I have a real sentimental attachment to this main title from SPENSER FOR HIRE. This is the show that began my television career. Bill Rabkin and I wrote a SPENSER spec script and — to our surprise and delight — they bought it, shot it, and hired us to write several more scripts. I can’t believe it’s been twenty years already…
I loved Spenser for Hire. Robert Urich was a great actor who was taken from this world far too soon.
BTW, Lee, your Psych episode (with the mountain lion) finally aired up here in Canada a few days ago. Funny!
The music is simply awful. Why was the saxophone the leading instrument in the eighties?
Avery Brooks was a great Hawk.
SPENSER was a well-acted, literate, exciting and beautifully produced crime series of the kind they, well, dammit, somebody’s gonna have to say it, “just don’t make anymore.” Here’s what else it had going for it that is all but unheard of in today’s TV marketplace:
SPENSER was a single-lead crime show that wasn’t comedic (a la MONK and PSYCH) and that wasn’t — heaven help us — a “procedural” (simply hearing that word makes me want to yawn). All the crime shows on TV nowadays are nearly always ensembles and/or procedurals (the CSI and LAW & ORDER franchises, NAVY NCIS, WITHOUT A TRACE, COLD CASE, CRIMINAL MINDS, CROSSING JORDAN, BONES and dear God when will the madness end?)
As Linda Blair once remarked about a particularly unruly bed-post: “Mother make it stop!”
Two men that could never be replaced in their roles is Robert Urich as Spenser and Avery Brooks as Hawk. Simply perfect casting, as well as Barbara Stock, Ron McLarty and Richard Jaeckel. I would’ve loved if the dvds were a bit more spruced up with a much better menu and actual special features like gag reels, behind the scenes interviews and commentaries with remaining cast members. Spensahhh deserves better.