COPS in popular culture

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COPS is one of the longest running shows on television, and has many references to it in popular culture, and is a popular subject for parody. The series has also influenced the creation and production of numerous other television series about law enforcement.

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[edit] Shows Influenced by COPS

The success, longevity, and popularity of COPS has influenced many different television shows and documentaries on law enforcement.

  • The late Paul Stojanovich, a former COPS producer, created the syndicated documentary series World's Wildest Police Videos, showing footage of police work from dashboard-mounted in-car cameras and from news footage. The show's narrator, John Bunnell, was a former Multnomah County, Oregon sheriff's deputy (and later Multnomah County Sheriff) who appeared on several early episodes of COPS conducting undercover drug busts.
  • The Montgomery, Alabama FOX affiliate, WCOV, also airs two long-running locally-produced shows based on the COPS formula: M.P.D. documents the Montgomery Police Department and County Law covers the Montgomery County Sherriff's Department. In addition to footage of actual law enforcement work, both shows also include community involvement programs and demonstrations of police equipment and tactics. The shows air following COPS and AMW on Saturday nights. In 2007, M.P.D. was renamed COPS in Montgomery and took on the familiar stenciled logo of the FOX Network show.
  • LAPD: Life On The Beat, a syndicated series focusing on the Los Angeles Police Department. Unlike COPS, LAPD would run a small text blurb at the end of each segment explaining what became of the featured "suspect."
  • Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, usually dealing with "Highway Patrol and State Police Agencies of America." This show was hosted by California Highway Patrol Commissioner Maury Hannigan.
  • New Zealand also has a Television series based vaguely on COPS, entitled Police 10/7 (10/7 being the code for having arrived at the event), and a further spinoff entitled Motorway Patrol (Motorway Patrol predates Police 10/7 by at least 2 years-Derek Judge- Narrator). Both shows consistently rate highly in New Zealand and Australia.
  • Mexico has its own version of COPS, called Policías. The show is often thought to have spread the "double-slang" associated with Mexican cops, often saying "dark black car" or "we will put this man under arrest so we can put it under custody".[citation needed]
  • The Cops Show premiered in Kirkuk, Iraq after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This show is roughly based on the United States COPS, but with innovations including a segment where viewers can call the station to speak with police forces on air.
  • In Australia a cops-themed television show is currently airing on network 7 entitled The Force: Behind the Line. It is produced by Southern Star Productions. Episodes were filmed in Western Australia with Police officers. Currently Australian television is also screening Missing Persons Unit, a show that follow's Police who investigate missing person's cases.
  • The First 48, on the A&E Network in the United States, follows homicide detectives on the premise that the first two days of an investigation are the most critical. While the footage is all real, it is narrated. It has depicted cases in a number of cities, and in one notable instance followed the investigation of a serial killer in Kansas City.
  • Although COPS was never shown on German TV, various different formats arguably inspired by the series have aired in Germany.
  • In the UK, satellite/cable channel Bravo produces a program called Street Crime UK which is basically done in the same type of formula as COPS.

[edit] Parody and satire

Shows that have parodied COPS include The Simpsons, South Park, Reno 911!, The Tick animated series, the Ronnie Dobbs sketches on Mr. Show with Bob and David, Mad TV and Saturday Night Live. The series was also the centerpiece of an episode of The X-Files, called "X-Cops."

[edit] Sketch comedy

  • In Living Color did a parody called THUGS, wherein a camera crew follows a group of house thieves as they try to steal electronics and jewelry. However, they are caught by the cops, and the would-be thieves lament that they weren't just caught by cops, but by the show COPS.
  • A recurring sketch in Mr. Show with Bob and David is a parody of COPS called FUZZ. The show in the show manages to get popular enough to spawn a spin-off and a musical in different episodes..
  • The Seattle-based sketch comedy show Almost Live! had a recurring segment called "COPS in (a major Seattle neighborhood)" where the actors would portray the criminals and victims as stereotypes of each area's culture.
  • A recurring The Ben Stiller Show sketch featured COPS in different historical periods. Each sketch followed two contemporary New England police officers on a beat in ancient Egypt, medieval Europe, and Salem, Massachusetts in the era of the witchhunts. The sketches' humor was derived from the anachronistic no nonsense cops' interactions with superstitious Christians, ancient pagans, and Arthurian figures, usually resulting in handcuffing or brutality.
  • A parody of the show has been done in the Mexican late night talk show Otro Rollo, where the skit was called "Chicos Malos" along with its own theme song.
  • Australian sketch comedy show The Ronnie Johns Half Hour's Dan Ilic and Jordan Raskopoulos starred in a parody of COPS; Popes, in which Catholic popes go after sinners. This sketch was made when the costume department hired some papal outfits for another sketch, and was shot in between locations.

[edit] Television

  • Reno 911! is in some respects a direct parody of COPS. The show features members of the fictional Reno Sheriff's Department who are videotaped during the course of their duties. The parody includes location and situation captions, officer identification, characters addressing the camera directly, and both violent and non-violent interventions. Unlike COPS, the members of the Reno Dept. are at least partially incompetent, and situations are rarely resolved without some sort of improper conduct or unforeseen debacle.
  • In the movie Idiocracy Not Sure is watching the show before he is replaced by the other guy and is taken to the experiment.
  • In an episode of Beavis and Butt-head, one episode featured a similar program, COPPERS, which included the "Bad Boys" theme song.
  • In an episode of 'Kenan & Kel, Kel sings a variant of the theme when a diamond bandit who bears resemblance to Kenan's father, Roger is show on the news.
  • An episode of The X-Files called "X-COPS" features the COPS filming crew following Mulder, Scully, and several officers as they investigate an alleged werewolf attack.
  • The TBS series Blotter! began airing in the early 2000s and continues to air it up to the present (2008), using it as an interstitial between shows late at night or early in the morning. The show deals with the wacky doings of the Gordieville Police Department. It is similar to Reno 911 in many ways.
  • An episode of Freakazoid featured a show known as Real Life Police, which included a parody of the "Bad Boys" theme song using comical and ridiculous lyrics.
  • Pups, episode of The Secret Files of The Spy Dogs included a parody of the theme song.
  • In an episode of the show Married...With Children, Al Bundy tags along with his police officer friend to catch a man who burglarized his home on the same night that his friend is having a COPS camera crew tag along.
  • The NBC TV show My Name Is Earl has done a parody of COPS in the 12th episode of the 2nd season, entitled "Our "Cops" Is On", as well as in the 7th and 8th episodes of the 3rd season, entitled "Our Other Cops Is On! (Part 1)" and "Our Other Cops Is On! (Part 2)," respectively.
  • The Australian comedy The Chaser's War on Everything showed a segment with Julian Morrow giving out tickets to people who are going over the speed limit in parking lots, while also playing "Bad Boys," the theme song used in COPS.
  • In RoboCop: The Series, the episode "Inside Crime" features a television show of the same name that parodies COPS by reversing the format; camera crews follow criminals while they perpetrate break-in's, robberies, etc.
  • On an episode of Full House, Rebecca is plaing with Nicky and Alex while they are playing with Danny's cookware. They want to hear the song "Bad Boys", so Rebecca gives the twins a beat to drum on the cookware and she starts singing and dancing to the song until Jesse and Stephanie come in and see her.
  • In an episode of The Golden Palace, a spinoff of The Golden Girls, Rose Nylund discovered that one of Blanche Devereaux's dates wass a con man, and forced him to tell Blanche about his lifestyle under the threat of calling the police. When it appeared that the date was putting off telling Blanche the truth, Rose walked into the room, looked at her watch, and said, "Oh, look, it's almost time for my favorite show, COPS." She shot the date an angry look when she finished her sentence.

[edit] Film

  • There's Something About Mary, in which the main character is arrested "live" on the show as his friend watches in dismay.
  • Shrek 2, which puts a spin on the parody with the medieval-themed KNIGHTS, where a white Bronco is seen going east which is a reference to the O.J. Simpson car chase. The knights use a pepper grinder as a medieval alternative to pepper spray.
  • In the movie Super Troopers the first scene is shown with the first person camera view of the camera man running after the cops, with fair to poor visibility as he is running.
  • Run Ronnie Run, based on material from the HBO series Mr. Show with Bob and David, features a repeat offender who gains fame from a COPS-like show.
  • In the sci-fi film Minority Report, fugitive protagonist John Anderton appears on an episode, hinting that the show will still be around in the mid 21st Century.
  • A 1997 short film, TROOPS, is a parody that features Imperial Storm Troopers from the Star Wars franchise as the local imperial police force on the planet Tatooine. In the course of their duties they become involved in several events of the original Star Wars Including the death of Luke Skywalker's Aunt and Uncle where it is implied that they actually died during a domestic dispute involving Luke's disappearance and a thermal detonator.
  • In the movie Series 7: The Contenders, a satire on reality television, the opening "warning" is a parody of that used in COPS. Also the cinematography used in the movie is similar to that captured by the camera crews in COPS.
  • Reno 911!: Miami is a film based on Comedy Central's Reno 911!
  • In the 1994 comedy-action film The Chase, the police officers pulled into the title chase are in the middle of recording a COPS-like show.
  • The film Showtime is in some ways a parody of COPS
  • In C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, an alternate history mockumentary set in a world where the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War, the show "Runaways", about Confederate Bureau of Investigation agents catching runaway slaves, is the parallel to "COPS".

[edit] Music

The Louisiana group "The Reverend Peyton and His Big Damn Band" have written and performed a song about one of the band members family being featured on the show, titled "Your Cousins on Cops".

[edit] External links