TV COPS WEEKEND - The lighter side of crime

So far we've looked at a wealth of TV Cops with still more to come, between them these guys have brought killers, rapists, thieves and fraudsters to book, and that's not to mention the odd terrorist. But there's also a lighter side of TV crime fighting, those sleuths who play it for laughs - Deputy Dawg ran from 1959 - 1972 and along with Lt. Columbo was one of the TV tecs I could do a pretty good impression of as a kid. Then there was Officer Dibble who terrorised Top Cat and his friends for a great many years. And another favourite across generations is the cartoon version of Inspector Clouseau in the cartoon spin off of The Pink Panther movies. In all there were hundreds upon hundreds of cartoon cops and even Bugs Bunny has appeared as a cop or PI in several cartoons.

Live action cop comedies are slightly rarer than the cartoon cops but they are hardly scarce. Police Squad, the ABC crime comedy that spun off into the successful Naked Gun movies still shows from time to time and is available on DVD. Another well known comedy cop series was Sledge Hammer which ran for two seasons 1986-1988. There are scores more - Remington Steele, Car 54, Barney Miller...the list is endless. But perhaps the most successful of the comedy crime series was Moonlighting which made a major star out of Bruce Willis.

Moonlighting ran for five seasons, each of which got progressively more zany. The show was famous for breaking through the fourth wall - with many episodes making reference to the show's scriptwriters, producers and even the actors. Another TV cop show with humour that has had comparable success is The Rockford Files which itself was a modern day remake of Maverick with Garner more or less playing the same character.

The TV Cop replaced the TV western as the hero of choice on the small screen. Indeed many cop shows are variations of the old cowboy shows we used to watch as children. And there are many variations of the TV cop - the private investigator, the crusading journalist, the amateur sleuth as well as actual badge carrying cops. Yep in TV-Land it's not all deadly serious.

Remember it's healthy to laugh and so in recognition of this The Archive TV Cop Weekend presents a full 6 minute episode of Deputy Dawg-I wonder if I can still to that impersonation?