally aired. It was hysterically funny for all the reason noted in your story. One thing that stands out for me is the laughs weren't over done out of character. Back then drug use could often be stereotyped as a user bouncing off the walls or manic, wild. In the Hash episode, the characters are having normal reactions to being stoned and that's what makes it relatable. Even today, the episode still holds up and is still very funny. Barney Miller is still one of the best shows ever. Moshi Moshi.
With the coolest theme song too!
I remember this show as a kid in the ‘80s as it was a regular in repeats. Took me 35 years to pay attention and realize it’s comedic genius.
Love ❤️ BM......JAKE'58. 😮
Then you have excellent taste. I hope you've tried Monty Python.
Likewise, this show, Taxi, early Mash, all-time favorites, and the writers and producers never get enough credit.
Barney Miller is eternal...still, to this day...a fun watch w/a great cast.
My...how I miss those days.
RIP to all who have passed...but, thanks for all the laughs...!
"Well, keep a good thought!"
the 70s show special brownies with red "hopping down the bunny trail" was another classic
Norm McDonald had a hilarious episode where his bosses son wanted to be a chef, so Norm had him make a big meal for his dad so he’d see his kid had a passion for food. His secret ingredient was pot. It was a Fricking hilarious episode.
I laughed hardest when I saw this episode as a kid when it was obvious that Harris (Ron Glass) knew they were hash brownies, yet he kept eating them and didn't tell his coworkers. He was in on the joke the whole time.
HARRIS!!!!! How many times did Cpt. Miller so cry out?
Glass had a perfect "Harris" character moment in the show, when the usually impeccably dressed detective shows up the morning after. Realizing he'd chosen a garish tie while still buzzed, he reaches into his desk to pull out a plain black tie to wear instead - perfect, because Harris was *exactly* the kind of guy who'd keep a back-up tie handy in case of a fashion emergency. Not a joke or anything, but one of my favorite moments of the episode I fondly remember close to a half-century later.
@@joestrike8537 >>yet he kept eating them
Yep. Harris was a bit more "downtown" than he let on...
@@joestrike8537 I'd pick the stakeout episode where he decides he's done with it and announces that he's leaving and starts walking out. Dietrich responds: "Dressed like that?" and he immediately does a 180 and walks back inside.
I'll never forget the night this episode aired for the first time. I was practically rolling on the floor it was so funny. It was the stuff of coffee break conversation at work the next day.
I saw this with a room full of stoned college students and OMG we were DONE laughing. I mean, you had to HIDE BEHIND A BARN to smoke a joint FFS*, and here were the cops...
* Hey, Kids: illegal was/is NOT A JOKE.
Back in the days before streaming and home video and a zillion channels, when enough people watched the same show at the same time to share their appreciation the morning after!
Best written show ever. I’ve watched it every night since 2013. That’s when I got my unedited dvd box set of the series. I watch it from start to finish. Then repeat. I was in my teens when the show aired.
Whoa … that Dragnet episode (3:48) way back when the kid says “marijuana will one day be packaged, taxed and sold … just like alcohol” was soooo far ahead of its time. Prescient.
Yeah, they thought it would be 50 years sooner than it happened.
One of the best written shows out there with some of the best characters and cast!
I loved Harris's description of how the ancient Detective Fish leaped off a building, flew across the towering drop, and collared the crook.
Ron glass standing there making Harris be just staggered in amazement.
@@michaelmcgovern8110 Yes. Like he'd just climbed down Mt. Ararat after seeing the face of Yahweh. Awe stricken. The wonder and terror of Fish on hash brownies... how do you just go on living the same old life after that?
@@LordMondegrene
Whadda you think YOU'RE PLAYING WITH KIDS?
@@michaelmcgovern8110 These are serious men, you can see in their bloodshot eyes.
In real life, Abe Vigoda (Detective Fish) was extremely fit and healthy, probably more than anyone else on the show. He had a regular fitness regime that included swimming.
I love, love The Barney Miller show. These cops were just regular people who wanted to keep citizens safe and bad off the streets. As a black kid growing up they taught me that I didn’t have to be afraid of the man in blue. 🚔
3:49 that's Chet Kelly from Emergency! (actor Tim Donnelly, RIP.)
Pre mustache.
The people who had been on that show over the years and became big later is quite astounding.
A whole LOT of people got started from this and Night Court. Casing is an ART.
Finding LOOKS is EASY, finding TALENT is HARD; finding TALENT that is NOT A PAIN IN THE ASS is a blessing.
@@michaelmcgovern8110 Night Court, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller,..these types of shows were a great vehicle for actors starting out. I'm glad I could grow up watching the start of some phenomenal careers!
casTing CASTing. hard to do
"Mooshi-mooshi-mooshi..."
One of TV Sitcoms greatest lines ever.
When Jack answers the phone "Moshi Moshi" has actually how one answers the phone in Japan
MG this is TRUE! Even more so funny: SOO has SHORTED the F*CK OUT!!!
REALLY well done! This has nothing to do with anything, but I totally remember that 1977 Fall Preview cover of TVGuide. God that look on Hal Linden's face when Jack Soo is singing is great. One thought: it's important, when talking about the 'Red Scare' to careful of phrases like "outed as a Communist". This implies that the subject was actually a Communist, but the reality is that MANY of the people whose lives were affected by HUAC were not actually Communists.
Thanks!
I spent 1976-1979 in Germany so Barney Miller is an 80s show to me. 1976 would have been a great time to have seen this episode.
This was a must watch program back in the day.
Watch it now: timeless comedy, timeless wisdom (works either word you put first.)
still IS!
See how it's done. enjoy it for that and for the humor (and heart).
I loved this episode so much when I was younger.. much younger. It's been so long. "Where are my legs?" was a phrase and concept that stayed with me my entire life. Gr8! Peace ☮💜Love
MY Dad didn't watch much TV, but he would watch Barney Miller. I loved it as a kid and even more now.
I love the credits for the incredible theme and the beautiful shot of the Twin Towers, even though I get a little choked up at the same time.
I loved this show, I remember as a kid my Father cracking up in the den when it was on TV. I could always tell what he was watching by the level of laughter, MTM, MASH, Barney Miller, All in the Family.
Was all so good
This is my favorite Barney Miller episode.
See Also: Quarrantine 1 and 2 - they FOUGHT for those story lines. And it was pointed out to me today that the last person to thank Barney as the station closed was a long-running gay character, all excellently-turned-out in a nice elegant expensive success-suit, like he's normal or something. ;-]
“That’s beautiful, man. BEAUTIFUL!”😂 Loved Harris.
"No, Barney: I was ALWAYS as you see me now!" - wide awake
"Oh, GOD: I want to BE somebody!" -half asleep
Dang that 9 p.m. time slot looked brutal, going up against Magnum PI and Monday Night Football.
I remember my parents "making me leave the room" when "Trilogy of Terror" originally aired when I was 8 years old. I was a horror aficionado and had seen previews for it earlier in the week, and REALLY wanted to watch it! Instead I watched a movie about people on a lifeboat on a small black and white TV at the end of the hallway from the living room. Little did they know that I spent most of the time watching Trilogy from down the hall because of the way the living room television was positioned.
Well, Shazam, you and I were watching similar stuff and using the hallways in a similar way in those days!
"But at 9pm there parents should simply make them leave the room" This guy definitely doesn't know how the 70s and 80s worked.
@@dmacarthur5356 🤣
What a tremendous chronicle of what is not only one of my all-time favorite “Barney Miller” episodes, but an all-time great TV sitcom episode!
Thanks!
It was a wonderful show and far ahead of its time!
One of the best episodes!!! I have the series on DVD and watched this one about a week ago. Still LMFAO!!!
I remember watching this episode as a kid! Mooshie mooshie! 😂
I don't say it about every show I like, but in this case, it's true to say. This show was pure genius!
I've got a good felling, that this Channel, is
'Movin' on Up!'
Thanks!
This and the werewolf episode are my favorites.
Moshi Moshi! 😅
As iconic as Jack Soo's line "Mooshy mooshy" is, he has another line in that episode that I like just as much:
"Hey, whaddya say we guys go down to rhe beach, and shoot some clams?"
Loved Barney Miller! My dad and I watched it religiously.
How amusing it seems that there was all this 'controversy' on the subject with the time of initial broadcast and within a decade this episode as well as all the other ones were in syndication and on air in the afternoon. I think I not only watched most of the series on their initial broadcasts but I know I watched all of series multiple times in syndication.
I saw this episode in 1976. It was, and is, one of the funniest episodes on television. In retrospect, the Seventies was a decade when television had guts.
This is one of my favorite series from back then
I was 10 years old and I remember watching this episode with my Grandmother who was laughing herself into tears. Even at 10 years old I got the jokes.
I love Barney Miller one of the best sitcoms ever
Anybody seen my legs?
Yeah, they're over here again.
The brownies in a shoe box cracks me up.
the reliance on tupperware was nowhere near like today's plastic production world. covered dishes still were brought in foil-covered pyrex or corningware, and most baked desserts would be put in a foil-lined shoebox-or even an old hatbox if y'all's people is fancy and dress up a lot for church and stuff
Well done, man. Now I’m on the hunt for Barney Miller streams.
Thanks! It’s definitely worth the watch!
You can buy the entire set on DVD and not have to deal with any commercials. It's relatively inexpensive.
My parents made me leave the room when something inappropriate was on TV and definitely by 9pm bedtime. Somehow I still managed to watch Saturday late night The Love Boat & Fantasy Island though.
Btw since Barney Miller was my dad’s favorite show I was allowed to stay up past my bedtime to watch. Then straight to bed!!
Barney Miller was one of my favorite shows as a kid.
The first episode I ever saw, laughed my ass off, and got me to watch as many other episodes as I could.
Why there hasn't been a show about censors a la 'madmen' is beyond me. The insanity was beyond insane.
To this day my mom and I still say "mooshie mooshie" to each other when we offer to go down to the beach and shoot some clams.
BEST THEME SONG EVER✨️❤️
Hah! Jokes on you, Sergeant Friday!
This episode got my sub. I remember in the 80's, watching Barney Miller reruns with my pop who passed 20 years ago. This brought me great memories of him laughing so hard at the last of the great comedies like MASH, Cheers, and Barney Miller. Great video.
I’m crazy about the introductory moments of video and film. Your intro was absolutely awesome. Great structure & writing.
Thanks very much!
nice vid. made me look up the show, and glad i did. good too see someone highlighting mostly forgotten shows. keep up the good work!
Thanks!
I was 12 years old when I watched this, god I miss the 70's.
One of my all-time favorite episodes of any show, but of BM in particular. Love the cast and the writing. Amazing how so many of the topics still strike a chord today so many years later.
10:34 - It would be easy to make jokes but I actually find it kind of reassuring that Hal Linden was literally the lead in a sitcom before he understood that he was the "straight man" or what purpose that role served in comedy.
similar to the epiphany leslie nielsen had when working on "airplane!" when he realized it was precisely his typecast career as a serious toughie that sold the absurdity of the hijinx going on around him, it changed his entire career arc and to a degree his offscreen personality too. hence, the "fart machine" he liked to keep in his pocket when talking to journalists or whoever about some sort of serious story, he'd let that thing rip and make everyone first wonder, "did that just happen?" and then "is this ...*still* happening? at some point somebody has to say something!"
@@ObjectorSnark Cancelling Police Squad! after only 6 episodes was the greatest crime ever perpetrated against comedy...
Best episode ever of this series.
❤ love Barney Miller ❤
Thurs before a Bicentenial New Years was "Perfect!" Timing on every level from time of show, to the space and time of topic. I was 11 yrs old
I still remember this being the first episode of Barny Miller I had ever watched. I loved the show but overall none of the episodes I remember lived up to this one.
Great episode. I remember it well.
At 12.11 there is a shot of the TV schedule circa 1976 with Mork and Mindy, Taxi, Soap, etc all on!
Compare this to the limited choice and quality of today’s content over a multitude of viewing platforms.
Are we devolving?
>>Are we devolving?
No, We Are Devo.
DO try to keep up. ;-]
1976 Was An Amazing Year
3:49 Hello, Tim Donnelly, Emergency!'s Chet... KMG365
Rampart, this is squad 51, engine 51…
This was really well done. Thanks!
You’re welcome, glad you enjoyed it!
One of the best written shows of all time.
The line from that guy in the Dragnet episode was spot on prophetic. It happened exactly as he said.
Dietrich was my favorite. “ where the hell did you get an atomic bomb?” Dietrich hadn’t been in the squad room all day. All wondered what the thing was all day. Dietrich enters the room and the first words out of his mouth are ^^^
Watched this show every week when it was on. What a great nostalgic bump.
During its broadcast run, amid the many cop shows on television at the time, many real-life police officers considered this the show that best depicted the realities of police life.
It was to police what M*A*S*H was to the military.
Yeah.. I remember this one. Moooshie moooshie... My mom laughed so hard watching it. They would replay it about once every 2 months.
Captain Miller: "Harris, can you function?"
Harris: "Hey, sharp as a tack!"
Loved that show, so well done and lots of important info spoken about like the trilateral commission, etc.
I was a kid when "Barney Miller" premiered in '75, so I didn't get it, but now, just like with "MASH", I've rediscovered it as an adult and now I DO! This is one of the cleverest, satanical, well-acted, and well written sitcoms of the 70s.
My favorite line from the entire run of The Beverly Hillbillies is still Jethro's 'That ain't red gravy, that's what's they call marijuana sauce!'
I saw this when it aired and was too young to know what it was all about. I asked my very conservative parents, who stammered and stuttered over an answer they really didn't know and certainly didn't have for me. I'd forgotten all about that.