Cop Rock

1 9 9 0 (USA)
11 x 60 minute episodes

This ABC show was one of two 1990 drama series that featured Broadway-style song-and-dance numbers. The other was NBC’s Hull High.

This – a police drama that was also a musical – was the networks’ idea of innovation. Viewers didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Focussing on the work of the LAPD, a typical episode would present the traditional police procedural but with the cast breaking into song and dance routines at opportune moments, and a line-up of suspects would bemoan racial profiling in a tuneful style.

Everybody sang, Dennis Potter-style: the cops, the crooks, even the judge and jury during the trials.

Hull High was cancelled first, and by December, Cop Rock was ABC’s lowest-rated series. It, too, was cancelled after only three months and 11 episodes, with some $25 million in production costs down the chute.

The final episode ended with the cast breaking character and joining crew members in performing a closing song.

Cop Rock has gone down in history as one of the worst TV shows of all time.

Officer Vicki Quinn
Anne Bobby
Officer Andy Campo
David Gianopoulos
Captain John Hollander
Larry Joshua
Officer Franklin Rose
James McDaniel
Det. Lt. Ralph Ruskin
Ron McLarty
Det. Joseph Gaines
Mick Murray
Mayor Louise Plank
Barbara Bosson
Det. Vincent LaRusso
Peter Onorati
Chief Roger Kendrick
Ronny Cox
Cmdr. Warren Osborne
Vondie Curtis-Hall
Det. Bob McIntire
Paul McCrane
Trish Vaughn
Teri Austin
Sidney Weitz
Dennis Lipscomb
Det. William Donald Potts
William Thomas Jr.

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