Sledge Hammer Play It Again Sledge
| Sledge Hammer! | |
|---|---|
 Embrace of season 1 DVD collection | |
| Genre | Comedy police comedy |
| Created by | Alan Spencer |
| Starring |
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| Theme music composer | Danny Elfman |
| Composers |
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| Country of origin | U.s. |
| Original language | English language |
| No. of seasons | ii |
| No. of episodes | 41 (listing of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Producer | Thomas John Kane |
| Cinematography |
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| Editors |
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| Camera setup | Single-photographic camera |
| Running fourth dimension | 22–24 minutes |
| Product companies |
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| Distributor | New World Television receiver |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | September 23, 1986 (1986-09-23) – February 12, 1988 (1988-02-12) |
Sledge Hammer! is an American satirical constabulary sitcom produced by New World Television that ran for ii seasons on ABC from September 23, 1986 to February 12, 1988. The series was created by Alan Spencer and stars David Rasche as Inspector Sledge Hammer,[one] a caricature of the standard "cop on the edge" character.
Setting [edit]
The series takes place in San Francisco, California, with parts of Los Angeles used every bit a stand-in for filming. Even so, no mention of San Francisco was made past the pilot episode and none of the metropolis's landmarks are seen throughout the series, though the city name can be read on the police force department building sign. The San Francisco newspaper used at the beginning of the pilot episode was censored during the show'southward initial broadcast, as the metropolis wanted goose egg to do with the series. Subsequent episodes showed newspapers that had no metropolis name.[ citation needed ]
Episodes [edit]
Characters [edit]
Main [edit]
Inspector Sledge Hammer [edit]
Inspector Sledge Hammer (David Rasche) is a stubborn, narrow-minded, opinionated, sexist, and reactionary (all of this by his own access) detective from the San Francisco Law Department. According to many of his fellow detectives, he "makes Dingy Harry look like Mr. Peepers." Hammer'south most prized possession is his .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 629 revolver (a stainless steel version of the Smith & Wesson Model 29)[ citation needed ] with a customized grip, featuring an engraving of a sledgehammer. Hammer sleeps and showers with his gun, (it has its own satin pillow) and even talks to it, referring to it as "her." He believes in shooting commencement and asking questions never. Despite this, Hammer is never seen killing anybody on-screen during the whole 41 episodes of the show. In the pilot episode, he deals with a sniper on a skyscraper roof by blowing upward the unabridged edifice with a M72 Police force...after which he utters "I think I got him" to onlooking cops. In "Witless," a mob assassinator hides in Hammer's closet; Sledge guns downwards his would-be-murderer through the closed door (which has a bullseye on information technology) without ever knowing he'southward there. Later in the same episode, Hammer fatally kicks a Mafia dominate through an open up window. Sledge also mentions that his favorite clemency is "Toy Guns for Tots". Hammer'due south father was Jack Hammer, a legendary carnival play a trick on shooter whose repertoire of shooting tricks included communicable a bullet in his teeth, which saved his son'due south life in i episode (some other episode reveals that Jack gave Sledge his Magnum). His mother'due south name was Armin Hammer. In the episode "Brother, Tin You Spare A Crime?", while Doreau and Trunk were researching Hammer'south family tree, his roots go back to Ivan the Terrible; coincidentally, he had an uncle named "Ivan". He is also a distant relative to Genghis Khan, through an aunt named "Joan Khan". He is a direct descendant of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he refers to every bit a "black sheep" in his otherwise violent family.
While purportedly a stickler for law and club, Hammer is rather lax when information technology actually comes to following constabulary procedure and adhering to regulations. He enjoys roughing upward suspected criminals, whom he frequently refers to as "brain-dead mutants", "yogurt-sucking creeps", and the like. He is often suspended from duty, over such infractions as firing warning shots at jaywalkers; his police file requires three wheelbarrows to transport.
Hammer drives a shell-up, bullet-riddled, lime light-green Contrivance St. Regis with an "I ♥ VIOLENCE" bumper sticker. He prefers to wear sports jackets, loud neckties, and nighttime sunglasses. Ane episode had him visiting a friend of his who worked in the coroner's part, with the friend saying that no bodies with clothing Hammers size had come in recently. His favorite music consists of classical, "Taps" and "Ballad of the Greenish Berets". He is divorced, and frequently makes jokes at the expense of his ex-wife, who makes an appearance in the terminal episode, played by Rasche's existent-life wife, Heather Lupton.
Despite his irresponsibility and highly destructive urges, Hammer always ends up getting his man (or adult female), ofttimes through sheer luck, fauna force, the initiative of his partner, or the rare flash of luminescence. Hammer'southward unintentionally ironic motto is: "Trust me, I know what I'm doing", and disaster usually follows. Another expression he favors is: "Don't confuse me", typically in response to whatsoever remark that challenges his markedly one-dimensional worldview.
Detective Dori Doreau [edit]
Hammer's partner is Detective Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin), who is sensitive, intelligent, and sophisticated, though besides a tough, agile cop who can handle a gun and deliver a well-timed karate kicking when necessary, and who frequently saves Hammer from the extraordinary predicaments into which he invariably gets himself. Doreau is often shocked and offended past Hammer'southward crass beliefs and obnoxious attitude, simply she appears to see "some" redeeming qualities beneath his gruff exterior. It becomes apparent with fourth dimension that she has some romantic feelings for Sledge.[ citation needed ] Hammer's blatant male chauvinism is a running gag in his dialogues with Doreau (from episode "Under the Gun"):
- Doreau: What, you think all women should exist barefoot and significant?
- Hammer: No, I encourage women to clothing shoes.
Captain Body [edit]
Captain Trunk (Harrison Page) supervises Hammer and Doreau. He is a chronically uptight, Pepto-Bismol-guzzling, apoplectic parody of police precinct captains from pop 1970s and 1980s Television cops shows. Trunk spends most of his time yelling at Hammer for his incompetence or complaining virtually his migraine headaches and hypertension brought on past Hammer's antics.
Recurring [edit]
- Officeholder Fletcher Majoy (Leslie Morris) – desk sergeant at the precinct, he is depicted equally rather lazy and slovenly, rarely making any effort to help the other officers.
- Officeholder Daley (Patti Tippo) – another officeholder at the precinct.
- Coroner Norman Blates (Kurt Paul) – the precinct's medical examiner, he specializes in the sudden deceased at criminal offense scenes. According to executive producer Alan Spencer, the character is a play on Norman Bates, the grapheme from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. [ commendation needed ] Coincidentally, the actor who portrayed him, Kurt Paul, actually portrayed Norman Bates in Bates Cabin and even worked as a stunt double for Anthony Perkins equally Norman Bates in Psycho 2 and Psycho 3.[ commendation needed ]
- Newscaster Lisa Ellerblub (Diane Sainte-Marie) – a local news anchorwoman (a play on Linda Ellerbee), she is usually on the receiving cease of Hammer's antipathetic insults.
Guest appearances [edit]
Some notable figures who made guest appearances on Sledge Hammer!:
Sledge Hammer! executive producer Spencer made a Hitchcockian cameo appearance on the episode "Witless".
Role player Jackie Cooper directed a few episodes himself.[ episode needed ]
Production history [edit]
Inspired by Clint Eastwood'south no-nonsense approach to law enforcement in the Dirty Harry films, teenager Alan Spencer dreamed upwardly the idea of a law officer whose approach was even more over-the-elevation, to the point of applesauce. At the age of sixteen, Spencer wrote a screenplay based on this thought. The script and the main grapheme were both named Sledge Hammer.[ citation needed ]
Despite his youth, Spencer had already written for Rodney Dangerfield and such television as The Facts of Life and Ane Day at a Fourth dimension. He sold his script upon the release of the fourth Dirty Harry movie Sudden Impact and the popularity of NBC's Dirty Harry-inspired action series Hunter; the latter property created demand for a satirical police tv show. When HBO approached Leonard B. Stern, former producer of Go Smart, near developing such a show, Stern recommended Spencer's "Sledge Hammer!" thought.[ citation needed ]
Spencer quickly reworked his script for a half-hour television format. HBO executives did not like it, yet, and suggested changes that Spencer constitute unacceptable, such as casting Dangerfield or Joe Piscopo in the lead role. Final-identify ABC was willing to take chances on the unorthodox script. ABC insisted that the violence exist toned down for network television receiver and that a express mirth rails be included (although some versions – including the DVD release of the show – practice not have this track or had information technology removed; Spencer found it offensive that the audience exist told when to laugh and was furious over the determination), but agreed to cast Spencer's first choice for the lead grapheme, the classically trained actor David Rasche. Sledge Hammer! entered ABC'due south fall lineup in 1986.[2]
The pilot of Sledge Hammer! was completed just as Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" became a huge hit. ABC took advantage of this coincidence past using the vocal in television, radio, and picture show advertisements for the evidence.[ citation needed ]
Intro and theme music [edit]
The introduction to the evidence features long, almost-sensual closeup shots of Hammer'south .44 Magnum every bit it rests on a luxurious satin pillow. The show's ominous theme music, composed by Danny Elfman, plays in the background. Hammer so picks up his gun, spins it expertly like a cinematic Quondam West gunslinger, and utters his catch phrase ("Trust me, I know what I'm doing") merely earlier firing into the screen, making a hole in it. According to the DVD release extras, the original version had Hammer firing direct at the viewer, but ABC executives feared this could be too shocking, possibly even causing centre attacks (and leaving the network liable). Thus, Hammer fires into the screen at a slight angle.
According to the DVD release, Hammer's original catch phrase was "I'm crazy, merely I know what I'm doing." ABC executives objected to a lead character beingness "crazy", so they insisted on a modify.
The DVD release uses an updated heavy metal version of the theme music by Baboon Rising on the main menus.
Ratings and second season [edit]
Despite critical acclaim,[ citation needed ] Sledge Hammer! struggled in the ratings. In the documentary on the second season DVDs, David Rasche remarks that the but series getting lower ratings than Sledge Hammer! was Pull a fast one on'southward The Tracey Ullman Show.
Sledge Hammer! attracted weekly viewership of 19 meg viewers who followed the show religiously through its many time slot shifts. The fact that the series appealed to fundamental target demographics besides kept it on the schedule.[ citation needed ]
Because ABC intended to abolish the series, the terminal episode of the first season ends with Hammer accidentally destroying the city when he attempts to disarm a stolen nuclear warhead; just before the explosion Hammer embarks on his infamous catchphrase "Trust Me.....". The last scene shows the Beneath the Planet of the Apes-mode ruins of the metropolis with Trunk's voice screaming "HAMMMMMMMER!", and a graphic which read:
"To Be Continued... Adjacent Season?"
However, this episode received much amend than expected ratings, in large office because the network had moved the show to a better time slot. ABC changed its listen and renewed the show for a second season.[ citation needed ]
The second-season premiere perfunctorily explained that it and following episodes were set "five years earlier" the explosion, though Doreau is Sledge's partner in the second flavor, despite being introduced to him in the pilot, and despite the presence of references to contemporary events, rather than those of five years earlier.[ episode needed ]
Bill Bixby (of The Incredible Hulk fame) was brought in to direct numerous episodes.
In the final moments of the concluding episode while in their usual bar, Sledge asks Dori to marry him. Flustered, Dori finally manages to inquire whether he is serious. After silently regarding her for a long few seconds, Sledge simply answers "No", they turn abroad from each other dorsum to their drinks, and the viewer is left to imagine what happens next. In the DVD commentary creator Alan Spencer intimates a definitive resolution to their relationship, but instead leaves the matter unresolved when a massive earthquake purportedly prevents him from completing the session.
The second season suffered from another extremely undesirable fourth dimension slot (this time confronting The Cosby Testify), a reduced budget, and lowered filming standard (down to sixteen mm film from the previous season's 35 mm). The cutbacks contributed to the show not being renewed for a third season.[ commendation needed ]
The episode "Wild Nearly Hammer" sparked viewer confusion when the epilogue satirized the trend of coloring blackness & white films. Following the commercial break, a disclaimer read, "The following tag was shot in black and white, then artificially recolored. Nosotros promise yous will not exist able to see the difference." The scene was intentionally altered not only in color, just also in tint, hue, brightness and dissimilarity – prompting viewers to phone call their local ABC stations and complain well-nigh the circulate quality. In response, Spencer recorded an amends message for ABC'south phone lines.[3]
International circulate [edit]
Asia [edit]
- The serial was marketed in Nippon as I Am Hammer! ( 俺がハマーだ! , Ore ga Hamā da! ).[4]
- It has aired in Islamic republic of pakistan nether its original championship on Network Television Marketing.
- Information technology has aired in the Philippines nether its original title on RPN-9.
Europe [edit]
- In Denmark the championship was translated into For Fuld Hammer! (lit. 'To the Total Hammer!'), a Danish idiom meaning to apply the entirety of i'southward strength.
- In Finland the title was Moukarimies, meaning 'Sledgehammer Human'.
- In France the series was chosen Mr. Gun.
- In Germany was called Der Hammer until 1993, also Sledge'southward gun is named "Susi" in the German version, a joke created during dubbing (the gun has no detail name in the original version).
- In Iceland was named Barði Hamar (Pounding hammer).
- In Italy it was known as Troppo Forte! (Too potent!).
- In the UK the series was shown on ITV throughout the 80s-90s.
- In Russia the series was called Кувалда (Kuvalda), which is a literal Russian translation for sledgehammer.
- The Castilian dub that aired in Kingdom of spain just called the show Martillo Hammer ('martillo' means hammer in Spanish), finer renaming the serial "Hammer Hammer".
Latin America [edit]
- In Brazil, the series was aired under the championship Na mira practise tira, which means "In the cop's gun-sight".
- The Mexican dubbing for Latin America kept the series' proper name unchanged, though some episodes had to exist renamed to match with the Latin American versions for the movie titles and American sayings they were based on. Hammer likewise called his gun Compadre, in spite that he considered it to be female and bears an accented loathing for telenovelas.
Home media [edit]
Ballast Bay Entertainment released the entire series on DVD in Region 1. The starting time flavor of Sledge Hammer! was released on DVD on July 27, 2004. The express joy track, which the network had insisted on including on the pilot and first 12 episodes, is removed on the DVD version, for which Spencer hired an experienced sound designer. The DVD features a documentary on the series featuring interviews by Spencer, David Rasche, Anne-Marie Martin and Harrison Page. The DVD too includes an unaired version of the pilot that runs several minutes longer and has a different ending and theme music. An convulsion striking while Spencer was recording commentary for 1 of the DVDs; the tape kept rolling during the event and was included on the DVD, leaving viewers wondering whether the earthquake was real. The 2d season was released on DVD on April 12, 2005; the commentary on the last episode concluded with Spencer, again, being caught in another convulsion, this time with sound furnishings and a convenient cliffhanger.
On September 6, 2011, it was appear that Image Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series. Information technology was later on announced that they will release Sledge Hammer!- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on December 13, 2011. The prepare will not characteristic the documentary, commentaries, the uncut pilot (the broadcast version is used) and other bonus features from the Anchor Bay release.[v]
In Region 4, Daze Entertainment has released both seasons on DVD in Commonwealth of australia.[six] [7]
| DVD proper noun | Ep # | Release date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Region 1 | Region 4 | ||
| Season i | 22 | July 27, 2004 | June 29, 2011 |
| Season 2 | 19 | April 12, 2005 | August 31, 2011 |
| The Complete Serial | 41 | December xiii, 2011 | N/A |
Awards [edit]
Sledge Hammer! was nominated for a 1987 People'southward Pick Award in the category of "Favorite New Idiot box Comedy."[8]
Comics [edit]
New World's and so-subsidiary Curiosity Comics released a brusque-lived comic book based upon the series as a promotion for the 2d season. In the second issue, Sledge is up against a Spider-Homo imposter and on the cover issue a disclaimer hints that Sledge Hammer is actually a mutant when the 10-Men series and its mutant spin-offs were on the height of their popularity.
Legacy [edit]
- David Rasche appeared as the President of the United States in the curt-lived 2001 television series DAG. His Hush-hush Service code-name on the series was Sledge Hammer.
- In an issue of the Transformers comic book serial, a family is depicted sitting around a tv watching Sledge Hammer uttering his famous line "Trust me, I know what I'thousand doing."
- British band Jesus Jones samples Sledge Hammer's catchphrase "Trust me, I know what I'm doing" in the intro of the song "Trust Me," from their 1991 album Doubt.
- The classic TV channel MeTV included Sledge Hammer! in their lineup and posted a fact page.[nine]
- The Decades Boob tube channel has aired Sledge Hammer! as office of their "Fan-tastic" retrospectives on classic cult shows.
Podcast [edit]
A podcast series almost Sledge Hammer! was created in 2016, examining each episode of the show.[10]
Meet also [edit]
- Police Squad!, a like American Boob tube series from the 1980s that spawned the Naked Gun film series
- Angie Tribeca, a similar American Idiot box series that satirises American procedurals
- A Touch on of Cloth, a like British comedy (2012–2014)
References [edit]
- ^ O'Connor, John. (September 23, 1986) "2 New Series, 'Matlock' and 'Sledge Hammer'". The New York Times. Page C18
- ^ Shales, Tom. (September 14, 1986) "Fall TV: The Perils and the Programs". The Washington Mail service. p. G1.
- ^ "Wild About Hammer". Sledge Hammer Online. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
- ^ (in Japanese)"俺がハマーだ!" Sledge Hammer! DVD box released in Nippon (Appointment: 21 October 2005) With 俺がハマーだ! transliterated every bit "I am hammer!"
- ^ TV Shows on DVD – Sledge Hammer!: The Complete Series Archived 2011-10-eleven at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Sledge Hammer! – Season 1 Archived 2013-xi-13 at the Wayback Car
- ^ Sledge Hammer! – Flavor two Archived 2013-11-13 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Archived re-create". Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-07-ten .
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy every bit championship (link) - ^ "13 high caliber facts most 'Sledge Hammer!'".
- ^ "Sledge Hammer! Podcast -". Sledge Hammer! Podcast . Retrieved 2017-01-10 .
External links [edit]
- Sledge Hammer! Online – Alan Spencer's official site
- Sledge Hammer! at IMDb
- Sledge Hammer! at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sledge_Hammer%21
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