Shark Bytes

Harry didn't ever jump,it would've hurt too much! Qiute a distinction from Spelling's zillionaire twit detectives, Harry and his up-the-beach neighbor Jim Rockford did the best with what they had, put in an honest day's effort, and were constantly believable.
Zerbe was brilliant... in his first scene in the series he walks to his office doorway, turns to Orwell... and it's friggin' ART!!!
If someting was overdone, it may have been the locations, some of which were a little upmarket, like the Alan Arkin ep with the DMV employee living in a house overlooking the coast... place woulda been spendy even then, but it was shot to minimize the effect somewhat. Harry's MG Midget was a great tool and foil, not overused or tortured like JR's Firebird, but still an identifiable, dependable prop.
Wonderful, too brief, great show...

Zerbe's acerbic wit wasn't just confined to Det. Trench; I recall reading an interview with him in some fan magazine about 20 years ago (might've been the old sf publication Starlog). The interviewer kept getting increasingly pushy with personal questions, which Zerbe politely demurred in answering; finall, the interviewer rather peevishly remarked that some fans might be interested in Zerbe's personal life.

"Why?" shot back Zerbe, smoothly; "I'm not interested in theirs".

To this day, whenever I read an interview where the questioner is getting overly pushy for personal info, I think of that exchange, and it still makes me laugh. Bravo, Tony.

Moody, bluesy...a perfect counterpoint to the sassy "Rockford Files". Along with "Columbo", the holy triumvirate of tv detective shows.

And "Harry" is unique for me, in that one actor who took the place of another actor (Anthony Zerbe for Henry Darrow) was equally good, which is rare. I honestly could not name which of them is my favorite, although Zerbe's dry wit is something to see.

They will never make shows like this anymore, I'm afraid, because you just don't have actors the calibre of Janssen, Darrow, and Zerbe around anymore. Now it's all airbrushed catalogue mannequins spouting pseudo-tough talk, and convincing absolutely no one over the age of 35 that they are gritty, seasoned, or even human, for that matter.

That is why reruns, syndication, and DVD are Tha Bomb, folks.

It jumped when Dawn Lyn that filthy Kool-Aid stained little hillbilly rugrat was a guest star.

Never jumped the shark. Clearly the best detective series, outdoing even Jim Rockford. Only a kid back in 1974-76, during its original run on ABC, but saw reruns of it on WPIX New York in the early 90's. The exchanges between Orwell and Lt. Trench are classic. Anthony Zerbe is one of my favorite performers, and he excells in this series. Zerbe earned that Emmy! This series, always winning the Thursday night time slot, was cancelled by Fred Silverman, who had a personal dislike for the show. This was mentioned in several publications. I can't wait to purchase Harry-O on DVD.

A great show, with excellent characters and writing - elements of Chandler's Marlowe. Great interaction between Orwell and his police counterparts, especially Trench. My favorite episode was "Guardian at the Gates" featuring Linda Evans. I want this show on DVD... Roberts!!!

Check out the pilot for Harry O. David Janssen is actually drunk in most of the scenes. Tape it and keep playing it back. He slurs his lines and can hardly keep his balance.

The show never really jumped although it pushed the envelope with Farrah Fawcett and in season 2 when they tried to make him more of an action hero. The first episodes of season 1 had excellent pacing and had a laconic edge which was more typical of the time period during which it was filmed.

Harry-O never jumped the shark. I started watching it as a kid around 1980 when it was on The CBS Late Movie after seeing Anthony Zerbe was on the show (I loved him in The Omega Man -- that movie scared the hell out of me during my childhood). That's when I discovered what a fine actor David Janssen was (my mom kept calling him Dr. Kimble -- I had no clue about The Fugitive in those days). My cable company just got the American Life channel that has Harry-O on every Monday at 8 and 11 PM -- when I started watching the reruns again, I remembered what a really great show this was. I just hope it comes out on DVD soon!

Writer Howard Rodman created a marvelous, quirky character in Harry Orwell. Rodman was asked to develop a series version of "Dirty Harry", and this is what he came up with! Rodman based Harry Orwell on a minor character in the Nathaniel West Hollywood novel "The Day of the Locust": the character was a tired salesman walking up a hill with his jacket thrown over his back. The role was written with Telly Savalas in mind, but David Janssen inhabited the role to perfection. Janssen had never given a performance this loose before. After Richard Diamond, all his performances were versions of the smooth, smug, cynical, lady-killer Diamond. After his great work on "The Fugitive", many of his performances tended to be serious, earnest, up-tight, and underplayed-like Richard Kimble. Rodman and director Jerry Thorpe have to be credited with giving Janssen a third great persona. If Janssen had lived into his 50's, he probably would have still been in demand as a series lead. I wonder what his Blake Carrington ("Dynasty") or Hannibal Smith ("The A-Team") would have been like.

For a 14 year-old kid, Harry Orwell was the personification of cool. I remember watching the show and wishing I could be Harry when I grew up (sans the bus riding). He was such a tortured soul with a huge heart. With so much fluff and bubblegum on the air back in the 70's this was really the only show that stayed with you and made you think long after the credits had rolled. Hollywood should have blacklisted Fred Silverman for pulling the plug on this timeless classic. Hope you're still running on the beach up there David.

David Janssen had almost no quality control in choosing projects. Apparently he (or his management) were primarily interested in the size of the paycheck. Janssen squandered the enormous prestige he earned from his superb work on "The Fugitive" with "The Green Berets", "O'Hara, U.S. Treasury", and Excedrin commercials. "O'Hara" is arguably the worst drama series in the history of television (thanks mainly to Jack Webb's usual pedestrian approach to what might have been interesting material). But Janssen made up for it with his masterful, humorous, soulful, very relaxed interpretation of Harry O, perhaps his finest performance. Janssen may not have been a great actor, but he gave three great TV performances that were so different it was almost hard to tell it was the same actor in the three roles: Richard Diamond, Dr. Richard Kimble, and Harry Orwell. I wish Janssen had lived long enough for at least one more series. I think the tired, alcoholic, loser reporter looking for a big score that he played in his last TV movie "City in Fear" could have been another great series role for him.

"Harry-O" never did jump the shark. I just wish it had stayed on longer. David Janssen was a terrific, outstanding actor, and he was perfect for the part of Harry Orwell. He was tough, sometimes aloof, daring, and very sexy. Actually, it was this show that introduced me to David Janssen. I used to watch it late at night on CBS, after the local news. He was one of a kind, and he left us far too soon.

This should have been the best private eye show of all time, instead of "The Rockford Files" holding that distinction. Howard Rodman created a great character, and David Janssen embodied him to perfection. The show peaked with the second pilot, "Smile Jenny, Your Dead." That show had a literate script by Rodman, a fine supporting cast including Zalman King, Howard Da Silva, Martin Gabel,Tim McIntire,Jodie Forster,Ellen Weston and John Anderson, solid direction by Jerry Thorpe, and a fine lead performance by Andrea Marcovici that matched Janssen scene for scene. Janssen and Marcovici made you really care what happened to these people, which is not always the case in private eye dramas. Unfortuneately, Marcovici never came back for future episodes. Harry should have been given several ex-wives who could have been recurring characters. This would have given the writers and Janssen more to work with than Harry's beach bimbo neighbors who were old hat, trite, and uninteresting. Maybe Janssen could have develped the same chemistry he had with Marcovici with his ex-wives. Candidates to play ex-wives might have included Carol Rossen, Julie Sommars, Gena Rowlands, Julie Adams, and Joanne Linville. The writers made Harry too irresitible to women, which was a cliche and not that believable given Janssen's middle-aged appearance. Also, as good an actor as Anthony Zerbe is, the show would have been better without a friend on the force. It would have been interesting to see Harry' parents. Perhaps his mother was a former movie star and his father was an ex-cop. The parents might have been played by Larraine Day and Lew Ayers. The show should have been set in Los Angeles to begin with, and the Hollywood connection should have been emphasized for stories. Maybe Harry could have had movie stars for clients. They also should have used more of Les, who was a great character. Even though the execution of "Harry O" didn't match Janssen's great performance, it is still up there in the top five private eye shows with "The Outsider", "Rockford", "Peter Gunn", and "Johnny Stacatto". Harry Orwell was David Janssen's version of Willie Loman.

Harry O was a shark jumper right from the start. Hard to make-out-what-was going-on-being-said-film-and-audio and unnecessary dialogue (when you could make it out---barely) from the characters. Realism sure makes for repulsive stories.