This is the fourth post of a series. The previous posts are:

#1: The Howdy Doody Show
#2: 
#3: The Edge of Night
#4: 
#5: 
#6: 
#7: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
#8: 
#9: 
#10: 

I took to 77 Sunset Strip almost right away. I know I didn’t see the first episode, the one where Edd Byrnes played a psychotic killer, but the teenage girls still swooned over him, so the producers created a new character for him to play in subsequent episodes. Hence, the birth of Kookie. And sadly Edd Byrnes’s career never recovered from being typecast as a teen idol. Actually, in the first season he was credited as Edward Byrnes; the “Edd” came later.

But I started watching it soon afterward. So did Ellen and Kathleen Weiant, the girls who lived across the street from us on West Main at the time. They were among the legions of Kookie fans, and while I thought Kookie was fine (but why was he always combing hair?), I was especially taken by the cool savoir faire of lead detective Stu Bailey as played by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., though I wouldn’t have put it in those words at the time.

I also liked Roscoe, the bookie, who could always be relied on for a laugh. And I liked the theme song. Snap! Snap!

I have vivid memories of two episodes and slightly less vivid ones of a couple others.

There was “The Silent Caper”, which was an episode done entirely without dialogue. I don’t recall all the details, just that partner Jeff Spenser, played by future husband of Ann-Margaret, Roger Smith, had a solo showcase and nary a word was spoken. One detail I do recall. Jeff left a note on Stu’s desk asking for information, but Roscoe found it first and misinterpreted it as a horse race tip and placed a big bet on it, with comical results.

Then there was the episode, “Once Upon a Caper”, inspired by the Japanese film Rashomon, in which Kookie, who was by this time a full fledged detective himself, asked each of the members of the detective agency how Stu and Jeff originally got together. He received increasingly outlandish stories from each of them, with each person claiming the credit for bringing them together.

In later seasons Richard Long was added to the cast as a detective, but although he kept popping in Warner Brothers TV shows (somebody there must have liked him), I never took to him as a protagonist. With his smarmy good looks, I always thought he did better in villainous roles.

I’ve long wished that a DVD set would be made available, but alas, none has ever come out.

The best I’ve been able to find is a complete set of rather poor quality recorded-off-the-TV episodes. Ah, well, better than nothing. Watching them, has taught me two things. 

The series hasn’t aged very well. I’m cringing quite a lot as I watch. Stu nearly always has a cigarette or a pipe in his mouth and doesn’t look nearly so cool anymore. Some of the plots seem really silly. And Kookie’s hair combing is just plain annoying. In one episode Kookie accompanies the boys to a shootout, and of course, as soon as the guns are down, out comes the comb.

And second, I think I know why a DVD has never come out. There were a lot of standard pop tunes played in the show, and it would probably be prohibitively expensive to pay for the rights to all those songs these days. They can’t substitute other songs because most of the time the tunes are played by a jazz combo right there in the scene, with closeups and everything.

By the way, one of the most frequent directors of the show always was credited as george waGGner. 

The mythical 77 Sunset Strip of the title is right next to Dean Martin’s Dino’s restaurant. And although they show the exterior of the restaurant with the Dino’s sign, they never once mention Dean Martin’s name.

I’ll also give a shout out to The Thin Man TV series. That was a half hour show that came on at 9:30 right after 77 Sunset Strip but on CBS (77 was on ABC), and it starred Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk. It was only on for a couple of seasons, but I remember enjoying it almost as much as 77. It also featured Asta, one of my favorite dogs. That was my first exposure to Lawford, and I liked him immediately. I also thought Phyllis Kirk was a lot of fun; it’s a shame her acting career was cut short.