60 Fun Facts About Hill Street Blues

On which network did Hill Street Blues air during its original run?

NBC kept the show despite dreadful first-season ratings, a decision that later looked like one of the network's smartest.

In what year did Hill Street Blues premiere?

It debuted in January as a mid-season replacement and ran for seven seasons.

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

Kozoll's role shrank quickly; by season 2 he was credited only as a consultant.

Which production company developed Hill Street Blues for NBC?

MTM, the company behind The Mary Tyler Moore Show, later fired Bochco from his own series over budget overruns.

Who composed the show's famous piano-led theme music?

Post also wrote the themes for The Rockford Files, Magnum, P.I. and Law & Order.

Which guitarist is featured on the Hill Street Blues theme?

Carlton, a jazz-fusion session veteran, also played on Steely Dan's Aja.

How high did the theme single climb on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1981?

A TV instrumental in the top ten was rare; it also won a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

How many episodes of Hill Street Blues were made?

Seven seasons on the air, ending in May 1987 after Daniel J. Travanti decided not to return.

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

The line ended when Michael Conrad died partway through season 4.

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

Prosky's 'Stosh' was a deliberately old-school contrast to his predecessor.

What roll-call sign-off did the sergeant played by Robert Prosky use?

The harder line was written to signal a very different man from the fatherly desk sergeant fans had lost.

Michael Conrad's final appearance, aired in February 1984, was in an episode with what title?

His character died mid-tryst with Grace Gardner, and the episode doubled as a farewell to the actor.

How many Emmy Awards did Hill Street Blues win for its debut season in 1981?

That debut-season record stood until The West Wing beat it in 2000.

How many Emmy Awards did the series win in total?

Those 26 wins came from 98 nominations over seven seasons.

How many consecutive Outstanding Drama Series Emmys did the show win starting in 1981?

The streak ran 1981 to 1984, and was broken by Cagney & Lacey in 1985.

Bochco reportedly imagined the show's unnamed city as a hybrid of which three places?

The city is never named on screen, though its precinct numbers and street names feel like the Rust Belt.

In which city were the show's exterior shots, including a real 7th District station, filmed?

The Maxwell Street station stood in for the Hill, while interiors were shot in Los Angeles.

At which Los Angeles studio was Hill Street Blues produced?

The old Republic lot in Studio City was CBS Studio Center by then, and Republic Pictures had once been the home of B-westerns.

Who played Captain Frank Furillo?

Travanti won two Emmys in the role and was nominated five times.

What is Captain Furillo's middle name?

Francis Xavier is a classic Catholic naming, fitting a character who was a recovering alcoholic wrestling with guilt.

What was Joyce Davenport's job for most of the series?

Her courtroom sparring with the precinct made her secret romance with Furillo deliciously awkward.

What did Furillo affectionately call Joyce Davenport?

Their pillow-talk scenes typically closed each episode.

Furillo and Davenport's first date was a free classical concert followed by what?

They met in court while he was still a lieutenant and newly divorced.

Near the end of which season did Furillo and Davenport marry?

The wedding came at the end of the show's highest-rated season.

Detective Mick Belker was notorious for doing what to suspects?

He revealed the habit ran in the family: his tailor father bit people during fights too.

Which insult was a Belker trademark?

He also favoured 'dog breath', and used both on friend and foe alike.

What did Belker and his wife Robin name their son in season 6?

The name honoured the desk sergeant whose death still hung over the squad room.

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?

Charles Haid played Renko for the entire run of the show.

Under what boxing nickname had Bobby Hill won Golden Gloves titles?

He won the championship twice before joining the force.

How much did Bobby Hill win in the lottery in season 4?

He then gambled away all but $30,000 of it.

Before acting, Michael Warren (Bobby Hill) was a starting guard on which college basketball team?

He lettered from 1966 to 1968 under John Wooden and won two NCAA titles.

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

He then spent six NFL seasons with the Vikings, Jets and Seahawks before turning to acting.

In the season 1 finale as originally filmed, what happened to Officer Coffey?

The producers changed their minds, re-edited the scene so he was only wounded, and kept him for five more seasons.

Lieutenant Howard Hunter commanded which unit?

His men were known as the EATers, and Hunter's gung-ho paramilitary style was a running joke.

Howard Hunter was a decorated veteran of which branch of the military?

James B. Sikking played the Vietnam veteran for all seven seasons.

Which precinct duty was Henry Goldblume most often handed?

Joe Spano's soft-spoken sergeant, later lieutenant, was the station's conscience.

What was the name of the child Lucy Bates eventually adopted?

Betty Thomas, who played Bates, later became a film director (Private Parts, Dr. Dolittle).

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

Washington was played by Taurean Blacque, whose character was a former football player sidelined by a knee injury.

Before joining Hill Street as Norman Buntz, Dennis Franz played which other character in season 3?

Franz's Buntz was so popular he got his own short-lived spin-off, Beverly Hills Buntz.

Of the 13 episodes of the spin-off Beverly Hills Buntz that were filmed, how many were broadcast?

The half-hour comedy ran on NBC from November 1987 to April 1988.

Who played Sid 'The Snitch' Thurston?

Jurasik later played Londo Mollari on Babylon 5.

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

Trinidad Silva played him for the whole run, trading favours with Furillo.

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

Gardner was hired to spruce up the station house and ended up in a passionate affair with the desk sergeant.

Which cast member was Emmy-nominated in every one of the show's seven seasons?

She was also the only cast member nominated for the final season.

Which season-6 officer, played by Lindsay Crouse, was the first lesbian recurring character on US network TV?

Crouse played the character in 1986-87 as she agonised over coming out to colleagues.

Which season-3 writer-producer on Hill Street Blues went on to create Miami Vice?

David Milch, who later co-created NYPD Blue with Bochco, joined the writing staff the same season.

Where did the first season rank among the 96 shows on air, making it the lowest-rated series ever renewed?

NBC renewed it anyway, and it went on to a four-year Emmy streak.

Robert Butler's look for the pilot was inspired by which 1977 documentary?

That vérité, handheld feel became the show's signature and influenced everything from NYPD Blue to The Wire.

Why was Steven Bochco dismissed by MTM at the end of season 5?

He landed on his feet, co-creating L.A. Law the following year.

Where did TV Guide rank Hill Street Blues in its 2013 list of the 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time?

Twenty years earlier the same magazine had named it the all-time best cop show.

The actor who played Captain Furillo was born in which city?

The son of Italian immigrants, he later earned another Emmy nod as John Walsh in the 1983 TV film Adam.

Lieutenant Ray Calletano was born in which country?

Rene Enriquez played the naturalised ex-Marine, who was later promoted to captain.

Which episode of The Simpsons ends with a mash-up of its own theme and the Hill Street Blues theme?

In the episode Marge joins the Springfield police force.

On what night and time did the pilot air in January 1981?

NBC then aired the second episode two nights later, an unusual scheduling pattern it repeated the next week.

Krisalis's 1991 Hill Street Blues game came out for MS-DOS, Atari ST and which other platform?

It arrived four years after the show ended, a rare licensed cop-show strategy game.

Which NBC executive commissioned Hill Street Blues from MTM Productions?

The pilot was made in 1980 but held back as a mid-season replacement so it would not get lost among the fall debuts.

Whose idea was it to structure the show in four- or five-episode story arcs?

Bosson also played Fay Furillo on the series.

Which 1956 Ed McBain novel is named as an inspiration for the show?

The series has also been described as 'Barney Miller out of doors'.

How many cast members were Emmy-nominated for the 1981-82 season, a record for one series in a year?

Only Daniel J. Travanti and Michael Conrad won; L.A. Law and The West Wing later matched the record.