Gumshoes

A.J. Simon is a polished fellow with a taste for classic cars and tailored suits. Rick Simon is his less refined (but still pleasant) older brother who has a taste for cowboy boots and four-wheel drive pickups. The two of them live in San Diego, where they own a private detective agency. The series chronicles their exploits.

Lt. Theo Kojak is the main character in this popular television police drama. Kojak is a tough cop, but his trademark is a fondness for lollipops. Despite his difficult work, he tirelessly brings criminals to justice while staying upbeat and good-natured.

Attorney and US Navy vet Stewart "Mac" McMillan is appointed Commissioner of Police for the city of San Francisco. He often handles the very high profile cases personally. Helping him out on many of them is his wife Sally, who's father was a detective for the SFPD. In fact, Sally gets so involved that she often puts herself in harms way. They are often assisted by Mac's loyal, but somewhat inept assistant Sgt. Charlie Enright and their hard drinking, smart mouthed live in maid Mildred. Sadly, a few years after Mac's appointment Sally dies in a plane crash. Also, Mildred quits her position and is replaced by her scatterbrained sister Agatha. Also, in later years Enright is promoted to lieutenant.

Johnny Staccato is a jazz pianist and private detective.

Considered one of the most violent television series of its era, this show followed the adventures of Los Angeles, California private investigator Joe Mannix, who first worked for a detective agency known as Intertect, which relied heavily on computers and a large network of operatives. In the second season, Mannix opened his own agency, with police widow Peggy Fair working for him as his secretary. Each episode featured plenty of fistfights, car chases, and shoot-outs.

Former high school English teacher and famed mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (Dame Angela Lansbury) has a gift for solving mysteries. You see, it seems murder follows her around, whether it be to the houses of her seemingly endless number of friends, nieces, and nephews, or right in her hometown of Cabot Cove, Maine. Jessica is sometimes assisted by her friend Dr. Seth Hazlitt (William Windom) or the local Sheriff, Amos Tupper (Tom Bosley) and Tupper's successor, Mort Metzger (Ron Masak), a former New York City cop. Sometimes, later in the series, Jessica would only serve as narrator. In later seasons, Jessica moved to Manhattan to teach criminology at Manhattan University.

Ironside is confined to a wheel chair (an attempted assassination left him paralyzed). With his former assistants Brown and Whitfield (later Belding) and former delinquent (and later lawyer) Mark, he combats crime for the San Francisco police from his mobile office (a van) while leaving a pot of chili cooking back at headquarters.

Father Frank Dowling, a fine Catholic parish priest in Chicago, drives housekeeper Marie to despair by his habit of being late for dinner as he and his assistant (streetwise nun Stephanie 'Steve' Oskowski) solve numerous neighborhood crimes, usually involving at least one murder. They generally outsmart the police as well as the criminals. The live-in priest Father Philip Prestwick, whose priority is his own ecclesiastical career prospects, takes a very dim view of their crime fighting and on Sister Steve even being there.

Quincy and Sam are working as Coroners. Inspecting dead people they often see facts that don't match the theories of the police how or if really they were murdered.

A pair of plainclothes homicide detectives, Lieutenant Mike Stone and Inspector Steve Keller, cruise the streets of San Francisco, California solving a variety of crimes, usually involving murder. Stone is the street-smart twenty-year veteran cop, and Keller is the college-educated rookie. Much of the series' success was due to the friendly by-play and relationship between the two leads.

James Garner stars as the offbeat Jim Rockford, an ex-con-turned-private-investigator who would rather fish than fight but whose instinct on closed cases is more golden than his classic Pontiac Firebird. From his mobile home in Malibu, this wisecracking private eye takes you on the cases of the lost and the dispossessed, chasing down seemingly long-dead clues in the sun-baked streets and seamy alleys of Los Angeles.

Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, formerly Atlanta police officer and CIA-trained interrogator, is given the opportunity to run her own division of elite officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. Her unusual procedure for obtaining confessions, blatant disregard for politics, and southern accent make her a marked woman. However, with all the bluster and bravado, she still maintains her title, The Closer.

The weekly adventures of Frank Cannon, an overweight, balding ex-cop with a deep voice and expensive tastes in culinary pleasures, who becomes a high-priced private investigator. Since Cannon's girth didn't allow for many fist-fights and gun battles (although there were many), the series substituted car chases and high production values in their place.

Barnaby Jones was a former private eye who temporarily came out of retirement to track down the killer of his son Hal, who had taken over the family business. After bringing Hal's murderer to justice (with the assistance of fellow CBS gumshoe Frank Cannon), Jones decided retirement just wasn't his bag after all, and rehung his shingle with the assistance of daughter-in-law Betty, who ran the office and Barnaby's personal crime laboratory, and (later) young distant cousin Jedidiah, who did the cases' legwork.

Mike Hammer is a two-fisted private eye. He's tough, he's honest, and the girls love him. The series follows his exploits as he solves a variety of crimes, most of which involve a murder somewhere along the way...

Mrs. Kate Columbo, wife of the famous lieutenant, solves crimes as a reporter, while raising her little daughter.

Filmed in a film noir atmosphere and featuring Henry Mancini music that could tell you the action with your eyes closed, Peter Gunn worked in style. Known as Pete to his friends and simply as Gunn to his enemies, he did his job in a calm cool way. He got his tips and cautions from Lieutenant Jacoby, a coffee drinking pal from the police. Also providing tips was "Mother" of her self-titled nightclub. Working at the nightclub as a singer was Edie Hart, his girlfriend.

Private eye Laura Holt grudgingly accepts a new partner when a mystery man assumes the identity of her fictitious boss, Remington Steele. Together, the two battle crime as their feelings for each other.