Baretta

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Baretta
The cover of the Baretta Season 1 DVD set
Genre	detective
Starring	Robert Blake Dana Elcar Tom Ewell Edward Grover Michael D. Roberts
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	17 January 1975 – 18 May 1978
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Baretta was a detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. It starred Robert Blake as Detective Tony Baretta. The show was a recasting and reshaping of the successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer Dave Toma. When he left the series over creative differences after a single season, the program was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.

Baretta was a single cop who lived in a run-down hotel with his pet cockatoo, Fred. Other characters were Baretta's supervisors Inspector Shiller (Dana Elcar) and Lieutenant Hal Brubaker (Edward Grover); Billy Truman (Tom Ewell), an older and sometimes drunk ex-cop who cheerfully ran the hotel where Tony Barreta resided; and Rooster (Michael D. Roberts), the streetwise pimp who was one of Tony's favorite informants. One of Baretta's favorite expressions was "And you can take dat to the bank."

The theme song, "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow," was written by Dave Grusin and M. Ames, and performed by Sammy Davis Jr. Every episode of Baretta began with the song, which contained the motto, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."