"The two great rules of history are you shouldn’t fight a landwar in Asia, and you shouldn’t make cops sing on television. Those arethe two things we’ve learned in our time on the planet." Or so says John Romano, an exec producer on Patrick Swayze’s upcoming A&E series The Beast who also happened to work on Steven Bochco’s legendary musical drama Cop Rock, which ran for 11 episodes on ABC in 1990. "It’s legendary. It’s legendary for lots of reasons. That’s a very pleasant word," Romano told us recently. "It’s funny, whenever I run in to Steven Bochco we always have a good laugh. We’re very proud of it. There were great episodes. We had done Hill Street Blues together, so we had a kind of sly, ironic musical retake of Hill Street in our minds. We had fun." (Watch their farewell song below, and more clips after the jump.)
You don’t have to work behind the camera to know the rules of TV. List the dos and don’ts you’ve picked up from your time in front of the tube…
More on Cop Rock:
Ken Tucker’s 1990 review of Cop Rock
Mark Harris’ 1990 feature on Cop Rock
Dalton Ross revisits Cop Rock in 2007
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Clip du jour: ‘Dean Martin Celebrity Roast’ of Jimmy Stewart
This should be the number one DON’T: DON’T cancel good shows!!!
Never put the engagement ring on before he asks you to marry him, guys never know your ring size and it’s liable to be too small!
I love that Romano referenced The Princess Bride.
My “don’t” is: Don’t get too attached to any show, because the amount that I love the show is usually directly proportional to the likelihood of its getting canceled. Of course, I don’t follow this rule very well, which is why my heart gets broken regularly.
okay – I’m the very teeny tiny minority – I LIKED COP ROCK – and would love to have it on dvd.
Don’t turn your show into a guest-star-a-thon (see Will and Grace) people started watching because of the main characters not because Danny Bonnaduce is guest starring.
Don’t put great songs in your shows then not tell us who the artists are – take a cue from the CW people!
CopRock was a miss but it did begat NYPD Blue and provided the best ending for a series ever, for which we should be grateful. And I’ve always been a fan for Ronny Cox.
As for don’ts – Don’t OVERESTIMATE the public’s taste
I loved “Cop Rock” so I don’t believe in this “don’t.” What’s it going to take to get this series on DVD anyway?
Don’t introduce cute new sidekicks (Scrappy Doo, cousin Oliver, that annoying kid on ‘Family Ties’). Or bring in Ted McGinley.
Don’t give guest stars or sidekicks their own shows unless the show is given a good script. IE- Joey
BTW: Phoebe would have been a better choice for a spin off.
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