The Snoop Sisters

The Snoop Sisters is an American comedy-mystery television show that aired on NBC during the 1973–1974 season, airing on a monthly rotation (referred to as a "wheel") as part of the NBC Tuesday Mystery Movie, sharing the timeslot with Banacek, Tenafly, and Faraday and Company.

The show stars Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick as two elderly sisters, Ernesta Snoop and Gwendolyn Snoop Nicholson, who routinely stumbled across mysteries, which they solve. The series followed the 1971 ABC television movie Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate, which also starred Hayes and Natwick working together as amateur sleuths, along with Myrna Loy and Sylvia Sidney. A pilot for the series, also titled The Snoop Sisters, but later retitled "The Female Instinct", aired on December 16, 1972, on NBC.

Guest stars during the series' brief run include Joan Blondell, Jill Clayburgh, Alice Cooper, Bo Svenson, William Devane, Tammy Grimes, George Maharis, Roddy McDowall, Eve McVeagh, Geraldine Page, Walter Pidgeon, Vincent Price, Fritz Weaver and, in her final screen appearance, Paulette Goddard.

Synopsis
Predating Murder, She Wrote, Ernesta was a mystery novelist, while her widowed sister Gwendolyn (known as "G") typed the stories from Ernesta's dictation. G was also a writer, but of poetry, having had one book of poetry published. Her late husband was named George, and G fancied he resembled Melvyn Douglas. The sisters lived in a townhouse on Gramercy Park in New York City and traveled in a 1920s Lincoln sedan. They were assisted in their investigations by Barney, their chauffeur and caretaker, played by Art Carney in the pilot and Lou Antonio in the series, and somewhat reluctantly by their nephew, NYPD Lieutenant Ostrowski, played by Lawrence Pressman in the pilot and Bert Convy in the series.

Cast

 * Helen Hayes as Ernesta Snoop
 * Mildred Natwick as Gwendolyn Snoop Nicholson
 * Lou Antonio as Barney
 * Bert Convy as Lt. Steve Ostrowski

Reception
Both Natwick and Hayes were nominated for Emmy Awards for their work on the program. Natwick won.

DVD releases
Visual Entertainment released The Snoop Sisters: The Complete Series on DVD in Canada on March 15, 2011; and in the U.S. on June 7, 2011. Madman Entertainment released the complete series on DVD in Australia (Region 4) on March 16, 2011.