N.Y.P.D. (TV series)

N.Y.P.D. is a half-hour long American police crime drama set in the context of the New York City Police Department. The program appeared on the ABC network from 1967 to 1969, running in the evening during the 9:30 p.m. night time slot. During the second season, N.Y.P.D was joined by The Mod Squad and It Takes a Thief to form a 2½ hour block of crime dramas.

Plot
N.Y.P.D. centers around three New York police detectives – Lt. Mike Haines (Jack Warden), Detective Jeff Ward (Robert Hooks), and Detective Johnny Corso (Frank Converse) – who fight a wide range of crimes and criminals. The show features many real New York City locations, as well as episodes based on actual New York City police cases.

Cast

 * Jack Warden as Lt. Mike Haines
 * Robert Hooks as Det. Jeff Ward
 * Frank Converse as Det. Johnny Corso
 * Ted Beniades as Det. Richie
 * Denise Nicholas as Ethel
 * Tom Rosqui as Det. Jacobs

Development
The show was produced by Talent Associates, Ltd., a company founded by Alfred Levy and David Susskind. Talent Associates had produced 14 years of the anthology program Armstrong Circle Theatre and The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, both highly respected shows. Television producer, movie producer, and talk show host David Susskind created N.Y.P.D. with screenwriter Arnold Perl (Cotton Comes to Harlem).

At the time of his death in 1971, Arnold Perl was working on a screenplay about assassinated black activist Malcolm X, which would later become the basis for Spike Lee's 1992 film, Malcolm X. Daniel Melnick, the show's executive producer, was a partner with Susskind in Talent Associates and had brought Mel Brooks and Buck Henry together to create the TV comedy Get Smart in 1965. Producer Susskind and actor Harvey Keitel would work together again on Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). Scripted by writers like Lonne Elder, who would later be the first African-American nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar (for 1972's Sounder), the stories came with such titles as "Cruise to Oblivion," "Which Side Are You On?," "The Screaming Woman," and "Deadly Circle of Violence."

In N.Y.P.D. scripts, there were white cops and black cops, white suspects and black suspects, white witnesses and black witnesses, an unselfconscious racial blend that would not otherwise be seen for several years on U.S. network television (Room 222 and Hawaii Five-O were among the next series to feature casts situated similarly.)

Casting
Among the actors who appeared in the series were Robert Alda, Rutanya Alda,Conrad Bain, Philip Bosco, John Cazale, Leslie Charleson, Miriam Colon, Franklin Cover, Matthew Cowles, Blythe Danner, Ossie Davis,Mary Fickett, Scott Glenn,Moses Gunn, Graham Jarvis, James Earl Jones, Raul Julia, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Laurence Luckinbill, Nancy Marchand, Bill Macy, Donna McKechnie, Meg Myles, Priscilla Pointer, Andrew Robinson, Esther Rolle,Richard Ward, Louis Zorich, Jill Clayburgh, Jane Elliot, Ralph Waite, Gretchen Corbett
 * Al Pacino S2E5 "Deadly Circle of Violence"
 * Martin Sheen S2E8 "The Peep Freak"
 * Jon Voight S1E14 "The Bombers"
 * Harvey Keitel S2E6 The Shady Lady
 * Jane Alexander S2E14 The Night Watch
 * Roy Scheider S2E19 Who's Got the Bundle?
 * Sam Waterston S2E23 No Day Trippers Need Apply
 * Charles Grodin S1E6 Money Man
 * Howard Da Silva S1E7 Old Gangsters Never Die
 * Murray Hamilton S1E24 The Private Eye Puzzle
 * Charles Durning S2E1 Naked in the Streets

Writing
In 1967, N.Y.P.D. was the first television series in America to air an episode with a homosexual theme ("Shakedown"). The police track down a man blackmailing homosexual men, prompting several suicides.

Opening credits
The series' opening credit sequence, prominently featuring a closeup of a police car emergency light as the vehicle drives through the streets of New York, would later be spoofed in the 1980s comedy series Police Squad! and subsequent movies.