Rick Hunter (Fred Dryer) was the closest thing the small screen ever came to producing its own interpretation of, Dirty Harry! When interviewed about his characters likeness to Clint Eastwoods Iconic & Legendary big screen hero Dirty Harry, Fred Dryer claimed that his character Hunter had more of a sense of humor than, Harry Callahan. Hunter was created by Frank Lupo, and starred Fred Dryer as Sgt. Rick Hunter and Stepfanie Kramer as Sgt. Dee Dee McCall, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1991. However, Kramer left after the sixth season (1990) to pursue other acting and musical opportunities. In the seventh season, Hunter partnered with two different women officers. The titular character, Sgt. Rick Hunter, was a wily, physically imposing, often rule-breaking homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. The shows main characters, Hunter and McCall, resolved many of their cases by lethal force, but no more so than many other related television dramas.. The shows executive producer during the first season was Stephen J. Cannell, whose company produced the series. (This was one of the few series made by his company that he did not either create or co-create.) The show was initially broadcast in a time slot on Friday night, competing for ratings against the popular Dallas. The show struggled to attract an audience and drew criticism for its often graphic depiction of violence. In the first season, the producers sought to create a hook by giving the main character a catchphrase, Works for me, which was sometimes used two or three times in an episode and was even added to the end of Mike Post and Pete Carpenters opening theme music. Several early episodes featured montages set to popular songs from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, in a style similar to Miami Vice. Mid-way through the first season, with low ratings still, Cannell gave network chief Brandon Tartikoff a private screening of a two-part episode (The Snow Queen) that had not yet aired, and asked him to give the show more time to attract viewers. Tartikoff agreed and put the show on hiatus until a better time slot could be found. Two months later, Hunter resumed on Saturday nights, and viewership slowly started to rise. The first season finished in 65th place For its second season, Cannell brought in his mentor, Roy Huggins, best known for his work on Maverick and The Rockford Files, to refine the show. As the new executive producer, Huggins toned down the violence, softened the main characters fractious relationship with his superiors, dropped a backstory concerning Hunters family ties to the mob, and emphasized the chemistry between Hunter and McCall. Huggins also moved the shows setting out of the back streets and into the more desirable areas of Los Angeles. Emboldened, Dryer and Kramer frequently improvised the scripts, and the Hunter character broke the fourth wall for the first time with an aside to viewers at the end of the episode The Beautiful and the Dead. Probably the most memorable aspect to the second season was the two part episode Rape and Revenge, which may have drawn from some diplomatic immunity scandals that were prominent in the news. A psychopathic foreign diplomat meets McCall and wants to have a relationship with her, and after she declines, he brutally rapes her in her home. Hunter is badly shot in the shoulder and must recover quickly, then go to the diplomats home country to dispense justice, Hunter-style. This episode was considered very controversial for its realistic and shocking depiction of a violent rape, which was not common in TV shows at the time. Because of the controversial plot and acting, Rape and Revenge is one of the most remembered and popular episodes of the series. Another important aspect to the second season was towards the end of the season (in the episode The Return of Typhoon Thompson) viewers were first introduced to Hunter and McCalls favorite street informant—the eccentric but humorous Arnold Sporty James, played by Garrett Morris. Viewers also responded to Huggins changes, and the shows second season ended in 38th place in the Nielsen Ratings. Hunter continued this progress to become a mainstay of NBCs Saturday night schedule. In syndication the Season 2 intro was replaced by the season 1 intro. The season 2 intro had Rick Hunter entering a womens locker room in one scene, and him and McCall pointing their guns at each other with the bathroom light on in another scene. Just before work on the third season began, Dryer threatened to quit unless his salary, reportedly US$21,000 per episode, was raised and creative changes were made. Cannell responded with a US$20 million breach-of-contract lawsuit. A compromise was reached, a new deal with Dryer reportedly earning US$50,000 per episode. The third season, again led by Huggins, added Charles Hallahan as Captain Charlie Devane, who remained Hunter and McCalls captain for the rest of the show, eventually included in the opening credits of the show and becoming one of the shows main stars (none of the previous captains in the series had achieved this). This was the shows first season in the top 30, coming in at 25th. In the episode Shades (which was the season finale, but aired later in the summer, in July 1987) when Hunter went missing, McCall teamed with a somewhat ditzy Columbo-like Detective Kitty OHearn (Shelley Taylor Morgan). OHearn would reappear during the Season Four three-part episode City of Passion. Another remembered episode for Season Three was Requiem For Sergeant McCall which was a contradiction to a storyline from the beginning of the show. When the show first started, McCalls husband (Steven McCall) was supposedly killed five years before, in 1979, by a punk kid during a routine stop. At that time Steven and Dee Dee were newly married and starting out as rookie uniform cops. However, in 1987, in Requiem, just 5 years before (which would be around 1982 instead of 1979), Steven was a homicide detective (while Dee Dee was still just a rookie) and he was working on a big murder case that resulted in him being killed. In Requiem, Stevens killer is getting paroled, and Dee Dee McCall is doing everything she can to get him back in prison—plus trying to solve the original murder case that her husband died trying to solve five years earlier. Four years after the original series ended, a reunion NBC TV movie, The Return of Hunter: Everyone Walks in L.A., saw Dryer and Charles Hallahan reprise their roles as Rick Hunter and Charlie Devane—Hunter had now also been promoted to lieutenant. Airing on NBC on March 6, 1995, the movie ironically seemed to take the Dirty Harry idea as the plot—a psycho wants fame and/or to be noticed and begins terrorizing the city to gain media attention. Along the way he becomes infatuated with attention from Hunter, eventually wanting to kill him. Stepfanie Kramer, pregnant at the time, did not reprise her role as Dee Dee McCall. The TV-movie co-starred Barry Bostwick, Miguel Ferrer, and John C. McGinley. Seven years later in November 2002, eleven years after the original series ended, the reunion TV movie Hunter: Return to Justice made its premiere to strong ratings. This time Stepfanie Kramer also returned to her role of Dee Dee McCall, and the shows setting switched from Los Angeles to San Diego—as Hunters current L.A. partner is killed in the line of duty. Given the success of the TV movie, Cannell, Dryer and NBC attempted to bring back Hunter as a regular series. In the weeks following the April 2003 airing of another TV movie, Hunter: Back in Force which served as the pilot for the new series. The network decided to broadcast three new one-hour episodes of Hunter (Vaya Sin Dios, Untouchable, and Dead Heat). Another two episodes were filmed (as originally there were to be five episodes aired) but never shown in the U.S, as suddenly NBC decided to cancel the new series. Later Fred Dryer cited creative difficulties and budget constraints as the reasons for the new shows unexpected end. In the Pilot TV movie, Hunter drove a junker blue 1977 Dodge Monaco and a junker 1970 Ford LTD. Because Hunter constantly was getting into wrecks chasing bad guys and would regularly bust up any cop car he was given, supposedly the department would only let him drive the complete junkers that would barely run. Once the series started (Fall 1984), during the first season, Hunter drove a junker 1972 Chevrolet Impala, a junker 1971 Chevrolet Nova, an old 1974 Plymouth Satellite and a junker 1979 Chevrolet Caprice Classic. A 1971 Impala was actually shown exploding to end the episodes using Chevrolets. Monacos seemed to be the cop car of choice, as second season saw Hunter occasionally driving a junker multi-side panel colored 1977 Monaco (jokingly referred to as the Partridge Family Monaco), as well as other 77 models in yellow, brown and black. After the show was more established and starting with the third season and clear on through the first episode of seventh season, Hunter drove a Moss Green 1977 Monaco. This car was in better condition than the previous Monacos and became Hunters trademark vehicle — to the point that when it was destroyed in the third season, it was replaced with an identical one. During the seventh and last season, Detective Hunter got and drove a new Silver 1990 Ford LTD Crown Victoria. During the first two seasons, McCall drove a Garnet Red and Silver 1984 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z. Then starting with season three and on through season five, McCall drove a Bright Red 1987 Daytona Shelby Z (Sometimes though, a Turbo Z badge on this Daytona is also clearly visible). During the sixth season - her final season, she drove a Gold 1990 Dodge Dynasty. (There was an episode during the 4th or 5th season that showed the outside of what was supposedly McCalls house and there was a yellow 1987 Ford Mustang out front. However, McCall is only shown driving it once and then it was never shown again.) Both Officer Joanne Molenski and Sgt. Chris Novak, during last season, drove a tan/beige 1990 LTD Crown Victoria. For the revivals/reunion movies and new series: In the first reunion movie, The Return of Hunter: Everyone Walks in L.A., Hunter drove a black 1995 Ford Crown Victoria. In Hunter: Return to Justice, McCall drove a silver 2002 Mercedes Benz CLK320 Convertible. In Hunter: Back in Force and the subsequent new series, Hunter drove a black 2003 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor and McCall occasionally drove a black 2003 Ford Expedition.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 10:38:43 +0000
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