59 Fun Facts About Hill Street Blues

What does the 'Blues' in the title Hill Street Blues refer to?

Uniformed police officers were the 'blues', named for the colour of their uniforms; each episode followed them through a single day, from the morning roll call on.

Which new 1982 sitcom shared Hill Street Blues' NBC night?

Cheers narrowly escaped cancellation in that first season, when it sat near the bottom of the ratings, then grew into a top-ten hit that ran for eleven years.

Steven Bochco co-created Hill Street Blues with which writer?

Michael Kozoll wrote the pilot with Bochco in ten days, but the two clashed and he left the show after its second season.

Which production company made Hill Street Blues?

MTM Enterprises, Mary Tyler Moore's company, got its writers to take on a cop show only after the network promised to leave them completely alone.

Who composed the theme music for Hill Street Blues?

Mike Post's theme became a hit single in 1981, and cast members recall hearing it over and over as the show swept that year's Emmys.

Three consecutive season 3 episodes of Hill Street Blues are titled 'Moon Over' which planet?

Uranus was Bochco's schoolboy joke on NBC's censors, who objected to the title; he answered by calling the next two episodes 'The Sequel' and 'The Final Legacy'.

Which actress, later Betty Applewhite on Desperate Housewives, won a 1984 Emmy for a Hill Street Blues guest arc?

Alfre Woodard won the supporting-actress Emmy for just three episodes as Doris Robson, a mother whose young son is shot by a policeman; it was the first of her four Emmys.

Which drama took Hill Street Blues' time slot in 1986?

L.A. Law, co-created by Bochco after he was fired from Hill Street Blues, began on another night, then pushed his old show out of its slot for its final months.

Which desk sergeant closed each roll call with 'Let's be careful out there'?

Phil Esterhaus's warning ended when actor Michael Conrad died of cancer during season 4; the writers then wrote the sergeant's own death into the show, with a different cause.

Which sergeant, played by Robert Prosky, took over roll call after season 4?

Stan Jablonski was written as a rougher, old-school foil to his fatherly predecessor after actor Michael Conrad's death left the roll call without its sergeant.

Which roll-call sign-off did Robert Prosky's sergeant use?

'Do it to them before they do it to us' reversed his predecessor's fatherly caution and marked the new sergeant as a harder, more bitter man.

How was Hill Street Blues' desk sergeant written out after actor Michael Conrad's death in 1983?

He died in bed with his lover, Grace Gardner; Furillo broke the news at roll call in an episode punningly titled 'Grace Under Pressure'.

Which drama broke Hill Street Blues' record for first-season Emmys in 2000?

The West Wing won nine Emmys for its debut season, one more than Hill Street Blues managed in 1981, yet Martin Sheen never won one for playing its president.

Which actor won a 1984 Emmy as detective Mick Belker?

Bruce Weitz was first sounded out for the smoother J.D. LaRue, but told Bochco he would rather read for the snarling Belker.

Which series ended Hill Street Blues' run of best-drama Emmys in 1985?

Cagney & Lacey took the award in 1985, and Hill Street Blues, which had won it for each of its first four seasons, never won it again.

What does Hill Street Blues keep secret about the city where it is set?

Its name is never given: the producers even hid the first letter of local TV and radio call signs, which would have shown which side of the Mississippi the city was on.

The police station seen in the credits of Hill Street Blues is a real building in which city?

Chicago's old Maxwell Street station supplied the exteriors, yet the cast worked in Los Angeles and Bochco never set foot in the building until 1996.

Dennis Franz later won four Emmys playing which TV detective?

Andy Sipowicz began NYPD Blue as the second lead, but its first star quit early in season two and Franz's bigoted detective carried the show through twelve seasons.

Who played Captain Frank Furillo?

Daniel J. Travanti had mostly played villains before Furillo, the hardest part to cast, won him the lead-actor Emmy two years running.

What is Captain Frank Furillo recovering from when Hill Street Blues begins?

Alcoholism is the captain's private battle, and it sharpens his clashes with hard-drinking detective J.D. LaRue, whom he very nearly fires.

What was Joyce Davenport's job for most of Hill Street Blues?

Public defender Davenport spent her days fighting Hill Street's arrests in court, while keeping secret that she spent her nights with its captain.

What did Furillo affectionately call Joyce Davenport?

'Counselor' was the captain's teasing name for the lawyer he fought over arrests all day and went home to at night.

What pet name did Joyce Davenport use for Frank Furillo?

Pizza Man was borrowed by the writers from a Los Angeles pizza chain, and became her private nickname for the buttoned-up captain.

Which actress played Joyce Davenport on Hill Street Blues?

Veronica Hamel's Davenport kept her affair with the captain hidden from the precinct until the third season, when the two came out as a couple and married.

Detective Mick Belker was notorious for doing what to suspects?

Biting them went with a warning growl, and the actor who played Belker says the growl and the insults were the writers' invention.

Which insult was a Belker trademark?

'Hair bag' and 'dog breath' were coined by the writers, not the actor, and a season 3 episode is even titled 'Requiem for a Hairbag'.

Which future NYPD Blue star played Irish gang leader Tommy Mann in Hill Street Blues' early seasons?

David Caruso played the gang leader a decade before NYPD Blue made him a star as a detective, a job he quit early in its second season to chase a film career.

Despite his Southern drawl, Officer Andy Renko says he was born in which state?

He also claimed never to have been west of Chicago, which made his country-and-western persona pure affectation.

What nickname did Bobby Hill use for his partner Renko?

'Cowboy' suited the drawl and the boots; Renko was scripted to die in the pilot, but tested so well with audiences that NBC had him kept alive.

On Hill Street Blues, who keeps phoning detective Mick Belker at his desk?

His mother, unseen and needy, keeps calling in mid-booking, and the growling detective turns soft at once: 'Hi, Ma... I'm booking a pickpocket.'

Michael Warren, who played Bobby Hill, won two national titles in the 1960s as a guard for which college?

UCLA coach John Wooden started Warren at guard beside Lew Alcindor, the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, on teams that lost one game in two seasons.

Ed Marinaro, who played Officer Joe Coffey, was a Heisman runner-up playing football for which college?

Cornell's Marinaro led the nation in rushing in 1971 yet lost the Heisman to Auburn quarterback Pat Sullivan, then played in two Super Bowls with the Vikings.

As first filmed, what happened to Officer Joe Coffey in Hill Street Blues' first-season finale?

He was shot dead in a traffic stop, until the producers re-cut the scene to leave him wounded; Ed Marinaro had been hired as a guest star who was meant to die.

Lieutenant Howard Hunter commanded which unit?

The Emergency Action Team was the show's answer to SWAT; its pompous commander was written as comic relief, though James B. Sikking played him as a lonely man.

James B. Sikking based Hill Street Blues' Howard Hunter on which figure from his own past?

A drill instructor from Sikking's Army basic training, in a uniform starched stiff enough to stand in a corner, was the model, so the actor picked out Hunter's boots, ribbons and cap himself.

Which precinct duty was Henry Goldblume most often handed?

Hostage negotiation fell to Goldblume from the pilot, when Furillo sends him in to defuse a stand-off; actor Joe Spano had first read for the brash Renko.

Which Arrested Development actor played attorney Alan Wachtel on Hill Street Blues?

Jeffrey Tambor's Wachtel began as a lawyer hanging around the precinct and ended the series as a judge, two decades before the actor played George Bluth.

Who was Detective J.D. LaRue's partner and best friend?

Neal Washington was the steady half of the partnership, forever covering for a partner whose drinking came close to getting him fired.

Before returning to Hill Street Blues as Norman Buntz, Dennis Franz played which corrupt detective in season 3?

Sal Benedetto was a crooked vice detective who killed himself when his schemes collapsed; two years later the producers brought Franz back as a different cop.

In Hill Street Blues' short-lived spin-off, Norman Buntz became a private eye in which California city?

Beverly Hills Buntz sent the rumpled ex-cop west with his informant in tow, a rare half-hour comedy spun off from an hour-long drama.

Which actor, later Londo Mollari on Babylon 5, played Sid 'The Snitch' Thurston?

Peter Jurasik's informant followed Buntz out of the precinct and into the show's short-lived spin-off, where the pair starred together.

Jesus Martinez was introduced as the warlord of which street gang?

Los Diablos' warlord bargained with Furillo for years, then gave up his gang colours and remade himself as a paralegal, with help from forged law-school papers.

Which actress won the 1981 Emmy for lead actress in a drama for playing Grace Gardner?

Barbara Babcock won as a lead for what was a recurring guest part, beating the show's own leading lady, who was nominated in the same category.

Which Hill Street Blues cast member was Emmy-nominated in all seven of its seasons?

Betty Thomas won only once, in 1985, and an impostor bounded on stage to accept the statuette before she could reach the microphone.

Which Hill Street Blues officer, played by Lindsay Crouse, was network TV's first recurring lesbian character?

Kate McBride arrived in 1986 as Lucy Bates's new partner and dreaded her fellow officers' reaction when she came out.

Which Hill Street Blues writer-producer went on to create Miami Vice?

Anthony Yerkovich left after the third season to write the Miami Vice pilot, then handed the series to Michael Mann within its first year.

Hill Street Blues' first season set which unwanted record?

Lowest-rated show ever renewed, at the time: it finished 87th of 96 series, but critical acclaim helped persuade NBC to bring it back.

The handheld look of the Hill Street Blues pilot was inspired by which 1970s documentary?

The Police Tapes followed officers of a South Bronx precinct on portable video; director Robert Butler borrowed its rough look for the first episodes, and it set the style for the whole series.

Why was Steven Bochco fired from Hill Street Blues at the end of season 5?

Cost overruns were the last straw: the studio fired Bochco when he refused to trim budgets and storylines, after his expensive baseball drama Bay City Blues had flopped.

Which 1980s hospital drama from the same studio was often compared to Hill Street Blues?

St. Elsewhere never drew big ratings, but NBC kept it for six seasons because its young, affluent viewers were the ones advertisers wanted most.

Most Hill Street Blues episodes open with morning roll call and close with what kind of scene?

A late-night bedroom talk between the captain and his lover, picking over the day's events, closed most episodes and let the chaos end quietly.

On Hill Street Blues, where was Lieutenant Ray Calletano born?

Colombia-born Calletano became a naturalised American and Furillo's right-hand man; after leaving the force he taught Spanish to his old department.

In which Simpsons episode does Marge join the police, to music that parodies the Hill Street Blues theme?

The Springfield Connection also copies the show's roll-call briefing scene, and its title nods to the cop thriller The French Connection.

For most of its run, Hill Street Blues closed which night of NBC's prime-time schedule?

Thursday at ten was its home from 1981 to 1986, after a first season in which NBC shuffled it between several nights; it became the cornerstone of that evening's lineup.

What happens to the late desk sergeant's ashes after the Hill Street Blues squad scatters them?

A street sweeper takes them moments after the cops drive away, a last dark joke in the show's farewell to actor Michael Conrad, who had died in 1983.

Which NBC president ordered the cop show that became Hill Street Blues?

Fred Silverman asked for a cop show when NBC was in last place, and stood by the result because he liked it and had little else to schedule.

Which actress, married to co-creator Steven Bochco, played Frank Furillo's ex-wife Fay?

Barbara Bosson admitted the marriage won her the part, then earned five Emmy nominations and quit in 1985 in a dispute over pay and her character's direction.

Which police sitcom was a key influence on Hill Street Blues?

Barney Miller was one of several workplace comedies behind the gritty drama, whose closest forerunners were sitcoms; Captain Furillo has been called a dramatic version of that show's earnest captain.

At the 1982 Emmys, Hill Street Blues actors filled every nomination slot in which drama category?

Supporting actor: all five nominees came from the squad room, and desk sergeant Michael Conrad beat four of his own castmates to the award.