Hooperman Seasons 1 & 2 are now available on DVD from Olive Films.
Not many names resonate with longtime fans of law and crime dramas quite like Steven Bochco’s. With shows such as Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law to his credit, the master of the TV procedural has given the American public a vast amount of inside looks into justice in all its complex forms. While there have been hits, and plenty of them, like the beloved staple NYPD Blue, there have also been the flow, the most notorious being the “see it to believe it” Cop Rock. Then there’s also the in-between ones; the shows which people tried to embrace (and in many cases, succeeded), yet never lasted, such as the Geena Davis-led Commander-in-Chief. The 1987 series Hooperman, starring John Ritter as a smart ass San Francisco police detective can definitely be added to this list in its attempt to blend humor and drama in the 1980s TV landscape.
In Hooperman, Ritter plays the title character, Inspector Harry Hooperman, a San Francisco cop who in the pilot episode inherits the apartment building he lives in after his landlady is found murdered. Much to his chagrin, the deceased has also left Harry her Jack Russell terrier, Bijoux, whom he loathes. Unable to deal with the demands of running an apartment building, Harry hires beautiful aspiring writer Susan (Debrah Farentino) to run things while he deals with his demanding day job, which includes a squad room full of colorful characters including the newly separated Captain Stern (Barbara Bosson), the gay Officer Salardi (Joseph Gian) and the gruff old school Detective Pritzger (Clarence Felder).
Watching Hooperman today surely has to be an easier, far more pleasant experience than it must have been when it first aired. One can only imagine the cluelessness and frustration felt by audiences of the day regarding how to approach the series with its mixture of light and dark moments. While Harry’s devotion to his job and the victims he was seeking justice for were full-on drama, such moments were interspersed with wise-ass banter with his fellow officers and especially with Bijoux. Even if the two weren’t always an easy fit tonally, there were moments where Bochco’s vision worked. One such moment occurs when Harry is sent out with the intent of stopping a potential jumper through his longstanding method of bringing along a watermelon to toss onto the street as an aid. Yet the technique proves a bust when Harry discovers his potential jumper is a black man frustrated with being mistreated because of his race and all the stereotypes he insists white people attach to him. Nervously, Harry carefully hands the bagged watermelon back to a fellow officer as the victim continues his rant.
So many other of Hooperman’s numerous aims were wonderfully realized including the ahead-of-their-time touches, like the presence of a proudly gay cop and an in-control female police captain. Additionally, the show offered up a nice mix of Harry’s police world and personal life. While the romantic sub-plot with Susan took a while to get interesting, touches such as showing the mental toll of killing criminals in the line of duty, were admirable. Most beneficial to the series was the main character himself who was painted as neither too gruff or unlikable, nor a pratfalling buffoon. Instead, Harry is shown as a normal guy who is simply, flawed, funny, and above all, human.
Bochco may have gotten a little carried away in Hooperman’s second season with the many different places he decided to take his experimental show. While there was more character exploration than in the first year, the decision to write off Susan after such a dramatic turn of events was a bewildering shame as it would have been great to see the relationship between her and Harry progress. Maybe it was network pressures, but a number of season two episodes tended to play out as standard slapstick fare. Episodes involving Harry being too scared to have an operation and the arrest of a magician who has trapped himself in a safe, temporarily stalled the series.
Yet Bochco remained true to his boundary-pushing nature such as giving his female Captain lines like: “It’s not babe. It’s Captain Stern, meat whistle,” which she says to a chauvinist officer and episodes like the one where Harry dresses in drag to capture an unknown assailant targeting transvestites in a string of violent hate crimes throughout the city, which proved downright revolutionary. In trademark Bochco fashion, the majority of Hooperman’s episodes play out like a tightly-wound watch, blending humor and pathos beautifully. Not many minds can write a teleplay like the one where a recently-released convict, unable to deal with life on the outside, repeatedly shows up in Harry’s way after committing a series of petty crimes in the hopes of getting incarcerated again. Uninterested, Harry instead focuses on the bringing down of a crooked city politician who has scared the star witness from testifying against him, prompting our hero to threaten the dangerous man. When the convict suddenly shows up at the confrontation and immediately shoots the politician dead, a shocked Harry remains speechless and the convict smiles and states: “Hey Hooperman, I’m going home!”
Known as the second coming of Dick Van Dyke when it came to modern TV comedy, Ritter was one of the most cherished TV stars in the late 80s. Hooperman certainly offered up a different Ritter to audiences. However in many ways the series also proved the perfect vehicle for the actor. The show’s dual genres allowed Ritter to perform on a level that was still familiar to fans, while also giving him the chance to stretch as an actor. Ritter takes a couple of episodes to nail down Hooperman’s more serious and somber scenes almost as long as it takes us to get used to watching him perform them. But those hiccups are quickly gone as the actor comfortably settles into the role. The rest of the cast proves game and likeable enough, but there is never any doubt that the show belongs to Ritter.
The fact that Hooperman wasn’t a hit is a sad truth that should surprise no one. Bochco’s unique vision of blending comedy and drama was simply too early to the game in order to be accepted by anyone tuning in during the late 80s. The show’s tone reportedly confused critics and audiences with its endless, yet skilled genre-blending. It’s a shame to think of what the show could be have been had it existed in today’s TV landscape where it would have been if executives had given it the appropriate room to breathe and experiment freely. And yet, with so many today’s shows topping each other in terms of daring content, there’s also the probable chance of Hooperman potentially disappearing in the current programming slate. Even if Hooperman is stuck between different eras, its humor and bravery will forever remain a testament to those who actually dare to change the rules.
Get them at Amazon:
Hooperman — Season 1 DVD / Season 2 DVD
