The Rockford Files
The Rockford Files is an American detective drama television series starring James Garner that aired on the NBC network from September 13, 1974, to January 10, 1980. Garner portrays Los Angeles private investigator Jim Rockford, with Noah Beery Jr. in the supporting role of his father, Joseph "Rocky" Rockford, a retired truck driver. The show was created by Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell. Huggins had created the American western TV show Maverick (1957–1962), which Garner also starred, and he wanted to create a similar show in a modern-day detective setting. In 2002, The Rockford Files was ranked No. 39 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[1]
The Rockford Files
Mike Post
Pete Carpenter (co-composer with Post)
Artie Kane (two episodes)
Dick DeBenedictis (one episode)
United States
English
6
123 (+ pilot movie and 8 TV movies) (list of episodes)
Paradise Cove - 28128 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California
Los Angeles
Los Angeles Police Department, Hollywood Station - 1358 Wilcox Ave, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Apartments, Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California
60 minutes
Roy Huggins-Public Arts Productions
Cherokee Productions
Universal Television
September 13, 1974 –
January 10, 1980
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#0__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#0__subtitleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
Production[edit]
The show was created by Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell. Huggins had created, written for and produced Garner's breakthrough series Maverick in 1957 and envisioned The Rockford Files as presenting a similar character as a modern private investigator rather than a gambler in the American Old West. Huggins teamed with Cannell, who had written for Jack Webb's Mark VII Productions such as Adam-12 and Chase (1973–1974, NBC), to create The Rockford Files. The show was credited as "A Public Arts/Roy Huggins Production" along with Cherokee Productions in association with Universal Television. Cherokee was owned by Garner, with partners Meta Rosenberg and Juanita Bartlett, who doubled as story editor during most of The Rockford Files run.
Credits[edit]
Writers[edit]
The show's pilot was written by Cannell, who also wrote 36 episodes and was the show's co-creator. Juanita Bartlett, one of the show's producers and Garner's partner at Cherokee Productions, wrote 34 episodes. She also wrote for Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The Greatest American Hero, and In the Heat of the Night. David Chase wrote 16 episodes; he later went on to Northern Exposure and The Sopranos. The show's co-creator, Roy Huggins, also wrote for the show during the first season, always using pen name John Thomas James. However, Huggins' contributions to the show ended midway through the first season, after he submitted a script rewrite direct to set as the episode was shooting, without getting approval from any other writer or producer. Garner, trying to work with the material on set, felt the rewrite was unsatisfactory, and could not figure out why it had been approved for shooting. When he discovered that neither Cannell nor any of the other production staff members knew anything about the rewrite, Garner issued a directive that Cannell, not Huggins, had final say on all script material. Though Huggins was credited as a producer for the entire run of the series, this effectively ended his creative involvement with the show, as he submitted no further material to The Rockford Files and did not involve himself in the day-to-day running of the series.
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#3__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#3__descriptionDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
Vehicles[edit]
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#4__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#4__descriptionDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
Pontiac Firebird Esprit[edit]
Familiar to viewers was Jim Rockford's gold Pontiac Firebird Esprit car. One oft-recurring element of the show was the famous "Jim Rockford turn-around" (also known as a J-turn or a "moonshiner's turn" - commonly employed as an evasive driving technique taught to Secret Service).[8][9] Garner explained the move in his 2011 autobiography The Garner Files: "When you are going straight in reverse about 35 miles an hour, you come off the gas pedal, go hard left, and pull on the emergency brake. That locks the wheels and throws the front end around. Then you release everything, hit the gas, and off you go in the opposite direction." Garner stated in a Season One DVD interview that he performed this stunt for the duration of the series. The car's license plate was 853 OKG, although the plate in some early episodes displayed the number 835 OKG. Garner writes in his autobiography that he believes that the letters OKG stood for "Oklahoma Garner" but that he does not know the origin of the number 853.
Starting with the 1974 model year, Rockford would get a new model-year Pontiac Firebird each year throughout the series. The Firebirds used had an identical "copper mist" color with the Esprit's exterior and interior. Although the Firebirds were badged as Esprits, they were actually the higher performance "Formula" model without the twin scoop hood. Garner needed Rockford's car to look like the lower tiered "Esprit" model, a car Rockford could afford, but have the performance necessary for the chase sequences in the show. To achieve this, the show featured Pontiac Firebird Formulas re-badged and re-hooded to look like the "Esprit" model. The "Formula" model was developed to provide the performance of the top-level "Trans Am" in a less ostentatious form. Formulas didn't have the Shaker hood scoop, side vents, graphics or lettering used on the Trans Am, but they had the same higher horsepower engines and drive trains, larger front and rear anti-sway bars, stiffer springs and shocks, and a twin scoop hood. (Sharp-eyed car connoisseurs can spot the twin exhausts and rear anti-sway bar on the cars used on the show, options that were not part of the "Esprit" package, as well as spot the different model year cars used in various chase scenes that differed from those in an actual episode, especially in later seasons.) Although the series ran until early 1980, no Firebird was used past the 1978 model year as Garner reportedly was displeased with the restyled front end of the 1979 and later Firebird models and as such did not wish them featured on the show (although an answering machine message in one episode in the final season indicated his car was a 1979 Firebird).
In the first TV movie, I Still Love L.A. in 1994, the Firebird is shown, in ramshackle disrepair, parked next to Rockford's trailer. He mentions he plans to have it "fixed up," but drives other cars throughout the films.
GMC Sierra Classic pickup[edit]
Joseph "Rocky" Rockford drove a GMC Sierra Classic pickup truck throughout the series. In the course of the storylines Jim often borrowed Rocky's truck when his own Firebird was being repaired from its frequent major damage sustained during cases, or was too "hot" (i.e., the LAPD, which knew Jim well, was seeking to bring him in).
Rocky's truck had a 400-cubic-inch engine, Turbo 400 automatic transmission, and a four-wheel drive factory setup.[10] The custom exterior paint was silver with maroon panels and orange pinstriping. Additionally, the truck sported various after-market accessories added by noted California customizer and off-road racer Vic Hickey, including the winch, brush guard, hubcap covers, sidestep bed plates, auxiliary gas tanks, custom steering wheel, rear roll bar, Cibié headlamps mounted on the front bumper/rear roll bar, and Pace CB radio. In several Season 5-6 episodes, Rocky drives a candy-apple red 1980 GMC C-10 Short Box pickup when his original vehicle is said to be in the shop for repair of damage from one of Jim's earlier adventures.
Other cars[edit]
Beth Davenport drove a yellow 1973 Porsche 914 in Season 1,[11] before switching to an orange 1975 model in Season 2 (though in episode 202, "The Farnsworth Stratagem" she drove a 1972 Audi 100 C1[12]) and using it through the first half of Season 3, last appearance in episode 311, "The Trouble With Warren".[13] In Season 3, she switched to a Mercedes-Benz 450SL.[14] Police cars used during the series were usually the 1972-1973 AMC Matador, in real-life use by the LAPD during the 1970s. From the third season, the 1974 second-series, "coffin nose" Matador was also used, which was also the last AMC model used by California law enforcement agencies.[15]
Theme song[edit]
The show's theme song, titled "The Rockford Files", was written by noted theme music composers Mike Post and Pete Carpenter. It appears at the opening and ending of each episode with different arrangements. Throughout the show's tenure, the theme song went through numerous evolutions with later versions containing a distinct electric guitar-based bridge section played by session guitarist Dan Ferguson.[16] The theme for #1.7 "This Case Is Closed II", also has the guitar section from later seasons, added when the episode was split into two parts for syndication.
The theme song was released as a single and spent two weeks at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, in August 1975.[17] The B-side track (or "flip-side"), titled "Dixie Lullabye", was also composed by Post and Carpenter. The single remained on the chart for 16 weeks and won a 1975 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement.[18][19][20] In Canada, the song reached No. 8,[21] and was No. 84 in the year-end chart.[22]
For more than forty years, the British football team Tranmere Rovers have used the Rockford theme as walk-out music for most games. Occasionally it has been dropped, and then restored by popular demand.[23]
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#7__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#7__descriptionDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
Home media[edit]
DVD[edit]
Universal Studios has released all six seasons of The Rockford Files on DVD in Region 1. On November 3, 2009, they released The Rockford Files- Movie Collection, Volume 1, featuring the first four post-series telefilms.[34] On May 26, 2015, they released The Movie Collection, Volume 2, five-and-a-half years after the release of volume 1. They also released a 34-disc complete series collection on the same day.[35][36]
On April 18, 2016, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series; they subsequently re-released the first two seasons on DVD in Region 1 on July 5, 2016.[37] On June 13, 2017, Mill Creek re-released The Rockford Files: The Complete Series on DVD and also released the complete series on Blu-ray for the first time ever.[38] This series is on NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service.
Universal Playback has released the first 5 seasons on DVD in Region 2. The pilot for The Rockford Files is in the season 2 set.
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#2__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#2__subtextDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#6__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#6__subtextDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#1__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#1__subtextDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
Remakes[edit]
In 2009, NBC, Universal Media Studios and Steve Carell's Carousel Television produced a revival of the show. David Shore, creator of House, was hired to head the series.[39] In February 2010, it was announced that Dermot Mulroney was cast as Jim Rockford,[40] Alan Tudyk cast as Det. Dennis Becker,[41] Melissa Sagemiller was cast as Beth Davenport,[42] and Beau Bridges was cast as Rocky.[43] A pilot was filmed but never broadcast. Early audiences indicated that the pilot was not directed well.[44] On May 13, 2010, the Rockford Files remake was scrapped by NBC.[45]
A feature adaptation was in production by Universal Pictures as of 2012, with Vince Vaughn associated with the project as producer and star. After the death of actor James Garner in 2014, the film adaptation was postponed, but Vaughn in 2012 was hoping to get the film project made.[46]
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#5__titleDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$
$_$_$DEEZ_NUTS#5__subtextDEEZ_NUTS$_$_$