The show received critical acclaim, and its production innovations influenced many subsequent dramatic television series produced in the United States and Canada. In 1981, the series won eight Emmy Awards, a debut season record surpassed only by The West Wing, in 2000. The show won a total of 26 Emmy Awards (out of 98 Emmy Award nominations) during its run, including four consecutive wins for Outstanding Drama Series.

Production[edit]

Hill Street Blues employed what was, at that time, a unique style of camera usage for weeknight television productions, such as filming close in with action cuts rapidly between stories. Rather than studio (floor) cameras, handhelds were used to enhance this style.^[13] Overheard, off-screen dialogue aurally-augmented the "documentary" feel with respect to the filmed action of a scene.^[14][15]


Although primarily filmed in Los Angeles (both on location and at CBS Studio Center in Studio City), the series is set in a generic unnamed inner-city location with a feel of a U.S. urban center in the Midwest or Northeast. Bochco reportedly intended this fictional city to be a hybrid of Chicago, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. The show's opening and closing and cut-scenes were filmed in Chicago.^[16]


The program's focus on failure and those at the bottom of the social scale is pronounced, in contrast to Bochco's later project L.A. Law. Inspired by police procedural detective novels such as Ed McBain's 1956 Cop Hater, the show has been described as Barney Miller out of doors. The focus on the bitter realities of 1980s urban living was revolutionary for its time.


The theme music for Hill Street Blues was written by Mike Post, featuring Larry Carlton on guitar.^[17] It was released as a single and became a major US hit, reaching #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1981, winning the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

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Setting[edit]

Series producers deliberately left the exact city in which the series was set vague and a variety of methods are employed to imply different general locations. The call letters of local TV stations were usually obscured to avoid showing whether they began with "W" (the Federal Communications Commission designation for stations east of the Mississippi River) or "K" (signifying a station west of the Mississippi River). An episode in season three specifically mentions a radio station of WDPD, suggesting a city east of the Mississippi. However, in bar scenes throughout the series, characters are frequently shown drinking bottles of beer that strongly resemble Coors Beer. Coors did not obtain national distribution until 1986, and as a result of national distribution laws was not available east of the Mississippi until that year, implying the location is west of the Mississippi.


Though most of the series' scenes were filmed in Los Angeles (on location and at CBS Studio Center in Studio City),^[21] the series' introduction shows exterior shots entirely of Chicago and cutaway shots from Chicago were used in production, with police cars resembling the color schemes of Chicago Police Department patrol vehicles.^[22] Chicago's 7th District Police Station is frequently shown in cutaway shots and also during the closing credits.^[23] This station was closed by the Chicago Police in 1998 and later repurposed as the headquarters for the University of Illinois at Chicago police.


The first episode of season three shows both a TV camera labeled "WREQ", and a shot of a Regional Transportation Authority suburban train arriving at the Chicago and North Western Terminal. However, in the penultimate episode of season 2, a street sign for Los Angeles Street – a thoroughfare in downtown Los Angeles – is visible outside the fictitious Hotel Doane.


There are several mentions through the series of characters going down to "the shore", which implies a lake or oceanfront setting. One indication of setting within the show was given by the Southern-accented character Officer Andy Renko when he stated in the season one episode "Politics as Usual": "Just drop that cowboy stuff. I was born in New Jersey, never been west of Chicago in my life", as if to imply that they were in Chicago. In Season 1 episode 12, Captain Furillo informs Lieutenant Hunter that the armored vehicle he was test driving has been found "in the East River", implying New York City. In Season 2, Episode 3, Sergeant Esterhaus references guarding "the national guard armory in Newark", implying a location in or near New Jersey. Season 2 episode 18 shows an elevated subway train on which the transit agency "CTA" can clearly be seen, suggesting Chicago. Throughout the series, characters occasionally mention well-known Chicago street names, such as Michigan Avenue, or other Chicago-related landmarks, such as the Blue Line subway and Mercy Hospital. Both of the characters played by Dennis Franz employ a heavy Chicago-type accent, also employed by Dan Aykroyd in The Blues Brothers, a motion picture set and filmed in Chicago.


In a Season 5 episode, during an undercover detail, Detective Belker is knocked unconscious by a criminal and stashed in the luggage compartment of an interstate bus. A package labeled "Springfield ILL" (using the old three-letter Postal Service state abbreviation) is next to him. When he is finally freed from the compartment and told he is in Springfield, it is still daytime and after he rides a bus back to his origin, it is now early evening and the other detective at his detail is not alarmed when Belker explains his absence as "following a tail", implying the distance was not very great (Springfield is roughly a three-hour drive from Chicago via I-55).


The show also contains a few references to locations in Buffalo. In one episode, Lt. Hunter talks about needing to get rid of tickets for the "Sabres." Buffalo place names mentioned on the show include the Kubiak Lodge, Ganson St. and the canals, Gabriel's Gate bar, Decker St. and West Utica St.


Show writer Steven Bochco attended college at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh. The run-down, shabby, drug-ridden impression of Pittsburgh's Hill District that Bochco acquired was apparently part of the inspiration for the show.^[24] He intended the setting to resemble several cities, including Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh and Buffalo.^[25]


Although the city is never named, the Illinois state flag is visible over the judge's left shoulder in the courtroom scenes in the Season 2 episode "Fruits of the Poisonous Tree," suggesting that the location is Chicago. Some outdoor scenes, particularly in the first two seasons, capture palm trees and other Southern California flora not found in the Midwest or Northeastern United States.


While most vehicles sport generic, stateless license plates, 1980s-era California license plates are easily spotted on many large trucks used on set.