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PM_ME_UR_REDPANDAS t1_izqu9nq wrote

Reply to comment by ZorroMeansFox in TIL that the theme song from Mission Impossible get is it's iconic beat of "long long short short" from the Morse code of "M" and "I", which is long long short short. by pango3001

I never paid attention to the “uh”s, but I definitely will (I’m sure now that you’ve pointed it out I won’t be able to un-hear them all, lol).

I think one private eye who was definitely worse than Mannix was Barnaby Jones, though. If Peggy did all the legwork for Mannix, Betty and JR (or whatever his name was) definitely did all the heavy lifting for Barnaby.

But the early to mid 70s was the time they were churning out cop/private eye shows like crazy, so yeah, some were bound to be better than others.

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ZorroMeansFox t1_izqvwf7 wrote

I think Barnaby was a very solid investigator, and maybe the only TV detective to have his own in-office Forensics Lab, which he operated himself.

But that show went into a tailspin in the later seasons when they brought in J.R. to appeal to the youngins and do some running around and athletic moves that Buddy Ebsen (Jed from The Beverly Hillbillies and the original Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz! *) was getting too old to pull off (although he did retain a surprising amount of athleticism, probably because he had a lean, trained dancer's body). But Mark Shera as J.R. might be the single worst actor I've ever seen in a starring part on TV. He's a charisma black hole and seemed less believable than the gang in Scooby-Doo's Mystery Team.

(*Note: Ebsen was originally cast as The Tin Man, but had to be replaced almost immediately by Jack Haley, because Buddy got very sick from breathing the aluminum dust in the character's metallic makeup.)

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PM_ME_UR_REDPANDAS t1_izqwj9z wrote

Oh, wow, I never knew Ebsen was cast as the Tin Man!

I must have mostly seen the later episodes because I don’t remember Barnaby without JR.

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ZorroMeansFox t1_izqxdqy wrote

Yeah, the J.R. character was only introduced in the final years. Until then, Buddy was more of a folksy Sherlock Holmes-style intuitive/scientific detective who was a marksman with a pistol.

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