Shark Bytes

I watched this show from beginning to end in the 1980s. It, along with Night Court, made my day whenever I watched it.

I occasionally watch it now in syndication or TV Land, and it almost ALWAYS makes me laugh out loud.

It NEVER jumped the shark!

Barney Miller never jumped It was a Classic. The funniest Episode was when Wojo brought in Brownies. The way Jack Soo played being high was Great and Fish say's "The first time in my life I feel really good and it has to be illegal"

This show was good at first and became better as it went along, one of the rare occasions that this worked.They got rid of the right characters, like Barneys wife and the hispanic cop, and added Deitrich one of the greatest characters ever in a sitcom. Most of the recurring characters were very inspired as well. The squad room with its stacks of papers, file cabinets and junk strewn, was a work of art to me. I watched it until the end then watched th reruns thru the 80s until they disappeared. One of the great shows of all time, yes it is better than All in the Family, MASH, Cheers, I watched them all. Barney Miller outclassed all of them because it did not go downhill, as those shows did at the end of their runs.

Favorite Harris euphemism for the ambulance taking the oddballs to Bellvue: "The Disoriented Express".

I was just a kid when this ran, but I loved it just the same. One favorite exchange, when some guy insisted that he'd been poisoned or some such -- and the dialogue is approximated, through the haze of memory:

Harris - Wojo, get this guy some cough medicine.
Wojo - Cough medicine? What are you talking about?
Harris - You know, the kind with the arms that wrap around the back...

I have been a fan of Barney Miller since 1976. It is one of the best written and acted shows ever on TV. Smart and witty. I am desperately waiting for Season 3. The Season 2 DVD is really good, but things get better in season 3. I hop eit comes out soon.

What's your problem with Dietrich, Art? Intimidated by fictional characters who are apparently more intelligent than yourself?... Now, that would be my definition of a 'weirdo'.

Even though the show was called "Barney Miller", and early plots revolved around Barney and Mrs. M, the writers wisely gave EVERYONE equal time, so it didn't end up like Happy Days (The Fonzie Show). Hal Linden seemed content to play the straight man while characters like Levitt, Inspector Luger, Dietrich, Fish, Wojo, Marty The Gay Man, The Guy Who Thought He Was A Werewolf (and several other things), and others stole the show week after week. A real treat! An a special treat when Abe Vigoda turned up as a veteran cop in "Law and Order". It made me wish they had pulled a "Lou Grant" and taken a sit-com character and made him into a drama character for at least one episode, but he played someone else. (Nasty guy, as I recall. I think he was a "dirty" cop, so it's just as well he wasn't Sgt. Phil Fish.)

WHEN DIETRICH THAT WEIRDO JOINED THE CAST IT WENT DOWN HILL

Persnickety, you are confusing your opinion with actual intelligent analysis. What you see in the program is something that very very few would see. This leads me to believe that your perspective is somehow out of tune with actual thinkers. Barney Miller was the standard by which most other comedies, from the 70's to now, are to be judged. Virtually all of them, like your analysis, are desperately wanting.

The post below is directed to "Persnickety".

M*A*S*H was good for a few years, then turned to T*R*A*S*H. The same goes for All in the Family. Barney Miller was of the highest quality from day one until the last episode, AND it stands the test of time. It was anything but a show full of one-liners, as you so ignorantly put it. The phrase "situation comedy" might as well have been invented for this show, because the comedy stemmed from the situations. If anything, latter day M*A*S*H and All in the Family were unending strings of one-liners. The "joke lines" on Barney Miller were, for the most part, classics...and clearly over your head.

It has been WONDERFUL reading the many post giving high praise to one of the best programs ever to grace TV...

One of my favorite lines, out of many, many, many...was when Lt. Scanlon would come in and greet everybody by their last name...

Scanlon: Hello, Detective Yemana...
Yemana: Yeah...it sounds pretty don't it?

persnickety,

For someone who professes to loathe the show, you're certainly very familiar with it.

Your trash is apparently gold to most of us. I think "Barney Miller" combined witty writing, genuinely unique and sympathetic characters in a clearly defined and detailed setting to become a truly classic comedy. The "claustrophobic set" you mention is intentionally so! The fact the show's entire world existed on this one set (more or less) made it original and effectively rooted.

Comparisons to other classic shows are pointless and counterproductive. The show was what it was and didn't aspire to be anything else.

Se la vi, my friend.

Wow - nostalgia sure is blind. Barney Miller sucked. It's the 70's your waxing nostalgic for, not this show. It just oozes saturated 70's 'malaise'. The claustrophobic atmosphere of that drab set, the shallow characters- ick. I can't believe someone compared this shallow crap to 'Taxi'. Barney Miller always WANTED to be a show in the vein of 'MASH' or 'All In The Family' or 'Taxi' which could deftly alternate between genuinely moving drama and laugh out loud comedy, but the scripts lacked depth and were overloaded with that endless litany of witless one liners that sinks so many bad sitcoms. I'm not impressed by the suggestion that some kids find it interesting on DVD; kids find MTV interesting too. The brighter ones are probably more intrigued by the time period than the plot. Go watch some Taxi, Odd Couple, early Mash and All in the Family, then rewatch this Barney Miller crap and see if you still think it's a great show.