50 Fun Facts About Barney Miller

On which network did Barney Miller air for its entire run?

It ran on ABC from January 1975 to May 1982, and the network was reluctant to let it go when its creator decided to end it.

Barney Miller's detectives worked out of which fictional NYPD precinct?

The station house was placed on East 6th Street, and the squad room set barely changed in eight seasons.

Which actor played Captain Barney Miller?

He was a Tony-winning Broadway musical star before the role, and later said leaving Broadway for the show was his most irrational act and one of his best decisions.

Which Manhattan neighborhood was home to Barney's station house?

The station was placed on East 6th Street, in what the article calls Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan.

Which sad-faced detective was famous on the show for his hemorrhoids and his ever-phoning wife Bernice?

The actor got the part after showing up to the audition exhausted from a five-mile jog and being told he looked like he had hemorrhoids.

Which member of the squad was known for making terrible coffee?

Yemana's other hobbies were horse racing and Japanese cooking, and he made only token efforts at the precinct's paperwork.

What was the title of Detective Ron Harris's successful squad-based novel?

Harris moonlighted as a writer of fiction, and his pursuit of the money the book brought in ate up many of his working hours.

Which detective replaced Fish on the squad after he retired?

Dietrich was the squad's walking encyclopedia, trained in both medicine and law, and away from work he played the clarinet badly.

Which future Firefly actor played the impeccably dressed Detective Ron Harris?

Glass later played Shepherd Book on Firefly and Serenity, and voiced Randy Carmichael on Rugrats.

Officer Carl Levitt's running gag was that he never stopped reminding Barney he was available for what?

Levitt delivered the daily mail, and his persistence eventually earned him part-time work with the detectives.

How tall was Ron Carey, the actor who played the perpetually overlooked Officer Levitt?

Every one of the show's stars stood six feet or taller, which is why Levitt seemed permanently dwarfed in the squad room.

Before he became Officer Levitt, Ron Carey first appeared on the show as a criminal with what nickname?

He played Angelo Molinari, aka The Mole, in season 2 before joining the recurring cast for the final six seasons.

Which unsold pilot, aired in 1974 on the ABC anthology Just for Laughs, launched the series?

Only the actors playing Barney and Fish carried over from that pilot; Abby Dalton played Barney's wife before Barbara Barrie took the role.

Which producer of That Girl co-created Barney Miller with Theodore J. Flicker?

Arnold's obsessive rewriting became legendary, and he eventually won a $50 million settlement over the show's profits.

The show's theme opens with a distinctive line on which instrument?

Studio musician Chuck Berghofer improvised the line after being asked to start it out with the bass because the hero was a New York cop.

How many episodes of Barney Miller did director Noam Pitlik helm?

Pitlik, a former character actor, directed the majority of the show's 170 episodes.

In the 1977 spin-off Fish, Fish and Bernice became foster parents to how many children?

The kids were known as PINS, Persons in Need of Supervision, and a future Diff'rent Strokes star was among them.

Which future Diff'rent Strokes star played one of Fish's foster kids in the spin-off?

Bridges had also appeared as a different character during Barney Miller's first season, and he later blamed the star's salary demands for the show's cancellation.

Which actress played Bernice Fish, the wife who was almost always heard on the phone rather than seen?

Stanley later voiced Wilhelmina Packard in Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire and appeared in My Two Dads.

Which Barney Miller regular made a wordless, uncredited cameo in an episode of Fish?

Steve Landesberg's Dietrich made a proper crossover appearance in episode 8; the captain himself turned up briefly and silently in episode 10.

Which future star of Alice played Detective Janice Wentworth, Wojo's love interest, in the early seasons?

Lavin left when her CBS pilot Alice sold, and Wentworth was glimpsed again only in a flashback in the series finale.

Which cast member had played Salvatore Tessio in The Godfather three years before joining the squad?

Vigoda won the Godfather part at an open call for actors without agents, and the producers knew him from it when he auditioned for Fish.

Which magazine mistakenly described the actor who played Fish as dead in 1982?

He responded by posing in Variety sitting up in a coffin holding the erroneous issue, and actually lived until 2016.

On which sitcom did Gregory Sierra play Puerto Rican neighbor Julio Fuentes before becoming Detective Chano Amengual?

Sierra spent two seasons on Barney Miller and later played Lieutenant Lou Rodriguez in the first four episodes of Miami Vice.

Jack Soo, who played Yemana, was born under what name?

He was born on a ship crossing the Pacific and adopted the name Soo to sidestep anti-Japanese prejudice while working nightclubs after the war.

During World War II, Jack Soo was interned at which relocation center?

Fellow internees remembered him as a camp favorite who sang at dances and events; he later broke through in Broadway's Flower Drum Song.

How did the cast pay tribute to Jack Soo at the end of the fifth-season retrospective episode?

The cast appeared as themselves on the squad room set to share stories about Soo, who had died of cancer in January 1979.

Which pilot for a second spin-off, starring Max Gail, aired as a one-hour episode in January 1979?

Wojo's girlfriend Nancy was a former prostitute played by Darlene Parks; the pilot didn't sell and she was never seen again.

Which soap opera earned Max Gail two Daytime Emmys decades after Barney Miller?

Gail won in 2019 and 2021 for playing Mike Corbin, and he had earlier played Dodgers manager Burt Shotton in the film 42.

Which old-timer, forever recalling his 1940s partners Kleiner, Foster and Brown, kept visiting the Barney Miller squad?

Luger lived alone with a hot plate and an antique DuMont TV, and near the end of the series sent for a mail-order bride from the Philippines.

James Gregory, the squad's inspector, played a McCarthy-like senator in which 1962 thriller?

Gregory's other credits included General Ursus in Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Dean Martin's spy boss in the Matt Helm films.

Barney's reptilian antagonist Lieutenant Ben Scanlon worked for which unit?

Played by George Murdock, Scanlon turned up whenever he heard of irregular activity at the 12th, determined to make trouble for Barney.

What billing did Barney's wife Liz, played by Barbara Barrie, receive in the opening credits during season one?

Barrie asked to be released once the precinct stories took over, and Liz was last seen in the fifth-season Christmas episode 'Toys'.

Which Jack DeLeon shoplifter was the show's most frequent recurring guest and an early recurring gay TV character?

The show's creator developed Marty and his boyfriend Darryl with the Gay Media Task Force, and Darryl grew less stereotyped over the years.

Per Hal Linden, the 'X-rated sitcom' buzz over 'The Courtesans' moved Barney Miller from 51st to where in the ratings?

The show's creator had threatened to quit if censors cut the episode's risque punchline about Wojo asking Barney for fifty dollars.

Why did the show stop taping in front of a live studio audience?

The show's star remembered one session running until 6:30 a.m., and by season 4 only a quiet laugh track was used.

Barney Miller finally won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in which year?

It won after it had already ended, having been nominated in the category six times before, from 1976 to 1981.

How many Emmy nominations, all without a win, did Hal Linden earn for Barney Miller?

He also collected Golden Globe nominations for the role, but his only major acting trophy of the era was a Tony for a Broadway musical.

The show's star, born Harold Lipshitz, took his stage name from what?

He decided 'Swing and Sway with Harold Lipshitz' just didn't parse, and spotted the name from a bus between Philadelphia and New York.

For which 1971 Broadway musical did the show's lead actor win the Tony for Best Actor?

He played patriarch Mayer Rothschild; earlier he had replaced Sydney Chaplin in Bells Are Ringing.

After his death, Steve Landesberg turned out to be how much older than he had long claimed?

Many outlets reported him as 65 when he died in 2010; he was 74, and his daughter said he had given varying birth dates for years.

Ron Carey was in Mel Brooks's unofficial repertory company. Which of these Brooks films was he in?

He also appeared in Fatso, directed by Brooks's wife Anne Bancroft, and sang in a Better Cheddars commercial.

Which classical unity of drama did Barney Miller NOT observe, because each episode had several subplots?

Fewer than a dozen of the 170 episodes left the squad room, and the men's room interior wasn't shown until 'The DNA Story'.

How many discs were in Shout! Factory's 2011 complete-series DVD set?

The set included every episode plus the first season of Fish, the spin-off's first-ever DVD release.

In a 2005 op-ed, NYPD detective Lucas Miller said real police life is more like Barney Miller than which drama?

Ex-Chicago cop Dennis Farina made the same claim on Dinner for Five, praising the show's off-screen drama and believably quirky characters.

In which year did Barney Miller premiere on ABC?

It debuted on January 23, 1975 and ran until May 20, 1982, closing on its own terms rather than being cancelled.

Why did Barney Miller end in 1982 despite strong ratings?

Arnold had wanted to quit a year earlier over script problems and departing writers, but network pressure won him one more season before he made good on it.

How was the pilot of Barney Miller made differently from the rest of the series?

The pilot was shot at CBS Studio Center, and when regular production began in late 1974 the sets moved to ABC Television Center in Hollywood, where they stayed until 1982.

Roughly how many of Barney Miller's 170 episodes were set partly or fully outside the squad room?

Production deliberately resembled a stage play; the rare exceptions included a stakeout, a hospital room, a hotel room in Chinatown and, in one episode, the men's room.

Which desk sergeant 'downstairs' was often mentioned but almost never seen after the second season?

Milt Kogan played the character during the first two seasons; afterwards the name lived on only in the squad's references to the uniformed officers below.