The Mod Squad

The Mod Squad is an American crime drama series that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968 to August 23, 1973.^[1] It stars Michael Cole as Peter "Pete" Cochran, Peggy Lipton as Julie Barnes, Clarence Williams III as Lincoln "Linc" Hayes, and Tige Andrews as Captain Adam Greer. The executive producers of the series were Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas.^[1][2]

The iconic counterculture police series earned six Emmy Award nominations, four Golden Globe nominations plus one win for Peggy Lipton, one Directors Guild of America Award, and four Logies.^[3] In 1997 the episode "Mother of Sorrow" was ranked #95 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.^[4]

Plot

The main cast in 1971 from left: Clarence Williams III, Peggy Lipton and Michael Cole

They were The Mod Squad ("One black, one white, one blonde"), the hippest and first young undercover cops on TV.^[5] Each of these characters represented mainstream culture's principal fears regarding youth in the era:^[6] Long-haired rebel Pete Cochran was evicted from his wealthy parents's Beverly Hills home, then arrested and put on probation after he stole a car; Lincoln Hayes, who came from a family of 13 children, was arrested in the Watts riots, one of the longest and most violent actual riots in Los Angeles history; flower child Julie Barnes, the "canary with a broken wing,"^[7]:64 was arrested for vagrancy after running away from her prostitute mother's San Francisco home; and Captain Adam Greer was a tough but sympathetic mentor and father figure who convinced them to form the squad.^[1][8][9]

The concept was to take three rebellious, disaffected young social outcasts and convince them to work as unarmed undercover detectives as an alternative to being incarcerated themselves. Their youthful, hippie personas would enable them to get close to the criminals they investigated. "The times are changing," said Captain Greer. "They can get into places we can't." Examples included infiltrations of a high school to solve a teacher's murder, of an underground newspaper to find a bomber, and of an acting class to look for a strangler who was preying on blonde actresses.^[1][9]

More than a year before the release of the film Easy Rider, The Mod Squad was one of the earliest attempts to deal with the counterculture. Groundbreaking in the realm of socially relevant drama,^[2] it dealt with issues such as abortion, domestic violence, student protest, child neglect, illiteracy, slumlords, the anti-war movement, soldiers returning from Vietnam, racism, and the illegal drug trade.^[10] Spelling intended the show to be about the characters's relationships and promised that the Squad "would never arrest kids...or carry a gun or use one."^[7]:63

The show was loosely based on creator Bud "Buddy" Ruskin's experiences in the late 1950s as a squad leader for young undercover narcotics cops, though it took almost 10 years after he wrote a script for the idea to be given the greenlight by ABC Television Studios.^[8]

Impact

The shows Star Trek (1966–69), I Spy (1965–68), The Bill Cosby Show (1969–71), Julia (1968–71), The Flip Wilson Show (1970–74), and The Mod Squad (1968–73) were among the first programs to feature African-Americans as stars since the stereotyped roles of Amos ’n’ Andy and Beulah (ABC, 1950–53).^[11] Significantly, The Mod Squad presented an African-American character (Linc) as being on an equal footing, as roles went, to the Caucasian characters (Barnes and Cochran). In one Mod Squad episode, the script called for Linc to give Barnes a "friendly kiss." Since the first interracial kiss on an American television show was in 1967, this was still fairly new territory in popular culture.^[12] The studio was frightened of a negative public reaction, so they asked Spelling to cut it:^[7]:67–68

"You can't do that," I was told. "You can't have a black man kissing a white girl." I won and ABC agreed to let it in, but they warned me I'd receive thousands of complaint letters. I didn't get one.^[7]:68

Linc's famous "solid" and "keep the faith" were among the current-day slang used on the show, which included "pad," "dig it" and "groovy."^[8][13]

The "kids" traveled in Pete's famous "Woody," an old green 1950 Mercury Woodie station wagon that was burned up by an arsonist during the second season.^[9]

Among the series guest stars were Leslie Nielsen, William Windom, Ed Asner, Vincent Price, Sammy Davis Jr., Andy Griffith, Richard Pryor, Lee Grant, Richard Dreyfuss, Tom Bosley, Danny Thomas, Tyne Daly, Martin Sheen, Louis Gossett, Jr., Sugar Ray Robinson, Billy Dee Williams and Rodolfo Hoyos, Jr., in three episodes.^[14]

Episodes

Nielsen ratings

NOTE: The highest average rating for the series is in bold text.

Syndication

In the U.S., MeTV reran the series fron May 26, 2014 to August 29, 2014. MeTV now airs the Mod Squad Sunday afternoons (began January 4, 2015).

Related productions

A television pilot was shot in 1968, with a running time of 74 minutes, but it was never aired in its entirety. The film was edited and aired as the show's first episode.

A TV reunion movie, The Return of Mod Squad, aired on ABC May 18, 1979, featuring the entire original cast.

In 1999, the series was adapted into a film of the same name by MGM starring Giovanni Ribisi, Omar Epps, Claire Danes, and Dennis Farina. The film was not a box-office success.

DVD releases

CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount) has released the first two seasons of The Mod Squad on DVD in Region 1.

On August 20, 2013, it was announced that Visual Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series (under license from Paramount) and would release season 3 on DVD on September 24, 2013. Season 4 would be released on October 1, 2013.^[15] In Canada, Season 3 was released on DVD a week earlier, on September 17, 2013, and Season 4 was released on October 8, 2013. Season 5 was released in Canada on November 19, 2013 and in the US on December 17, 2013.^[16][17] A complete series set was released in Canada and the US on November 12, 2013.^[18]

Referenced in other popular culture

The Mod Squad is referenced by The Thing in "Chapter Three: Through The Negative Zone!" of Deadpool, Vol. 4 Issue #20: "’Hey, who wants a clobbering? I'm watching The Mod Squad.’ **Ed's Note: The Mod Squad was a popular TV show. TV was what people called YouTube in 1968."

References

External links

• The Mod Squad (1968) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Mod Squad at TV.com
• The Mod Squad at TV.com
• CBS Television Distribution Syndication Bible (including The Mod Squad)
• Mod Squad