{"id":7051,"date":"2021-05-28T06:50:18","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T13:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7051"},"modified":"2021-05-28T06:50:20","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T13:50:20","slug":"ruminations-on-the-rockford-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/ruminations-on-the-rockford-files\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruminations on The Rockford Files"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Over the course of the last five months, my Dad and I watched The Rockford Files <\/em>on DVD in chronological order and no more than one episode a day. Sometimes we took a break and didn’t watch the show for a few days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starring the incomparable James Garner and boasting perhaps the best supporting cast for a detective show in television history, The Rockford Files<\/em>, ran for six seasons from 1974-80 and earned multiple Emmy awards. It routinely makes the list of the greatest TV shows of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve loved the show for years but it wasn’t until watching the complete episodes without commercial interruption that I realized how brilliant, funny, groundbreaking and prescient it really was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It holds up incredibly well and never feels dated like Starsky and Hutch<\/em> or Charley’s Angels<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me now ruminate in meandering fashion on the show for the sake of sheer enjoyment and to deliver up, perhaps, some useful cultural commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One car. But THE CAR of 70s television. The golden Pontiac Firebird that was totaled a half dozen times and burned more than any vehicle in showbiz history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rockford never carries a revolver, but owns one. He stashes it in his cookie jar along with his Oreo cookies, the cookies he dunks in milk about every other episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorite bits in the early seasons was Rockford would haul around a tiny printing press that he used to print up phony business cards in the front seat of the Firebird. I never seen that in a novel, TV show or movie. I want one for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best shows are when he runs cons in the pursuit of justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beatup trailer right next to the beach! No neighbors except the ocean, a taco stand, and restaurant with a lounge. Maybe watching this trailer as a kid introduced me to the idea of RV living, although a trailer isn’t really and RV, but close enough. The minimalism of it all is bliss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He’s fishing all the time, usually for surf perch. He eats a lot of spicy street tacos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The beach plays a central role in many episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poignant scenes between a middle aged Rockford and his elderly father Rocky were groundbreaking in their depiction of a caring father and his older son when originally aired and really never surpassed that I am aware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His checkered blazer and slacks look, often with sneakers. He also rocked a windbreaker like no other character in television history. Watching this show has made me start wearing my windbreakers (yes, I own two). My God, maybe I am transforming myself into James Rockford! I am writing detective fiction these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The guest stars! Issac Hayes, Tom Selleck, Rita Moreno, Abe Vigoda, Joan Van Ark, Lindsay Wagner and LAUREN BACALL!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about that supporting cast? Angel (Stuart Margolin) Beth (played by Gretchen Corbett of the Portland Corbett family) Dennis. Rocky. Chapman. The cast really made the show work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rockford was so fundamentally a decent guy and a nice anti-hero. He couldn’t say no to anyone who needed help. He never quit on a client or friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He charged $200 a day plus expenses and practically never collected from his clients or earned the fat finder fees he was owed. He’s always broke and practically a loser in that realm of life, but a winner everywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorite bits is what I call the Rockford Maneuver, where he always holds a woman by the arm when they’re walking. I tried it out myself a couple times, announcing it as the Rockford Maneuver and it always got a big laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rocking and bluesy theme song that was actually a chart hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was also struck by some of the prescient nature of the shows. There was one where a father wouldn’t accept his gay son. There was another about right wing, white power, conspiracy nuts (now currently running the Republican party in Oregon and elsewhere) and a show about the dangers of a corporation using computers to collect private information from American citizens and then use it to generate wealth. This was 20 years before the Internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show points out, on occasion, the terrible effects of mass incarceration because Rockford was an ex con.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the lock picking and calls from telephone booths. How the phone recorder sometimes played a central role in the plotting of an episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And how could I forget how many times Rockford gets roughed up by various \u201capes, gorillas, goons, cavemen\u201d etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did read somewhere there have been a few attempts at a modern reboot. I believe pilots were even shot. Nothing clicked, however, and we are left with the original. Let’s hope it’s never remade. Look what happened to Perry Mason.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the course of the last five months, my Dad and I watched The Rockford Files on DVD in chronological order and no more than one episode a day. Sometimes we took a break and didn’t watch the show for a few days. Starring the incomparable James Garner and boasting perhaps the best supporting cast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1118,1117,1116],"class_list":["post-7051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","tag-james-garner","tag-rockford-files","tag-tv-shows","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7051"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7054,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7051\/revisions\/7054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}