Rockford Files, etc

Watching old episodes of The Rockford Files.

He never finds clues or actual evidence of anyone's guilt. Just kind of figures out who was motivated by what.

Now watching an oddly anti-Armenian episode I don't remember having ever seen before. Could it be a dig at Mannix starring Armenian-American Mike Conners? I doubt it.

John Saxon

Had John Saxon in one episode. Says, "Wanna bet," at one point, an apparent reference to his role in Enter the Dragon. Roy Jenson appeared in one episode and addresses James Garner as "old stick", a reference to Jenson's role in the private eye movie Harper with Paul Newman.

Roy Jenson

Jenson was the first guy to be beaten up by David Carradine on Kung Fu.

John Saxon was offered the role of Kwai Chang Caine on Kung Fu. He turned it down and it went to David Carradine. Saxon knew the story---that the role was supposed to go to Bruce Lee, but the network didn't want a show starring a Chinese guy---a "yellow man", they called him, according to Mako.

Mako

Later, when Saxon went to Hong Kong for Enter the Dragon and met Bruce Lee, Lee told him the story about the show Kung Fu, about how the role was taken from him because if his race. Saxon wasn't sure whether to tell him he was offered the role and doesn't remember if he did tell him.

Bruce Lee was in the movie Marlowe starring James Garner as Philip Marlowe. Garner uses the same ploy on Lee that he uses against a karate guy in an episode of The Rockford Files. Accuses him of homosexuality so that he becomes enraged and throws a kick and----well, I don't want to ruin it for you.

Garner mentioned in a long interview available on YouTube that another private eye show was stealing storylines from The Rockford Files until they went over and told them to knock it off. He wouldn't say what the show was, but it must have been Simon and Simon----I watched it when it was on and noticed that they swiped a storyline.

Silly to plagiarize a current show. Always steal from an obscure source.

Lee H. Montgomery as "Cricket"

I tried to watch Charlie's Angels in the '70s, but the one episode I saw was exactly the same as an episode of The Mod Squad I hated in which a chubby autistic kid called "Cricket" (Lee Montgomery) shoots Julie and is pursued by the violent criminal whose gun he found. Will Pete and Linc find him before the criminal gets to him?

Of course, Charlies Angels and The Mod Squad were both Aaron Spelling productions.