Two Hundred A Day - Episode 124: William Wiard Retrospective Rewind

Episode Date: August 27, 2023

Nathan and Eppy end our Summer of Wiard by rewinding back through the entire Wiard Rockford Filesography. This excuse gives us a good way to chat about some of the show's most standout episodes, and we assemble a Recommended Viewing list of our 6 most recommended Wiard-directed episodes, one from each season. A fun conversation! We also go to our answering machine to field questions and comments from listeners on recent episodes. Our final Recommended Viewing list: * S1: Sleight of Hand (our episode 3) * S2: Gearjammers (our episodes 8 and 9) * S3: The Family Hour (our episode 111) * S4: Requiem For a Funny Box our episode (88) * S5: Heartaches Of A Fool (our episode 121) * S6: Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs (our episode 103) We have another podcast: Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday) at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files (http://tinyurl.com/200files)! We appreciate all of our listeners, but offer a special thanks to our patrons (https://www.patreon.com/twohundredaday). In particular, this episode is supported by the following Gumshoe and Detective-level patrons: * Richard Hatem (https://twitter.com/richardhatem) * Bill Anderson (https://twitter.com/billand88) * Brian Perrera (https://twitter.com/thermoware) * Eric Antener (https://twitter.com/antener) * Jordan Bockelman (https://twitter.com/jordanbockelman) * Michael Zalisco * Joe Greathead * Mitch Hampton's Journey of an Aesthete Podcast (https://www.jouneyofanaesthetepodcast.com) * Dael Norwood wrote a book! Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo123378154.html) * Chuck from whatchareading.com (http://whatchareading.com) * Paul Townend, who recommends the Fruit Loops podcast (https://fruitloopspod.com) * Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app (https://rollforyour.party/) * Jay Adan's Miniature Painting (http://jayadan.com) * Brian Bernsen's Facebook page of Rockford Files filming locations (https://www.facebook.com/brianrockfordfiles/) * Colleen Kelly, Tom Clancy, Andre Appignani, Pumpkin Jabba Peach Pug, Dave P, Dave Otterson, Kip Holley and Dale Church! Thanks to: * Fireside.fm (https://fireside.fm) for hosting us * Audio Hijack (https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/) for helping us record and capture clips from the show * Freesound.org (https://www.freesound.org/) for other audio clips

Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm EpidioDepthShop. And we are coming to you with a special episode this time. We are finishing out our summer of Wired with the rewired retrospective rewinding through the Wiredverse. Excellent. verse. Excellent. So if you are just joining us for the first time, we are going to be talking about a bunch of episodes as opposed to one dedicated episode. And so we will talk about that more in a second. But first, I see a big blinking red light on our answering machine.

Oh, we should get that then. As a tradition, the size, the physical size of the light grows with the additional message. It's a dreamlike quality to this technology. Yes, yes. First off, I don't recall if we've mentioned this recently in a mainline episode, but a big thank you to Mitch Hampton for having us on the Journey of Vanessa podcast. Oh yeah, that's a lot of fun. Yeah, we talked about it on the Plus Expenses. I don't remember if we having us on the journey of Vanessa podcast. That's a lot of fun. Yeah. We talked about it on the plus expenses.

I don't remember if we mentioned it on the main episode at that time, but you, you hear him in our gumshoe. Thank you. Read is the journey of Vanessa. The podcast does help sponsor 200 a day, but Mitch invited us on to talk about the Rockford files. So you can find the Journey of an Aesthetic Podcast

wherever you find your podcasts. I'm unsure if there's a specific episode number because he does his show in seasons, but it is the 200-a-day plus expenses rockfish show with Epi and Nathan is the title. And it came out on July 13th, 2023. Should be easy to find yeah um i thought it was a fun talk uh we talk about the rockford files we talk about um some kind of background stuff

about how we do the show and how the show came about uh and we kind of dive into some of the stuff like the moral qualities of jim rockford yes he's very easy to talk to. Jim and also Mitch. So, yeah, that was a lot of fun. It is a worthwhile show to check out if you're interested in art and aesthetics and music in particular, I think. Yeah, creative processes. Yeah. We also received a recent five-star review

on the old Apple Podcasts. It's one of my favorite quantity of stars. So thank you to a listener, Mark, who leaves a review essential listening for the Rockford files fan. Well-produced hosts know their stuff and are clearly good friends. Some additional insights to push it into the way beyond the average podcast. An excellent listen.

Wow. Well, thank you. I'm chuffed. listen. Wow. Well, thank you. I'm chuffed. Yeah, couldn't put it better myself. An excellent listen. But we always appreciate the occasional five-star review over on Apple Podcasts or

whatever your platform of choice is. The ones that I see are the ones from Apple. I don't know. The other ones are also appreciated. I just don't think I see them. Alright, we received a very fun email um about an old episode that i wanted to share from this is uh talking about our episode 24 when we did white on white and nearly perfect right which is the the uh lance white uh i think it's the first one so yes this is the Lance White. Lance White. I think it's the first one. So yes, this is the first appearance of Lance White played by Tom Selleck in a very memorable episode.

Anyway, we received an email from Julianne Wells, who played Belle LeBelle, the dancer in that episode, who tells Lance White where to find the missing girl that they're looking for him. You see Mr. White, Lance? I love Joey, but he dumped me for Veronica Teasdale. I think I may know where he's taken her. He has a cabin at Lake Malibu. 1365 East Shore Drive. I see. Wait a minute. Hmm? I'm just a little skeptical of all this.

I mean, people don't just walk in and volunteer information on cue. It's always very exciting to hear from people involved with the show in any capacity. So we just wanted to say thank you to Julianne for listening and reaching out. And she shared a couple of thoughts with us. The actor, Frank Christie, who plays the goon, was killed in his driveway after this acting job because Frank was a thug in real life i shouldn't laugh it's not funny but you know we always talk about memorable goons and um i guess sometimes you get you get a real one but you found something kind of uh humorous let me see if i can find this one again so while you're double checking that um uh she continues liked your

take on the episode tom selick and james garner were the nicest gentlemen to work with had lunch with garner during another rockford uh a truly truly golden man um a great man to work with is what uh what i'm hearing here and i think you know we uh replied also i don't know if julian will hear this um but uh bell labelle i think is one of those memorable side characters that we yeah like this was our episode 24 we did it a really long time ago i remember bell labelle yeah this whole episode is kind of a bit of a send-up of pi tropes right it's a send-up within a send-up almost and so the bell labelle is like this very fun um send-up of this kind of character that is

this like person who's just going to turn and tell tell the detective everything they know at the slightest uh uh encouragement but um i think one theme that we hear over and over anytime we read an interview or hear from anyone involved with the show is that james garner was just a great guy to work with yeah one of the great ones um and it is nice to have that reinforced over and over because uh especially in this day and age yeah exactly like it's uh it's nice it's nice that there are some good ones out there so frank christie um he did a few other things beyond this episode before he was he was murdered but uh his imdb photo is actually a photo of his obituary yeah and so that's a little i mean like that might even be unique on imdb i'm not entirely sure uh but apparently according to imdb which is citing america's most wanted uh his killers were uh hired by a former lover's husband

a very sordid tale yeah yeah uh honestly a rockford files episode right like it uh you know could have been um so but yeah uh hell of a time yeah Yeah. Meanwhile, James Gardner is great. That's what we hear. That's what we continually hear over and over again. All right. Getting to some listener feedback. We had an email from listener Eli referring to episode 119, just a fun observation, a deadly maze. And I feel like I've noticed this sometimes too, but it's one of those things where it's like,

I don't know if it's always included in the edit. But Eli says, there are a couple of times in Deadly Maze where Jim holds up a piece of paper with an address. There's no way that's Jim Rockford or Garner's handwriting. It's not quite calligraphy, but it looks like a wedding invitation. Jim is a chicken scratch guy for sure.

Agreed. Yeah, agreed. You know, sometimes you have these things done for production reasons so that now here's the prop that he needs to hold up so that we can read it quickly on the screen. That would be a fun character quirk to have just like immaculate handwriting. Take the time to write your notes. There was a gag. I don't remember what episode, but there was where Dennis was trying to take notes. Oh, yeah.

The one I was just thinking about this one, the very fun one where Jim is wrong. Irving the Explainer is the one that we're trying to remember here. But yes, it's where there's the they're trying to track down these pieces of art that this director who might have been a Nazi might have stolen. There are all these details and

Dennis is taking notes and keeps asking for clarification with the name on that. Yeah, anyways, it would have been fun to just, you know, have a character who just takes a long time taking notes because they're they're doing polygraphy right like they're very very elaborate uh note-taking eli also says uh i assumed as an inside joke to the fans where jim says he doesn't do missing persons cases aren't most of his cases missing persons and the person looking for the other person always lies to him about why they're looking for someone. So that's the other joke, I assume, where he says he doesn't work for people who don't level with them.

He only works for people who don't level with them. Yeah, I agree on all points. I think we didn't really. It is one of those things that's just embedded in the rock traditionists of the show that like, yeah, you know, if he's in that that episode i don't do missing persons as a way to because he doesn't want to work for this guy that's why he's saying that right but yeah usually it's he doesn't work domestic cases right like that's the other that's his uh usual line but uh yeah i agree he only works for people who don't love that's kind of his whole thing it would be fun because like oftentimes and very much in the rock profiles, like a fictional character will draw a line in the sand simply to cross it.

Yeah. Like I'm drawing this line. I will not do this. And it's like, OK, so then we need to get you beyond that. We need to get you to do that. And it would be kind of fun to like enumerate all of Jim's lines that just each episode that violates all or not all. Yeah. and then just each episode that violates all of them. Or not all of them. Yeah, that's the thing.

The circumstances are always going to push him to what he needs to do. Eli also talks about some Rockford family stuff, which we have another comment that feeds into it. So I'm going to talk about both of these at once. Something that has always bothered me is Jim and Rocky's ages. So in Heartaches of a Fool, which is in the late 70s, they say Rocky is too old to be driving and is 68. So that would mean he was born around 1910.

Jim served in Korea 1950-52. So Jim had to be born around 1930, which would make Rocky a young dad, but feasible. But then there's some other details. Isn't he supposed to be a World War II vet? Because he mentions the angel that he was in cbs in 1941 pearl harbor he'd been over 30 so that seems a

little old unless he was career military which we he clearly is not um if jim was in korea and born around 1930 he'd be 44 ish at the beginning of the series which is James Garner's real age around but Jim is I think supposed to be played younger and then he says they treat Rocky as an old coot at 68 so Jim being in his mid-40s seems off. I know none of this is in any way important.

This reminds me of the we kind of went over this when we watched the 90s movie or one of them, about, I cannot think of her name, the psychiatrist, the psychologist. Megan, yes. And they're all over the place. Yeah, they play real fast and loose with their timeline. Because there is a time where you look at it and you're like, wait a minute, her and Jim, when they first meet, she's way too young.

Yeah. But obviously, when you go back to the episodes where they first meet, that whole section, her backstory had not been written yet. So, yeah, I mean, it's what happens. Yeah. Time is fluid. I feel like there's a mention. I couldn't find it when I was looking through real quick, but I think there's a mention in that Robertson book about Rockford's perspective age, because it's also like who they were casting his love interest says in the show. And it's not that he was necessarily always supposed to be like older than them, but he was, but he was because I don't think it's specified. But he was. But he was. Because I don't think it's specified.

There's kind of like some slippage. Like either he's just the age he is and he just, that's just how things are. And we just don't talk about it. Or he's like playing younger. But then that doesn't really line up necessarily with the timeline as established. Again, I agree with Eli. None of this matters. Yeah. It is kind of an outgrowth of that era of of tv where it's like

there's not a character bible somewhere of like here's the detailed backstory of every character in this show uh i mean there there is maybe in terms of characterization but not in terms of like biography which i think gets into this other comment from uh patron rachel uh via patreon uh as a rockford files fan and an English major, I have the grapes of wrath on my mind. Is it possible that Rocky and Jim's mom were Okie migrants to California during the Dust Bowl? I've been watching for any evidence.

All I see is an appreciation for country music and maybe some Woody Guthrie-esque union support. Jim did once refer to truck driving the family from Bakersfield and a great-grandfather who was a horse thief and of course James Garner is an Oklahoman any other thoughts on Rockford family history I I mean I like it I think that's uh I think that fits yeah fits yeah um yeah it's interesting because uh Rocky Rocky's moral core is is um do I describe it? Because he does kind of go back and forth.

Like, quite often he's surprised that, like, for instance, that the U.S. doesn't have his best interests at heart. Right. But he definitely is like a truck union man, right? Like, he's a teamster. Especially when we, we'll talk about this episode, but Hardik's. Yeah, Hardikaches of a fool. One of the main points is that he was tricked into doing a non-union

trucking job, and he's very upset about that. But yeah, I think it fits. One of the fun things about Rocky is when we do get to learn a little bit of his backstory. And I think some of the

text is in the Aaron the aaron ironwood one there and our school of success because i think they talk about growing up in oklahoma or yeah because they were he was almost a brother right yeah he was almost like he was like a foster he was fostered by the rockfords and like almost adopted or like treated like he was adopted yeah yeah that kind of thing and i feel like that they treated like he was adopted. Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing. And I feel like that they talk about that was in Oklahoma, I think. Yeah. I'd have to go back and double check.

I can't imagine it not being Oklahoma. Right. Cause I mean, obviously James Gardner is from there and like, that's our, that's Meeker. Right. It's a well he keeps going to. Yeah. And so kind of dust bowl era would be like the 30s right i should know this i mean his license plate is okg right oklahoma gangster yes yeah so that would kind of match up vaguely with rocky's age moving to california in the 30s yeah when jim is a young kid because as established from

eli's comment i don't know yeah i'm not sure how if the the the service rocky service record enters into it or not um if that was you know if there's more text for that or not but i feel like there's enough there that we can we can can head cannon at least that this is a, that this all comes together. I'm going to go with it. We have one more comment from a friend of the show, Jordan Backelman, not Brockleman via Patreon on our episode one 20,

uh, talking about the return of the black shadow. Oh, right. Uh, cause we were also talking about sleight of hand in that one as well. Uh, so Jordan says sleight of hand ends on one as well. So, Jordan says,

Sleight of Hand ends on a down note with Jim mourning the loss of his girlfriend. A rare somber note to end a Rockford Files on. That one was adopted from a novel, Thin Air, as we have discussed. Even though it's a bummer, I still enjoy it more than this one. This one being Return of the Black Shadow. I think that if

this episode more accurately depicted the reality of what Gale was struggling with, instead of ending on such a flirty note i would perhaps like it more but i don't think audiences at the time would have liked that i could see it leaving a bad taste in their mouths and they they may not want to tune in the following week so it's probably a wise choice to attempt to perk up the uncomfortable story with the ending they chose clunky as it may be almost every other episode ends on an upbeat or a joke. So this one might've felt like a stiff right cross to regular viewers of the Rockford files. If it ended more severely.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Like I, I can probably count the down note. If it's a down note, it's a right. Like it's a, you didn't get the millions.

Yeah. Like you thought you did, but you didn't, you know, or it's a down note, but not for Jim. Like, um, quickie Nirvana kind of ends on a down note but not for jim like yeah um quickie nirvana

kind of ends on a down note but it's not what i was thinking it's not jim's down note it's yeah skies and uh uh to protect and serve kind of ends on a down note but it's not jim's it's um the character that joyce van patten um plays yeah you know that her whole worldview kind of has come come crumbling down um around her so yeah yeah i would agree i think um they did what they could with that one yeah i mean i think it's another bit of evidence of a uh reach exceeding the grasp in the the tone of that particular episode and i would say there's even episodes of the rockford files where the upbeat ending is a weird is almost a weird tonal shift from i mean this one in particular i guess but like there's some other ones where it's like and now we all are laughing at the end when it's like jim isn't getting the money and the criminal isn't getting brought to justice but like there's a fun

joke that we get to end on yeah it kind of goes both ways sometimes. It would be interesting to kind of enumerate the bummer episodes. There's nothing wrong with a bummer episode, right? But I agree with the analysis that we're doing. If you're doing broadcast television and the whole point of your show is not necessarily to be a bummer, then— If the point is to get people to come back next week. Yeah. Then you might be really next week yeah then you might be really sparse with that or you might try and do something but like i was thinking of um uh the

first gandhi episode or uh i don't exactly remember the ending of that one but i'm pretty sure that's not uh an upbeat the the hammer of c block the reveal is not upbeat the ending is kind of a like yeah life will go on kind of yeah but yeah the reveal is a downbeat ending is kind of a like yeah life will go on kind of yeah but yeah the reveal is a downbeat for sure yeah yeah well it's like it's a it's a balance right because it's like when does the story that you're telling require this ending to pull it together and it's it's particularly interesting with the rock profiles in that it it's drawing from the noirs quite often and noirs are bummers right i mean not all of them but like that like that that genre quite often it

it is part of the social contract that they're allowed to be a bummer right and that's also yeah so it's drawing from noirs but it's also the i mean the whole show is kind of walking this balancing line of like like the whole embodiment of jim rockford in the world is a bit of a send-up of the tv crime drama yeah yeah so instead of being serious and gritty it's kind of funny and instead of always being working all the time he's trying not to work right like all of those things but in pursuit of that there's still there's still some gravity like he still has like we talk about the emotional core of an episode a lot of the time when it's like why people are acting the way they are the things in their lives that have

driven them to the place that they are and a lot of times those are serious yeah and rockford as a character treats them seriously when it's appropriate to do so but then we'll still end on a joke because like yeah it's supposed to be fun and we're supposed to be enjoying watching garner act and he's a charming yeah yeah yeah it's a nice defense mechanism so yeah so it's that's part of the complexity of the show it includes all of these different um different pieces all right well that was the last of our answering machine messages for now. As always, if you have thoughts you want to share with us, you can join our Patreon at patreon.com slash 200 a day. You can send us an email to 200 a day podcast at gmail.com.

And there is also a contact form on the website at 200 a day dot fireside dot FM. So you don't need to make an account anywhere or anything. You can just submit a comment, um, over there as well. And also each individual episode on our website has comments enabled. So you can leave an individual comment on an individual episode at the website or at the Patreon.

Cause those are also public posts, whatever, whatever works, whatever floats your firebird. How are we doing this? All right. So we are here. So we have completed our Wired watch.

We have watched all of the William Wired directed episodes of the Rockford Files. It's a wrap on William Wired. At long last. I'm just counting up. Okay, let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six. We're building tongue twisters for ourselves here. Mm-hmm. Four, five, six.

Okay. Because some of them are doubles that were aired as one episode and some are doubles that were aired as two episodes. So counting those as one and two respectively, I count 26 episodes yeah directed by william wired of the rockford files which is the most of any single director uh and it took us i would say 24 of those episodes before we figured out how to pronounce his name yes yes well we had

to do some dedicated research uh yeah so we finally found it but yeah i mean we've it's been a full span of the show i mean if we had not done a dedicated watch, we probably will would still be watching these through the next year. But the first one of these that we watched was our third episode. Yeah. And the last one was our one hundred and twenty third episode. Only rock and roll never die. So there you go. We got 120 episodes of our show, 26 of which are.

So it's a full quarter of our episodes. Yeah. So I guess the first thing to say here is that there's probably an indelible mark on the series from this director, right? Like, it's just as a consumer of the series, just looking through these episodes, we're going to go through them one by one. Don't worry, folks. Looking through them, I'm not saying that they're all my favorites,

but there are some really standout episodes, like some of them that are just like, definitely on my list of like, if you're going to watch the Rockford Files, make sure you watch this episode. I mean, if we're establishing baselines for a rockford files episode there are worse ways to do it than the director who did the most of them and then you know looking at the writers right like yeah the ones written by the core writing staff your your canals your barlets your chases cross-referenced with the ones directed by

wires like that gives you kind of a median level of like here's what a rockford episode on average is going to be yeah i think that's uh not unfair to say so our our vague frame for this conversation is that we're doing the rewired retrospective. So we're going to rewind through the wired verse, going through the episodes he directed in reverse airing order. So we're going to start off with the Hawaiian Headache, which is the last one he directed that aired. And then we're going to go backwards all the way back to Sleight of Hand in the first season, which was the first of his that he directed that aired. Yes. And like you said, the third episode that we ever did. Right. Yeah. So it's kind of interesting seeing how we how our bounce around kind of intersects with these, because obviously we're going to remember the ones we've done most recently better.

But some of the ones we did first were indelible marks on our show. Yeah, exactly. Buckle up. We're just going to kind of talk about them. But also, I think, like you said, some of these are standout must watch episodes. Yeah. So maybe by the end of our conversation, we will have highlighted a watch list, a wired watch list of, you know, maybe the premiere episodes that we would recommend for further viewing if you haven't watched all of these. I think my main overall statement is that even though he's done so many of these episodes, part of that is because he doesn't necessarily have a strong aesthetic. It's a very craftsman-like approach to TV.

We're bringing in pros who do the thing we're asking them to do. And his rep, as we've gleaned from various sources, is like, he knows what he wants. He comes in. He tells us what he wants. He already has the shots in his head. It's efficient. We're not wasting a lot of time. We're getting it done.

It looks good. We're moving on to our next episode. Yeah, yeah. Just glancing at this list, there are definitely some of these that, um, might have moments that I would, that I could attribute to him as like, this is memorable. Right. But in general, I agree. Like, I think it's, um, it's what a Rockford files episode looks like, right? Like that's, that's, that's what we're dealing with here, so. Yeah, because I think just to be totally upfront,

right, most of what makes a great Rockford Files episode is the writing. We're not trying to pretend like that's not what we're talking about when we say, here's a great episode you should watch. They have some performers that are pretty good. I mean, yes, that's true, but I'm saying if you're holding steady the performers and holding steady the director,

the writing is generally what is elevating one of these episodes. I mean, yes, that's true. But I'm saying if you're holding steady the performers and holding steady the director. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The writing is generally what is elevating one of these episodes over another episode. I would agree. 200 Today is a 100% listener-supported show thanks to our patrons. In addition to our gratitude and editing access to our 200 Files Files spreadsheet, patrons receive exclusive episode previews and plus expenses. Our bonus just chatting podcast about media, work, and life. We expend special thanks to our Gumshoe patrons supporting this episode.

Brian Bernson has a Facebook page where he drives his Rockford tribute car to shooting locations from the show. Check out facebook.com slash Brian Rockford Files. Join Mitch Hampton to examine all matters aesthetic at the Journey of an Aesthetic podcast. And Paul Townend recommends the podcast Fruit Loops, serial killers of color. You can find these shows wherever you get your podcasts. Dale Norwood wrote a book. It's about fast ships, cheap drugs,

and American political economy, published by the University of Chicago Press. Find Trading Freedom, How Trade with China Defined Early America, wherever good books are sold. Chuck from whatyou'rereading.com. Shane Liebling has all of your online dice rolling needs sorted at his site rollforyou.party. And check out Jay Adan's amazing miniature painting skills at jayadan.com. In addition, thanks to Andre Apagnani, Tom Clancy.

Pumpkin Jabba Peach Bug. Dave P. Dave Otterson. Kip Hawley. Dale Church. And Colleen Kelly. And finally. Special appreciation for our detective level patrons.

Joe Greathead. Michael Zalisco. Eric Antenor. At Antenor on Twitter. Brian Pereira. At Thermoware. Jordan Bockelman. Not Brockleman.

At Jordan Bockelman. Bill Anderson. At Billand88, and of course, Richard Haddam at Richard Haddam. If you're interested in keeping us going for as little as $1 an episode, check out patreon.com slash 200 a day to see if becoming a patron is right for you. Let us start our rewired retrospective, as promised, with Season 6, Episode 7, The Hawaiian Headache. To begin at the end. Yes, which was our Episode 69. Nice. So this is the one where...

So this is the one where Jim and Rocky win a trip to Hawaii. And then Jim is brought into an issue of national security by his old Korean War sergeant. Mad Dog someone. John Howling Mad Smith. Yes. Ken Swofford. Yes. The inimitable Ken Swofford.

One of my favorite guest stars. He has done four or five different characters yeah including the the dad from um uh the queen of peru yeah carl ronco that's the one yeah they're wrong oh right and he's he's yeah he's been fbi agent a dea agent right pi he's great yeah this is a wild episode kind of in a good way this is kind of an unhinged episode yeah it's uh if i remember correctly um this is the last one they filmed i think so i'm confirming that now imdb says it is yeah um but you know it is a let's take all of the regular cast members on vacation on the company dime right right yeah it was all on location in hawaii

30 years of the rockford files has a award-related entry here for on this one i mean i'll just quote this whole thing because it's all about him this episode was filmed entirely on location in hawaii that show was really fun to make because we had everybody over there and it was just a marvelous marvelous time said jack garner and we all enjoyed each other and we worked well together and it was directed by one of our favorite directors said Jack Garner. And we all enjoyed each other, and we worked well together. And it was directed by one of our favorite directors, Bill Wired. Garner had known Wired since the days when the director was still a film editor. One day, back when I first started acting, Bill told me that he had planned on becoming a director, Garner recalled.

So I said to him, when you become a director, use me. And Bill said, well, Jack, the first time I need a drunk blacksmith, you're it. Sometime later, my agent called me to see if I was available to do a segment of Daniel Boone. It was going to be directed by Bill Wired and he wanted me on the show. So that's all from Jack Garner. Yeah. Yeah. So good stuff.

But yes, this is a bit of a party atmosphere. There's like the shootout with the gangsters where like Howlin' Mad goes. Lives up to mad goes goes lives up to his name lives up to his name um angel like comes along for the ride yeah there's this very thin b plot about why like dennis is there because he's doing something else for the local cops or something yeah our our take on it overall was that it's like it's very silly it very fun. There's not really much of a mystery. It's not a recommend if you haven't done the Rockford Files, but it's a fun thing to do in season six of the Rockford Files, right? For us, Rockford stands. It's kind of fun just to see everyone just having a good time in Hawaii.

Hamming it up. Yeah. If you were just tuning in and this was the first one you saw, I think it might be a little like, hmm, interesting. What is this show? What is this show even? And I appreciate that we got a little shout out to Wired in the right up there from Jack Garner. Yeah. So I think we're going to kind of assemble a list of recommends as we go here.

I'm not sure if this would make my recommend list. No, no. Like I said, perfectly fun episode to watch as a victory lap yeah yeah for a great series right like um but uh i wouldn't put it in the the um put it in front of a new viewer or even like hey you want to remember the rockford files it's it's not really representative yeah. So turn that dial back a little bit more. Yeah, let's rewind a little bit and go back to Only Rock and Roll Will Never Die, season six, three and four. Our most recent episode, episode 123.

This is going to take a lot of thinking on our part here. Our most recent episode, so it's the freshest in our brain, but it was a lot of fun i don't even think i can remember what i said in that episode and we only recorded it a couple weeks ago so this this one so the the rock star tim ritchie uh yeah he has his body man um uh played by george loros uh anthony boy one of our favorite another one of our favorite guest stars guest appearances um bring in jim to find his missing uh former bandmate slash producer old friend eddie is obsessed with this reporter who's hanging around doing a story jim reveals a mob connection

and tries to get out of the gig but then his place gets shot up he gets shot in the leg and things spiral from there there's a nice conniving friend involved who might be a muppet it's right yes um yeah so there's a lot going on it's a two-parter and it's a aired in two parts two-parter i was just finishing up editing this one so it's pretty fresh in my mind after the first episode there was this feeling of like okay but why and then the second episode kind of has all the stuff yeah yeah and i found it a bit tiring to watch because there was a lot of references that i didn't really understand and care to look up. But that might just be a me thing.

Yeah, I didn't come out of this one feeling like it was one of my favorites. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, there's a lot of things that I found memorable about it. There's a lot of good bits and whatnot. There's a lot of good bits. There's a lot of good characters. Yeah. But because of the proximity to the other other the next one is it the next one

lions tigers monkeys and dogs oh no no i was thinking in our viewing order the proximity to um i know this one's on our list oh heartaches of a fool yeah uh which is again like it's him working with a music star who's unable to deal with his fame which is a theme in this one too. Heartaches of Fools is a much tighter episode and a smaller cast and more memorable moments for me

I think. That's interesting that we just happened to end up doing those two in close proximity and they are very comparable. So yeah, I may all save more of that comparison for when we talk about very comparable. So yeah, I may also save more of that comparison for when we talk about that one. But yeah, I think even just looking at the title,

the next couple titles on the list, I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't recommend this one over... Because we have three doubles in a row going in this direction. And if I'm going to recommend one of these, it's not going to be this one. It's going to be one of the other ones. I agree.

I agree. It's fun. It's a Rockford Files episode. It's a Rockford Files. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the next on our list then is Lions, Tigers, Monkeys, and Dogs, which is a two-hour episode.

So syndicated in two parts, but aired as a single episode and this is the one with lauren bacall yeah uh as the socialite kendall who is friends with princess irene who brings in jim because there's attempts on her life and then things get more and more mysterious and confusing as it goes on so the the princess uh thinks that there's attempts on lauren mccall's character yes yes yeah the princess brings in jim because there's attempts on kendall's life this is definitely a standout episode uh i just noticed that this one aired literally the episode before uh the one we just talked about right like so uh good season to be a wired head like like like we call ourselves um this is yeah this is definitely one of one of the better ones like

you know lauren mccall is great uh jim and lauren are great together yeah they're it's an incredible chemistry yeah uh the mystery is full of fun twists and turns yeah i don't know uh what to say about it other than like my memory of it is very warm yeah like i like this definitely one of the ones i would put on a list as if you're gonna watch a two-parter same yeah yeah this was our i don't remember if i mentioned it this was our episode 103 um yeah it really leverages that chemistry the book called Garner chemistry but then it also has that really memorable ending uh where it turns into I think we talked about how this was an episode that really turns into like a vibes like it goes from like plot to vibes like yeah hard at the end and it has that ending with the princess uh going out

onto the football field with like all the voiceover from her past and stuff. Yeah. I am not Irene Pinchuk from Simi Valley. I won't have them all laughing at me. I am a princess. So it really balances, you know know this all character writing and then also this kind of more abstract emotional storytelling in a way that's very that i think works really well and it is also a little interesting to contrast that this one is written by juanita bartlett when rock and roll will never

die was written by david chase and, they kind of have a similar, there are a lot of elements in each one and they're assembled in very different ways. And I think they're testaments to the writing strengths of each of them and they are very different episodes. Yes. And this is always a bonus to any Rock for Files episodes.

It's one of the Charlie Martel, what's his name? Leo Gordon plays the heavy that Jim hires as a bodyguard that does such a poor job. Also always a standout when we get to see him. Yeah, so that definitely goes on our recommend list, I'd say. Yeah.

And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the next one might as well, which is the next one in reverse order goes to the end of season five with season five, episode 19. Never send a boy king to do a man's job. Again, a two hour episode, again, written by Juanita Bartlett and one of my favorite episodes of all time. Just straight up. Yeah. This was our episode 79.

So if you've joined us recently, it may be worth going back to check it out. This is a con game episode, so it's very different in tone. It is the return. In fact, apparently the original title was the return of Ritchie Brockleman,

who is coming to Jim for help because his dad is getting strong-armed out of a printing plant that he owned or was part of or something. So Richard Brockleman is a young up-and-coming PI who Jim has done some work with in the past, and is coming back to Jim for help. And Jim ends up assembling a team of cons to run a big store con on the gangster. He's not like a mobbed up gangster. He's kind of like a private gangster. Yeah, yeah.

If I remember right. An indie gangster. Yeah, he's more of a crime tycoon than a mob guy. But they end up convincing him that he is under a mummy's curse. That's the con. So that he ab under a mummy's curse. That's the con, so that he abandons his business affairs. And, yeah, it's

great. Yeah, we got another Juanita Bartlett in the house kind of situation with it. Yeah, I agree. I would say it's a nexus of Rockfordishness. An easy recommend. Yeah. Like, hey, yeah. Again, it's a two-parter, right? it's a nexus of Rockfordishness. An easy recommend.

Yeah. Like, hey, yeah. Again, it's a two-parter, right? It's a two-parter. But again, it's a two-hour episode that's split into two for syndication. Yeah. But it's, yeah, the single two-hour slot. If a friend is saying, hey, this Saturday, I want something like a matinee while I eat my lunch. Do it.

Yeah. Or like, I really like The Sting, but I want to watch something else from the 70s. Yeah. Like, oh, you should watch this episode, this hour and a half running time episode of The Rockford Files. It's basically a con movie. Yeah, exactly. Filled with great characters and yeah. Some real tense moments and a great breakdown of how a con game works.

Which I think we clipped and put into that episode. But there's a moment where Jim explains to Richie how the psychology of the con works. Yeah. how the psychology of the con works. Yeah. Well, the whole idea of a con is to start the mark off working with something that he understands, plausible stuff. And then with each move, you take him further and further away from reality. Huh?

You hook him. You show him the pot of gold, then you back away. Then you bring in the stall. You get him off balance. So when you're ready to sting him, he's going to go for something on the first day of the con. He would have laughed at you for even suggesting. Yeah, it's a whole thing. It's great.

Yeah, highly recommend. Okay. We're back. One more episode. New Season 5, Episode 18, A Material Difference, which was our episode 76. This is an Angel episode. Angel runs a con where he pretends to be a hitman right since that he takes contracts but doesn't actually do the hit yeah oh my god okay so this

one's going back for us right like this 76 puts us in uh 2001 2002 whenever we started this, this is from October of 2020 is when we did this. Yeah. Uh, so it wasn't that long ago. It was long in COVID years though. So it's almost three years ago. Yeah. As we record.

Um, I did, I like angel as a hit man. I remember loving like angel trying to be this appearing as this, uh, dangerous character. The looking at the IMDB, the photo of him with the sunglasses. It's just perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Angel trying to be this, appearing as this dangerous character. Looking at the IMDb, the photo of him with the sunglasses is just perfect.

Yeah, yeah. That's the most I can recall from it. Like, I'm sure it was fun. Angel's running this con as a hitman. The con is I can collect the front money, not kill them, and then no one can come after me because they're going to incriminate themselves as someone who hired a hitman so i just get the half payment every time the first time he tries to run this it's a russian agent hires him to kill a russian defector who has a secret formula for blue jeans right right that's the material gag yeah and then u.S. Naval Intelligence is involved because they want to use this secret formula to make Navy dungarees because it'll save the U.S. government so much money, which is a fantastic little detail.

But we don't really find all this out until the very end. Most of the plot is about Angel running from people who are trying to kill him, Jim trying to help them out, help him out, kind of. Yeah, I don't really remember all the details. Is this the one where Jim gets very angry with Angel? Ooh, it might be. Is there, is that one, the very memorable scene where the acting is so good? I think that one's actually in a different episode. Okay.

I know what you're talking about. I think that's, that might be in the one that is like the, word where angels like the patsy in the land swindle yeah he thinks he's a big man but it turns out that he's being used i don't think that's in this up this that's not in our right up here anyway i know what you're talking about i think this might have a moment like that but it might not be the moment that you're thinking about yeah yeah i think i think right. Yeah, no, it's definitely a fun episode. Our take on it, just going back to my notes, is that it's a fun romp. It's not really necessarily solid or like the actual like mystery is a little fast and loose. But watching Jim and Angel do Jim and Angel things is always fun.

Always a pleasure. Yeah. Jim and Angel things. It's always fun. Always a pleasure. This one I think also has the spy movie frame where it does January 1st. It has a little

typing on the screen thing. It kind of stands out visually in a couple of those ways. That's a thing we might be able to thank Wired for. I don't know. So then we go back one more episode in season 5 to episode 17 The Return of the Black Shadow

which we also did recently, our episode 120. And we talked a little bit about in our answering machine thing. Yeah. So this one feels a little backdoor pilot-y again for Coop. I think on the Patreon there was a big conversation

about how we would definitely watch watch a show where it was just coop going undercover into a different criminal organization yeah yeah it's like yes i would watch that that would be great uh it's not an episode that i i would recommend uh the content is uh you know there's yeah as exhaustively detailed we did not find it to be particularly great handling of a revenge a rape revenge plot and it's barely rockford rockford's barely in it yeah there's definitely some good moments in it and there's definitely you know some things that that i enjoyed but when it comes to this retrospective it stands out for a lot of reasons but not in a way that i would but when it comes to this retrospective it stands out for a lot of reasons but not in a way that i would put it on a you should watch this list exactly yeah

though ironically it does have some of the strongest visual styling with some of the like the way that the a lot of the motorcycle stuff is shot and stuff and some of the action scenes are very cinematic and that all feels very directorially strong. Good stuff from Wired in service of an episode that I don't really recommend people watch. Yeah. I think that's a good way to sum it up. All right. And then we go back two more episodes to Season 5, Episode 14, Guilt, which was our episode 57.

I dare you to tell me what this episode is about. I actually do remember this one. Just looking at the IMDB debriefing, and I do remember this episode. This is an ex of his thinks she's being hunted. She's being hunted. The most dangerous game. Yeah yeah i don't remember the plot exactly she is being it starts off with like uh her dog gets shot right like that's the first scene it's kind of like a unclear if it's a warning or a botched attempt i think it's like

her husband is in some business or something okay i do not remember the plot the idea here is that so this this ex valerie brings back jim because she's in trouble and she needs help but she's emotionally manipulative and throughout the episode i think we see in stark detail how toxic their relationship was and continues to be. Yeah. It does end with a helicopter chase, a helicopter chasing a car, like chasing Jim, and they drive into a hangar and the helicopter explodes. Yes, I remember that. There's a lot of stuff that's like, whoa, that happens in this episode. But my memory is that the portrayal of the toxic relationship was a little too real for me

so i i found it a difficult watch even though there's definitely some fun stuff happening on the screen uh yeah so that was my takeaway there's nothing wrong with this episode but i personally would not choose to watch it again yeah it probably was perfectly fine but uh not not memorable well the next one in our reverse order is going down to season five episode six a good clean bust with simple rights which is uh our episode 80 frankie falco Falcone. Yeah, Falcone. This is the TV detective that Rocky is obsessed with, right? Yes. Oh, God, what is his catch line? Freeze, turkey.

Yeah, that's it. Go on, go on and say it. Please. There you go. Freeze, turkey. That's it, that's it. Yeah, the guest star is Hectorctor elizondo as frank falcone i have fond memories of this one there's a lot of fun stuff in it the falcone character is fun

it has a great graphic design is my passion moment where there's this like sign outside a ballroom that is just just a great example of typography um that i remember very well there was some fun research um because i was looking some of the stuff up and it was like calumet city goons that it turns out calumet city was like a organized crime location in the in the 20th in the early 20th century some fun like oh this is probably coming from some personal knowledge or some research that the writer did. This one was written by Rudolph Borchert. There's a Rockford Files, this is a general trope, but there's a Rockford Files trope where Jim gets paired up with someone who is in some way involved in romanticizing jim's life right like um you know oftentimes he ends like that one guy who just wants to be a pi oh yeah um that uh reads all the detective novels

or whatever so this is another one of those and it's just got great moments you know like um frank yeah it's a fun character they like go they have that whole bit where they go out like on the town and he like starts a fight. Yeah. Cause he's trying to get some space away from Jim. Cause Jim is like babysitting him. Cause the whole deal is that he has like a toy deal. Yeah.

If he, but he, he is not a well-behaved man. So if he keeps getting into trouble, then his toy deal is going to fall through. Like it's a whole, there's like a moral panic about like violent toys and stuff it's yeah there's fun stuff uh our summary here because i do write you know summaries of our episodes for the for

the website so i'm going to those to kind of be like what did we think about this one said uh we found the plot to be unremarkable but the jim frank dynamic makes for a good vibe yeah yeah i remember Like even just looking at the IMDb photos of the two of them together, it's clear. I'm not sure if this is a recommend but it is a fond It's fun. If I was like, I'm going to turn

on the Rockford Files and this was the one that came on I'd be like, alright, cool. I'm excited. And then we go a couple episodes earlier. Episode three, season five, the Jersey bounce. This is the prequel to just a couple of guys. So I'm going to have a little trouble untangling those two, I think.

Oh, this is the introduction of Coop. It's the introduction of Coop. It's the introduction of Eugene and Mickey, the two Jersey losers. Like wannabe gangsters. It's weird to say. It is the introduction. They're the same characters. They're completely remade in the next episode, right? Like to the point where Jim doesn't remember them or

yeah. Yeah, it's a two alternate reality versions of these characters. So in this one, it's one of those kind of fun premises where it's like, why does this story happen? Because these two guys rent a house next to Rocky's and then they keep like stealing Rocky's like grilling supplies and Jim just can't take it anymore.

Yeah. But then someone ends up dead. They point the finger at Jim. And then there's a fairly convoluted plot through which we find out that this guy was dating a local mobster's sister and like was beating her up. And so they, the guys from Jersey were like, if we take him out out that will put us in good graces with this guy but he didn't actually ask them to and so that creates this whole storm of of uh uh it creates the the drama of the plot of like who did what when and why and who knew what when and all that it's a juicy rockford files because of like okay so you get rocky definitely you get villains who are not competent

right not they're not safe at all there are multiple villains with multiple concerns which i always love in a rockford files episode right like rockford is tangled up in something where there are a lot of vectors for things to happen uh and also it's the introduction to coop we don't get a whole lot of coop in the rockford Files, but I do like him. This is kind of the most we get of him. I mean, I guess we kind of get the most of him in The Return of the Black Shadow. But as one of Jim's, you know, circle, like we get the introduction, we get a little bit of his background. We have that great scene in the bar where they kind of have a bit of sparring, but kind of come to an understanding.

Yeah. You get to see them become friends. The actual lawyer that Jim gets is bad. It's like mailing it in. Yeah. And so he ends up going, talking to Cooper and being like, wait,

this guy knows what he's talking about. And then Cooper unable to drop Jim's case, the same way that Jim is often unable to drop another case. You know, like it's good. I really enjoyed that aspect of this. Now that we're kind of talking about it. So when we originally did it, it was in context of we did the other one. The couple of guys, just a couple of guys. Yeah, yeah. That we'd done just a couple of guys. Then we went back and we did this one. And so we were kind of talking about it in context of that but not doing it in context of that yeah i feel like this is actually a stronger

episode as a yeah don't think about that other episode it happens later it happens later we it didn't exist at the time yeah we get coop we do get a good villains with different concerns um what kind of tangle that we like so much we get jim being very threatening which is kind of fun yeah we get some memorable side characters we get the like the woman who's like the the sister who they like interview because her boyfriend is one who got killed and she talks about how he like loved whales like he had like albums of whale song and stuff he was also like this like wannabe mobster who beat her up all the time like there's some like some gravity to that character that we just see that in that little point of time that still sticks with me a little bit this is the episode where i think she's gifted a heavy metal album

or something like that we tried to figure out who it might have been. I spent a little too much time trying to suss out which one it is. Just looking at the list of titles, I probably wouldn't have put it on a recommend list, but now that we're talking about it, we can talk ourselves into it. It has a lot of good stuff. If we feel like we need a, a,

a honorable mention, maybe. Yeah. Um, I feel like the Jersey bounce. Yeah. So we have a good run here we uh from episode three jersey bounce to episode two of season five rosendahl and gilda stern are dead

oh yes our episode 59 abe vagoda the last abe vagoda yes um we record or yeah we recorded this one october of 2019 so forgive us if we don't really remember it's a rita it's a rita episode it's the second appearance of rita rita katkovic played by rita moreno yeah i'm just gonna straight out and say any episode with her and it's worth watching i remember this one being like really quite gripping. So the whole plot surrounds a doctor who's murdered. And also a nurse, I guess. I think those are the road,

the doctor is Rosendahl and the nurses Gilded Stern. We're trying to figure out if the title had anything to do other than the pun. And we think it's just the pun, but Ava Vigoda plays this mobster who is trying to hide that he has cancer i think yeah either he's trying to cover his tracks or someone is doing it for him or they're like we can't let this get out and this doctor was gonna like because this doctor was getting investigated for being relate like doing mob medicine or something. But then, but Rita gets framed because she's a sex worker and she's in the area of this convention,

this doctor convention. And then this guy's body is found or whatever. And so it's a real character study at the end of this, of the mobster of the Vigoda character. I remember him at the police, the precinct. And it's just so heinct. Yes. It's just so, he's so good. He's just so good.

Lies I got out of you. Nothing but lies. It's not a physical problem. It's an attitude problem. You're not trying in therapy, Mr. Gabriel. The fact is, there is no need for you to be in a wheelchair. There is no need at all. You could be on crutches.

Of course, with crutches, there would be a certain discomfort. Pain, not discomfort. Pain! I ought to kill you where you stand. I ought to kill you slow. He's really good. He's really menacing, but he's also really frail, which is a great combination. There's some Moby Dick illusions going on.

There's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot. There's dick illusions going on there's like there's a lot there's a lot there's a lot going on but uh yeah i guess i just remember um in my write-up i say it's a great character study of a villain who thinks he's a victim um and the rita gym chemistry is so fun to watch that's worth the price of admission all on its own yeah it's it's good kind of a sleeper because i don't know if it would come to mind but again now that i'm talking about it i'm like it's it's good kind of a sleeper because i don't know if it would come to mind yeah again now that i'm talking about it i'm like it's really satisfying it's a real satisfying yeah a real satisfying oneita bartlett episode written episode as well i'd expect i'll be just

looking at our list here um the next episode we're just going to go back to the first episode of the season right which happens to be heartaches of a fool. Yeah. Episode one of season five. Right. Which we very recently did as our episode one 21. So we got episode of this season, episode one,

episode two, episode three, and episode six are all, I mean, there's more in this season that belong to the wired verse, but this start of the season, the first six episodes. Yeah.

This is the most episodes in a season that he does. Yeah. And it's a great start. Yeah. If you weren't a Rockford Files fan before this season, this is a good way to begin. Right? Oh, for sure. Do we think, uh, Rosendahl and Gilda Stern goes on the recommend list?

Yeah, I mean, we're going to overpopulate that recommend list, but we might as well, right? Right now I'm putting stars for definite and pluses for possibles. Yeah. And we can evaluate. I would almost start this one. It's a hard one. I'm with you. When I first read the title in our list, I was like, oh, I think I kind of remember. But then when I remembered that it's Rita and Abe and like, I was like, oh, I really like that. Yeah.

Well, speaking of good ones, again, we have talked about Heartaches of a Fool very recently. And we've already compared another episode unfavorably to it as a better example or at least a more uh a tighter example of a rock star who is dealing with fame um while jim is running around trying to do things he also uh is solving a sausage smuggling operation this is a good rocky episode good rocky episode he gets kicked out of the union, but it turns out the union is corrupt. So he gets to go back into the union. I believe I said, when we started it,

it might not be the best Rockford files episode, but it might be the best 200 a day episode because we have all of these, all just all of these fun things going on as the great music as the Willie Nelson soundtrack. This one has the, the drone has the willie nelson soundtrack this one has the um the drone shot at the end a helicopter or whatever they used yeah it was probably a helicopter at the time which uh is a standout when it comes to rockford files cinematography i mean not that there's like you know i think there's some really good cinematography in the rockford files from

time to time but this one was, this one's memorable. Yeah. Memorable. And you know, like we could probably think wired for to some extent. At least some of that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm putting a star on this one right now. I don't see any reason it would not be on a recommend list. Yeah. It's a, it's a good one. Yeah.

Uh, it's got, it's got a great tussle. Good tussle. Good meaty tussle. Good meaty tussle good meaty tussle yeah you can't not like that if you really want to hear more about it you can just go back uh three or four episodes and uh we we talk about it at length yeah we are going to take a little break in the middle of our episode here so that we can stretch maybe get a beverage or a snack,

and talk about the other places that you can find us on the internet. Epi, if our listeners want more Epi, where can they go to get Maximum Epi? You can find me at my website, dig1000holes.com. That's dig1000holes.com. Or you can get my sword and sorcery fiction and games at worlds without master.com that's worlds plural master singular if you want to engage with me on the social medias the best place to go right now is mastodon at epidia at dice.camp nathan if they want to get maximum nathan where do they have to go for that? I should have gone Maximum Nathan.

Maximum Nathan can be found at my website, ndpdesign.com. That's the hub for all my stuff on the internet, including all my role-playing games, zines, and other podcasts. So if you're interested in pro wrestling detectives or zines about pro wrestling among other things um those are all at my website it also has links to contact me in other ways currently i'm still um posting on instagram at nd payoletta that's where i'm posting pictures of my dog uh you can also find me at co-host co-host.org slash NDP. That is a fun small-scale social media site that I'm enjoying quite a lot.

And now we return to the continuing adventures of Jimbo Rockfish. Alright, so that is our fifth season compliment from the Wiredverse. Now we're going to go back to season four. Starting off with episode 18, South by Southeast.

Another Bartlett-wired collab. What do you remember about this one? This is the one where he goes to Mexico. Yeah, it's a weird one in that regard, right? He's very out of his element. It's the one where they just have a wrong address for a CIA operative, and that just whisks Jim away into the wild. Yes.

I remember this one having just kind of an amazing bittersweet romance, right? Yes. Yeah. It has the romance with the woman. She's like a wealthy, independently wealthy woman because her dad died and left her all of his business interests or whatever. Yeah. And her husband is plotting to kill her. Yes. woman because her dad died and left her all of his business interests or whatever yeah and her husband is plotting to kill her yes so jim um spoils the plot to poison her and then they have

this bittersweet ending where their romance has bloomed over the course of the episode but their conflict has been along like class division lines yes he's very wealthy and he not only is not wealthy which is fine he also kind of is like kind of reflexively suspicious of the idea of being wealthy yeah um and having that life and he's kind of like i just couldn't have that life again my memory of it and i might be exaggerating it from what's actually in the text, but like there's a sticking point where he's like, he's like, I work for a living.

I like my life. And I wouldn't be the person that you're attracted to if I lived your life. Yes. And then she kind of was like, well, I'll look you up next time you're in LA next time I'm in LA. And he's like, no,

you won't like, it's okay. Yeah. go live your life um yeah and there's that kind of bittersweet parting at the end which is kind of in a way stands out a little bit because i feel like a lot of the time these romances are just kind of left like and that's the end of the episode i guess we'll never see her again yeah and this one actually like gives us a real like no this is also the end of their relationship like we've seen the entire thing in this episode like as far as putting it on a list of recommendations it uh it's a good episode i really enjoyed it it's has some unique features but i don't know

if it's like if it's a must watch right i mean part of any must watch list is like who's your audience here and if the audience is, is, uh, people who are interested in learning about the rock profiles, this isn't really a much watched one because he's out of his element for a lot of it. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

That's true. But, but if you were a fan of the rock profiles, you know, it's fun to watch Jim to be out of it and being out of his element. And it does have an extremely rock British-ness premise with the wrong address leads him to being a ersatz

CIA operative. Going to our next one in our reverse order here is season 4 episode 13, A Deadly Maze, another Bartlett Ward collab. Our episode 119, so again we did it recently oh yeah right

this is the one where the uh psychologist academic researcher recruits jim to find his wife who isn't really his wife she's an actor but then she ends up um she ends up murdered and so there is an actual crime to be uncovered and uh as came up in our answering machine episode it's one where jim really doesn't want to take the case yeah but ends up talked into it uh kind of against his will jim jim starts as a uh unwitting subject of a psychological experiment right right so spoilers uh if you haven't watched it because we do talk about how the reveal of his unwittingness is really core to enjoying the episode and it's a little more formulaic if you know what the reveal is going to be so uh sorry

but uh yeah again we talked about fairly recently um a lot of i feel like we say like it's a lot of fun stuff there's always a lot of fun stuff it's a lot of fun stuff there's always a lot of fun stuff it's a lot of files so we in my write-up i said we it was recommended uh because it's such an offbeat script with a lot of rock furnishness in it yeah i i do not rescind that however in context of what we're talking about here i'm not sure if i would elevate it over some of the other ones we've talked about. On this list, I don't think it, we're going to hit some, we've already hit some pretty good ones, but then we're about to hit some really good ones. We have some meaty middle here where it's like, this is a good episode, but.

Yeah, I think it suffers in competition with all the other ones. But I think it's perfectly fine. It's a good episode. It's fun. Well, speaking of fun episodes, our next one on our list here is Season 4, Episode 6, Requiem for a Funny Box. Yes. This one's quite an episode. This one, quite an episode. How long ago did we do this one?

It was fairly recent right yeah um july 25th 2021 okay so but i agree i feel like it wasn't that long ago which i think means it's a real it was our episode 88 um so uh it sticks out uh so this one's we got a comedian uh who kenny bell yeah kenny bell just he's he's an awful comedian uh but rafi loves him uh and he's wrapped up in a mob thing i like i i mean we shouldn't really worry too much about spoilers no the funny box right is his his his joke book basically his joke book yeah uh and he he ends up recording something is he is he extorting he's stealing jokes right and the person he's stealing the jokes from who's his old part his old like comedy partner before they split up or whatever is in a relationship with a mobster yes so they're

they're in a same-sex relationship that's secret and then the fact that kenny bell the the the comedian that jim is mostly dealing with is recording his partner means that he's he knows he's recorded about this liaison yeah and he has. And he has recordings of it. And so that makes him a target for, I think, for the partner to try and is trying to take it. Or maybe his part, maybe the mob. Because the mobbed up partners, yeah, his dad. Put that a hit on him. Yeah, it's horrible.

His dad's like, you have to kill this you have to kill your partner yeah and then when he can't do it he gets to hit himself his yes the mob guy's homophobic dad would rather kill his son than allow him to stay in a relationship with another man yeah that's that's the the thing that happens so saying all that there's a lot to recommend itself about this episode right like yeah so it's handled i mean we're not we're not the ones to say but it appears to be handled quite well especially for the time uh the issues the uh mystery is great it's it's a real mystery mystery yeah yeah and and there's some good like uh pathos um like there's the whole thing where the the comedian is married and his

wife is long-suffering and in the end i think partially due to jim's encouragement i don't remember but in the end, she leaves and we're like, good for you. You made it. Yeah. Yeah. So that's great. Yeah, this one definitely sticks out

in my mind. It has some good stuff about like a suitcase of cash is involved. I like the actor who plays kenny bell um chuck mccann yeah he's a very comedic presence but he also can be serious he's a voice like you recognize his voice from lots of like cartoons of the era also but he's he was in a colombo episode that i like like he's a he's a fun presence. And there's a whole thing about Kenny tells Jim what's going on but then when he brings

Kenny in to tell the cops, he won't tell the cops. Yeah. Right? They have that dynamic, which is fun. Mr. Bell, did you hire Mr. Rockford to make a ransom exchange for a funny box belonging to you? Excuse me? It's a catalog of jokes.

A tool used by professional comics well to begin with i never had one so there'd be no reason to hire jim to uh what was it right ransom it did you say kenny this is my neck we're talking about hey rocks i know can i get you some bail money some legal fees anything i can do our summary here i say that uh it's a good episode with serious tonal shifts that make it interesting, but not necessarily one we'd recommend over other episodes. I may be going back on that. Yeah, yeah. It stuck with me more than I would have thought. Like we said, I thought this was a more recent one that we did.

It is kind of interesting having this back catalog of our opinions that are clearly going to change over time. Yeah. Would you put this on a recommend list? I think I would. Yeah. It's kind of a oddball pick. Yeah. Because it kind of falls in that category of like, I don't know if you've never seen The Rockford Files, if this is the one you should watch.

Right. But if you did, I feel like you'd get like a pretty good picture of what the show can do all condensed into one episode because it has such those those big tonal shifts. But like we get some really good big acting out of the guy. Sylvan, I think, is the mob family. So like like Papa Sylvan, he has this like really big speech that details all of his grievances about his son and stuff. And it's like that's pretty memorable. And he's been in a lot of other episodes too he's great um that actor so all right i'll put a star on it for now and we'll yeah we'll see we'll jump back into our time traveling uh firebird yes oh that would be amazing um and we're going down to our episode 117, Trouble in Chapter 17, which was not intentional.

No. So this is the episode with the woman who wrote the book about the way women should behave. Yes. This is 117. It's slightly more recent. Yeah. Lots of good stuff in this. Very frustrating client, right?

Yes. Yes. Which, you know, gotta say, I love very frustrating client right yes yes uh which you know gotta say i love a frustrating client so so okay uh this main character this woman and louise clement femininity not feminism yes so uh she's based on um loosely based on a real life person who was I think, if I remember correctly, who, you know, basically was saying the problem with feminism is wrong. We should be more

feminine. Housewives could only find happiness through total submission to their husbands. Yes. Now this is a Juanita Partlet episode. Yes. So we should know right off the bat that this character is not treated well. Like like this is not this is not the opinion of anybody who's doing the show right right she believes her life is

being threatened she's set up attempts on her life as a publicity stunt that's what it is yes but then her assistant is actually killed yes and so she suddenly turns like oh my god someone's trying to kill me and jim's like i thought someone was already trying to kill you. Yeah. It turns out that it's a separate, um, cause it's, it's the deal with her husband, right? Cause he's like, he's the material for chapter 17 and her new book. Yeah. And he's having an affair with his secretary and his secretary's brother takes it upon himself to try and kill Anne Louise. I'm trying to remember what his motivation is, but I think it's that he thinks that means more money.

If the husband is free of Anne Louise, then he can marry his sister. Yeah. Right? His being the prospective murderer. Yeah. sister yeah right his being the the prospective murderer yeah marry his sister and that sets her up for life and then he's gonna get a piece of it because they're so close yeah he may even plot to kill the husband after that or something like that yeah i don't remember if it's that deep but uh it has a good reveal where jim coordinated with the husband ahead of time yes to to take the bolts out of his gun or something um yeah yeah so i was like good standoff at the end this is the one i remember

this one in particular because it has one of the most 180 opinion changes that i've had of a character where like i just hated this guy the husband and then at the end of it i was kind of on his side yeah yeah yeah it's a good one it's a lot of fun um the uh the mystery is really i mean like we've just described the mystery so like it's hard to say the mystery is worth it too but the mystery is worth it if we're recommending it to someone and they're not listening to this episode i think this one might go in that column um uh but it might also be uh uh what you might call it recency bias yeah yeah it might be it's one for some reason i'm like i'm hesitating a little bit to put it in a recommend maybe just because there's a lot of it's a little jam-packed sure yeah but again

that might be anti-recency bias where i'm like, just because I read, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're probably okay saying it's good. I don't know if it goes on the list. Sure. Sure. Because now we're getting into like, there are qualities about any episode that would put it on a recommend list. Nathan, would you recommend the Rockford Files? Yes.

Gotta say that's a yes. That's a yes from me, dog. So. Okay. We're going back to season now time to go back to season three well speaking of ones that stand out in our minds yeah uh we are going back to season three episodes 19 and 20 to protect and serve so these are the first Anthony Boy episodes. Yes. Alright, so these, okay. The comedic stylings of Joyce VanCamp.

Uh-huh. She's a fine comedic actress, but she's not doing anything comedic in this. In fact, I would say anti-comedic. Yeah. So this is our episode 63 from January 2020. Okay, yeah. So she's a,

she's a, a super fan of the police and in particular of Dennis Becker. And who is, right? Yes. Um, what is the deal going on? Like,

why is there, so there's, there's two, two threads that come together. Ah, one is that Jim is hired to find a lawyer's fiance who abruptly broke off the like ditch their wedding, basically. And then as he gets into it, it turns out that he's a mob lawyer and someone's put a hit out on his on his fiance because she might know something about a case or something yeah independent of that joyce van patten's character uh leanne i think is a police buff who's obsessed with dennis becker in particular and keeps just like showing up

she keeps inserting herself in becker's cases and because jim is getting into some stuff he brings becker in and so that brings leanne into jim's orbit and then uh anthony boy and uh another it's a duo uh this is kind of the the point man on this two-man mob hit yes crew uh and they're dispatched to deal with everyone um and i think leanne basically gets things tangled up by by interfering trying to do police work because she's obsessed with with with the cops something like that yeah she can cite the uh the rule book and you know all that and um i think the part of the problem for me was that her portion of the show is a really good character study of her character yes and then i was like right but there's also a mystery yeah what was the plot and now that i remember the

plot i'm like yeah i i just didn't connect those both yeah my write-up for this one even says jim's job what he's hired to do quickly becomes the background to the drama stemming from the interference of the police buff who's fallen for dennis so ultimately a character study of the obsessive of the obsessive leanne this david chase written story balances all of our familiar characters with her narrative focus as well as introducing a new foe for jim and the character of hitman anthony boy gaglio so yeah anthony boy as an introduction to anthony boy it's great um anthony boy stands out in this episode but definitely but then he gets his highlight episode in the man who saw the alligators yeah which is another two-parter i believe right like uh um no it's a single episode oh no it is a

double but it's a 90 minute oh right okay right so Okay. Right. So to protect and serve as two, a two part episode, many saw the alligators as a 90 minute episode. Yes. Yes. But not a wired, but not a wired. Yeah.

So, uh, we can, we have to leave that off our list. So, uh, while this is a great episode, uh, oh,

well, it's great that Anthony boy is in this episode. Um, we have to consider it without the alligator shoes this one i'm honest almost feels most in conversation with lions tigers monkeys and dogs to me where it's like there's that sense of like the psychology of this this person being dealt into by the end of it is really what makes it compelling. Yeah.

I mean, I think that that's fun. There's a Rockford Files thing where like part of what it is, is the fact that Rockford has to deal with people, right? Like that is part of the problem. Yes. Yeah. Like this one reminds me of Quickie Nirvana in in many ways because it's the same sort of thing right like and i mean like we see this with angel all the time too and whatnot but uh yeah no i think this is a good good one uh do you think it of out of this list yeah i don't know it's kind

of like i'm putting the plus i think it may be worth consideration once we look at the full recommend the whole list because there's something about it where it's like I can't quite put my finger on it I really like it there's something about it where it's almost not that rockfordy even though it's very rockfordy yeah yeah so I don't know interesting we'll think about it more but one that I think is probably destined for the recommend list is going back to season three, episode 17, our episode number six,

just another Polish wedding. I'm going to say it. There's, there's a moment in this episode that it might be perfect television. It's the one where the Nazis get punched. That one. Yes. Yes.

No spoilers. No spoilers. But, uh, so, okay. This is another, this is a backdoor pilot. It's a shame, absolute shame that this didn't become a thing. We've got the second return of Gandhi, right? His third Rockford Files episode.

So it's Isaac Hayes playing Gandalf Fitch. And then Louis Gosset jr is playing uh marcus hayes aurelius hayes yeah gandhi and gabby gabby and gandhi yeah uh marcus can't can't shut up he's always running something one of the modes of transportation in this episode is a limo hello marcus aurelius hayes mr hayes this is tom flannery limousine world how much longer are you going to need our car sir on a trial basis before you decide to buy it well mr flannery i may need it a little longer you see i've been thinking of buying a fleet of five or six of course mr hayes take as long as you'd like thanks my good man goodbye mr hayes without your long as you'd like thanks my good man goodbye mr hayes

hayes without your mouth you'd be just like me literally no intention to do this and um so okay so some things about this the the episode itself uh gandy wants work as a pi jim is uh reluctant to take him on as a partner uh puts i can't remember if he puts him in touch with gabby he kind of farms them out to gabby but gandhi and gabby know that jim is on a skip trace right like that yeah that jim is looking for someone and they're gonna try and beat him to it right and so we have a little bit of a race going. Most of this episode is Gabby and Gandy. Yes. But the Rockford parts of these episodes, where you see Jim, it is shoe leather, right?

Yeah, we get to see him doing, like, tradecraft. Like, we get to see some of his, how he actually, like, gets information from people, which is really good. You kind of get the idea that Jim's just doing his normal workaday job throughout this entire episode uh while Gabby and Gandy are on a little bit more of a wilder adventure they're great together it's great it's a standout we talk about it all the time I already put a star on it like it's we don't have to go any further yeah yeah I mean I don't know I feel like this might be a fun one to revisit someday uh because we did it so early that we were talking about lessons for our games and stuff. So it might be worth going back to with the additional perspective that we have now. But it's just a romp.

It might be the ur-romp. It's just so fun just to watch. The star is on it. So we're now scoping down to the beginning of season three with one we have, again, done relatively recently. Season three, episode three, The Family Hour. Yes. Or episode 111, which is another kind of unusual one in that it's the one where Jim kind of takes the kind of tween age child that shows up on his doorstep and tries to figure out what is going on and why she is in danger yes this is a good one

um i'm gonna say straight up uh we got a good cast the young girl is um played by i think escape from witch mountain yes and uh her dad is played by i'm gonna look up his name here uh burt young who's paulie from the rocky series of movies not television shows i remember there being like this this great plot to unfold the trouble that the father's in in the middle of it that involves angel right um maybe i'm wrong about that i'm trying to remember what role angel plays it doesn't really matter the so my write-up here is um it's not really a mystery not really a whodunit uh but the episode ramps up the tension while keeping a solid emotional backbeat jim goes goes and finds out a thing and that reveals more of the story then he goes and finds out another thing um and this is the one where ken swafford is like the crooked dea agent

yes it's his scheme that's putting the girls uh marin uh marin's father in danger yeah it's a good one um it's uh again it kind of stands out because of the focus on a you know younger person as kind of the locus of the episode yeah the fact that she just turned up on his yeah she wasn't looking for him she was just kind of abandoned at the beach right right well because like her aunt was supposed to pick her up but then she doesn't because yeah there are these because there's is the two goons in the car in in that really yeah and like the cool car and one has no sleeves and the other one has his like shirt unbuttoned i'm remembering now oh yeah and then it has like this the end of it is the standoff in the where they've because angel helps jim rig the room angel's apartment and then angel steals

her purse that has the key in it to the yes oh yeah okay okay it's good it's good it's a rock this one feels like it was a two-parter because there's like a lot of stuff but it's just the one episode yeah we get to see j are we get to see rocky being real dad like have real dad vibes yes because he gets to be all all fatherly with this kid. And there is like a big philosophical thing going on with what fatherhood and whatnot that I think they handle quite well. Yeah, I would recommend this one. Yeah, I think we're talking again. This is one we're on the list.

I'm like, oh, yeah, that one. But I'm talking now that we're talking about it. And we had that great like her dad needs to pretend like he's willing to. Oh, to turn her over. To turn her or he's willing to let them kill him because they're going to kill him anyway. Yes. And and she has to witness that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And like it's kind of a bluff bluff but it's also kind of not a bluff

yeah yeah it's it's good i'm all right i'm i'm putting the star on it i'm now that we're going through all the stuff that's in it i'm like oh yeah the the title itself never stood out to me right yeah family hour i mean it's kind of a joke because she loves t she loves game shows that's right yes so like the Family Hour, like the game show, I think is the gag. Yeah, if this one was like sad sack dad willing to take bullet for a child, the Rockford Files experience,

I think that might stand out a little more. Yeah, no, it's okay. Yep, I've reminded myself into saying it's it's a uh recommend and we watch this one because a patron was like hey you guys should watch this one yeah so good recommend all right we're getting to we're getting to our end here we should probably get through the rest of these um yeah yeah the next one in our order here is the fourth man our episode 118 season season 3, episode 1. This is with the hitmen, right? With the hitmen,

yes. With the airline, with like the travel agent, who is Jim's friend, Lori. Yeah, she's the, what's her name, the third Cagney, from Cagney, the third woman to play Cagney

in Cagney and Lacey, I guess. I was trying to look cagney and cagney and lacey yes i was trying to look up whether she was cagney or lacey i can never remember which is which but sharon gliss so yeah we so again we did this one fairly recently um i think there was some good stuff about like how it kind of escalates because it's the first episode in the season so it has a big shootout at the end in the in the airplane hangar yeah which is fun um the coin collector as a cover for the hitman is fun yeah yeah lots of good fun stuff lots of good fun stuff uh i don't love sharon gless in the role i found laurie to be kind of bland as a character personally so i think that might give it a little bit of uh

there's other episodes that i recommend it's it's it's solid but i don't know if it's standing out over some of these other ones yeah even though it does have that nice shootout at the end which is which is fun there's there's a a conversation between the hitmen at the zoo. That was really a standout thing, but yeah, I would agree with you. I mean, we're, we've got four or five,

depending on how you count two partners. Oh, we should probably count that as two. Anyways, episodes left and they're all great. So like, yeah. All right,

let's see. So now we're getting to season two. Uh, we're going down to the, there's only a couple left here. This is kind of some of William Wyatt's first's first efforts for us season two episode five the deep blue sleep which we did as our episode 82 back in april of 2021 i don't remember this one as much as the others actually this one i'm looking back at our summary this is one where beth has a friend who's a model and she

disappears yes and so there's a shady business deal with a fashion designer and the mob robert hayes in it yes yeah which we like because he's a real great sleazy character but yeah it's a good bet it's one of the few beth episodes on our list here that's true yeah oh uh there is a highlight of the show that we probably we may or may not have talked about in the episode here but the the tape recording that the oh yes uh has the caller saying hi jim thanks for the dinner invitation i love to but does it have to be the taco stand yes just great that's perfect i mean i'm i don't think of this as a bad episode i can't recall a whole lot about the episode so i'm assuming it's just a just a nice rock for files that's probably yeah it's a good rock for files it's uh yeah i think it's it might be a meaty middle episode we

yeah we enjoyed the twists and character business in this one, is what I said at the time. Yes. All right. And then immediately before this, we get season two, episodes three and four, our episodes eight and nine. Yeah. Gear Jammers, parts one and two. All right, so this is going on the list. Epi will fight anyone who says Gear jammers shouldn't be on the list so

this is an interesting one in which uh it's i think it's great that it's a two episode like yeah it's one of the few where i'm like yes this is episode one of it of a two-parter and this is episode two of a two-parter the first episode we get rocky going through his day without jim uh i mean like we do have jim but like mainly we get to see jim's trying to find rocky and he's following you know retracing rocky's whole day right just find out that rocky has a very rich life without jim he has like a girlfriend that jim didn't know about he's going to a wine store to get presents for her. Cause Rocky has overheard a mob slash union. Yeah. Thing.

I don't remember what it is. This was episode eight of ours. So it was a while back. It's cause there's stuff about the trucker strike. Yeah. Um, is involved. Cause we talked about that.

There's a corrupt, there's like a deal between like corrupt union and the mob to do like to move like i think they're like russian furs or something yeah like in and out of a port but like someone gets killed and left in a crate and rocky is uh in danger and probably doesn't know it uh right because he's he just is too a little too innocent to uh uh right because like trucks were getting hijacked and it was like why are these trucks getting hijacked um yes it also features some great chases there's a great chase at the end of the first episode where the firebird ends up

getting destroyed i think and then there's a great truck chase yes like the the climax of the second episode where we get to see like rocky driving a truck yeah and it's great so uh if you're a rockford files fan and for some reason you haven't watched gear jammers yet do it absolutely uh if you're not a rockford files fan still fun thanks thanks for listening i guess yeah yeah yeah thanks for joining us to this log yeah star star on that one classics uh uh bedrock to our show yeah exactly we return to it many times all right well we are now getting back to season one with our one of our more recent episodes season one episode 17 claire another um jim's old flame reappears episode i think kind of similar to guilt we again we did talk about this one recently so i feel like i'm just retreading what we've already said but yeah uh rocky's not happy rocky rocky's

not happy uh rocky's not happy this one's not happy. This one ends on... This one has a quality where nothing actually gets solved, really. Like, Claire's just in a bad jam and Jim helps her get out of it. But getting out of it is taking a bus to Mexico. Right, yeah. He does... They do turn the... They turn the tables on the goons.

Yeah. But, like, her problem is not that. Like, that doesn't solve her problem. Because she basically would still be a target for the mob because she was an informant under duress to the cop who ended up getting killed. Like, it's just a big tangled mess. Yeah.

And nobody's in a good position to help help her out. Yeah. So, yeah. So good. Had a great climax. I think we talked about how it was unexpected that the cops didn't show up, that it was just Jim dealing with it. And we have Jackie Cooper as the kind of overbearing police captain, which is a fun character. But, yeah, I think I said at the time it's a good meaty middle episode it's i'm not sure if it sticks with me um yeah this episode hits a lot of our classic themes though maybe lacking a little something to make it stand out from similar plots yeah it's early though like like that's the other thing it's um episode it's season one so

are they classic themes at this point or is this like one it's establishing it is establishing themes that we call classic because we have done 120 episodes before we did this one yeah however this one only had 16 episodes to deal with yeah so yeah but one of those 16 indeed is the one just a couple episodes prior. Season one, episode 15, our episode number three from December of 2016. And Wired's episode number one with a bullet. Sleight of hand. Yes. So not only this, so this is our episode three, but we recorded three episodes and then release and then like release them all not

yeah i think either all at the same time or kind of yeah like we recorded a couple and released them as a batch just to get started so you know we recorded this as our third episode we had not yet put the podcast out into the world when we recorded this episode. Yeah. So this one is based on a novel, right? Yes. It's called, uh, thin air,

thin air. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, based on a novel, obviously not based on the Rockford files novel, uh,

because I don't know if those actually exist. There's a couple. And I only know that because, uh, Jordan Backelman has posted a couple. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. He has a couple. I think he has some of the novelizations in rotation. So I've seen him post some of the pictures, some of the covers, I think.

So it was adapted to the Rockford Files. Yes. Rockford Files being only 15 episodes long when this aired. Right. So this is the one where it's got it's a really eerie mystery right like yes so she goes to her into her house while jim stays in the car and she's never heard from again and jim's in the frame if i remember man it's been a long time yeah he has to solve this uh otherwise uh deal is going to to put him away ah deal good old tom akins uh yeah i think it's a standout early episode i think a lot of yeah like it's

it's known to be a standout good episode but it's not incredibly full of rock for additionists uh a lot of these episodes we've been praising for how they just feel like very rock for me yeah and this one does not but like i think it's very well done this one kind of like gives a little bit of the counterpoint because this one is more noir-y so it's almost like here's the far noir edge of this kind of story that we're going to do with this show yeah we're not going to get over all the way over here again, very often, if at all. Yeah.

But here's like the boundary. Um, yeah, there's a good, right. I think at the time we didn't have, I'm like, at the time,

I don't think I had a copy of that Robertson book. I don't, you know, like all this stuff that I'm looking back early days. So the first season is also when we have the most roy huggins influence right um before he kind of departs as a writer um so roy huggins apparently had done he had a show called jigsaw earlier in the 70s that apparently was fairly low ratings but his first episode that he did for that show was an adaptation of Thin Air.

And while critically acclaimed, did not improve ratings, and the show was canceled in 73. So he decided to adapt it again for the Rockford Files. He kind of recycled the idea of adapting Thin Air because he liked the story so much. I remember that Jigsaw, this is a quote from Huggins. But I also remember that Jigsaw never had high audience numbers. And so I figured, here's a story that was on a show that nobody watched. So I'm going to adapt it again. I'll make changes in it.

With Jim Garner, it will look completely different. That was pretty much what was going on in my mind at the time. Yeah. There was a reviewer in Variety who caught that and gave him some flack for recycling his own material. Ed Robertson continues, Ironically, while Variety may have been astute in recognizing the recycled plotline of Sleight of Hand, the trade journal neglected to mention that the episode itself is excellent.

The hour is also unusual in that it presents Rockford as more heart-boiled and less tongue-in-cheek than we're ordinarily accustomed to seeing. And there's, you know, there's an intensity to the character that while jolting is very effective. All told, Joe Swirling and Stephen Cannell, who did the teleplay, the two of them,

create a faithful adaptation of Brown's classic Whodunit while James Garner delivers one of his finest performances in the entire series. Well, there you go. Per Robertson. We probably should revisit this one because it does stand out to us so much. Yeah.

We reference it fairly often, but I'm happy to put it on a recommend list. It's good TV. Good TV. It's early days, Wired's first episode with them, and kind of a neat thing to see a book adaptation into the Rockford Files.

I don't even know if that happens again. I assume it had a few times in the first season. But yeah. Yeah. I remember it being a good one. I'm willing to look at it again and give it some more detailed analysis at some point. But yeah. We are going to end on a strong note with that one

so yeah let's let's look at this list and whittle it down so this list uh now in ascending order so these are the ones that that have a star we should recommend these so sleight of hand gear jammers one and two the family hour just another polish wedding requiem for a funny box heartaches of a fool rosendahl and gilda stern are dead never send a boy king to do a man's job and lions tigers monkeys and dogs okay so this is a great list so that's a nine so that's nine episodes counting doubles as one if one entry let's let's whittle it down quickly because we're reaching the end of our episode uh one per season one per season well okay so season one is sleight of hand yeah season two gear jammers season three the family hour or just another polish wedding yeah that's tough

with a optional uh optional um honorable mention to protect and serve yeah um man it's weird but i think i'm gonna i'm gonna side a little bit on the family hour with my my little assumption that we're just saying hey you want an intro to the rockford files right yeah our audience here is you know you like the show you may not have watched all of it. Here are episodes you should watch. Yeah. From from Wired's. From Wired's. Blue friend.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're going with the family hour. I wouldn't have expected that going into this. That's why. That's why we do it. Yeah. All right.

Season four. Requiem for a funny box. Yeah. Season five. So we have two honorable mention or we have one honorable mention which is the jersey bounce yeah and then the other three this is going to be our hard our hard choice heartaches of a fool rosendahl and gilda stern are dead never send a boy king to do a man's job uh i am tempted by rosendahl and gilda stern are dead uh because of our discussion today i don't

know if it's hard because i never send a boy king to do a man's job is also... It's a great one. So here's the thing. Right? If we're talking about my favorite episodes, never send a boy king to do a man's job. Yeah. But if we're talking about, hey, you want to see some really good Rockford Files episodes? Mm-hmm.

Heartaches of a Fool... Yeah. It kind of takes... It just has more of the full package yeah no sausage pun intended tell you what if you're going through this list you're getting some good rocky at gear jammers and then this is another follow-up to the rocky and his trucking days all right i'll go with heartache of a fool why not again i agree rosendahl and gildasern has has re-emerged as a contender from talking about it. And like,

if I'm talking about maybe most like ones, ones with more like complicated writing, more subtle characterization, not that it's subtle, but there's something about my memory of the dynamics in that one where it's like pretty layered. Like there's a lot of complex stuff going on, which makes it really satisfying to watch.

But I mean, if you're just turning on the TV and heartaches and then willie nelson's playing and then there's sausage smuggling like you're watching the rocker files yeah you are you are that's what you're doing i will i will say this if you got a one dollar in your pocket and you are at a used dvd store and they're selling each season disc. As an individual $1 purchase? Yeah, like the first disc of season five. Oh, for the best bang

for your buck? Yeah, best bang for your buck as far as the Wiredverse is concerned. Go for it. Which means that season six is another easy one. Lions, tigers, monkeys, and dogs. Yeah, that's great. All right, so here's our best of the Wiredverse

from our rewired retrospective rewinding through the Wiredverse in reverse order. Our top recommends. Lions, tigers, monkeys, and dogs are episode 103. Heartaches of a Fool are episode 121. Requiem for a Funny Box are episode 88. The Family Hour are episode 103. Heartaches of a Fool are episode 121. Requiem for a Funny Box are episode 88. The Family Hour are episode 111. Gear Jammers

are episodes 8 and 9. And Sleight of Hand are episode 3. Did it! And we will see you next time to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files.