Today we start a new blog theme, “It Takes Two,” all about shows featuring partners. The first one on our schedule is Simon & Simon.
Simon & Simon was a long-running crime show that debuted in the fall of 1981 on CBS. Starring Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker, it’s about two brothers who run a detective agency in San Diego.
The brothers have very different personalities and very different methods of solving crimes and conducting investigations which provides humor on the show. However, they are very loyal to each other.
Rick (McRaney), the older, single brother, is a Vietnam War veteran who typically shows up in Levis and cowboys boots, driving his truck. A.J. (Parker) is a married preppy college graduate, a practicing Catholic who drives Camaros and convertibles. Rick’s investigating style is much looser based on his street smarts while A.J. relies on intelligence and thinking things through. Rick lives on a boat . . . in his brother’s yard.
Rounding out the cast is their mother Cecilia (Mary Carver), A.J.’s ex-boss and biggest competitor Myron Fowler (Eddie Barth), Lt. Marcel Proust Brown, their friend (Tim Reid), and Lt. Abigail Marsh (Joan McMurtrey).
The pilot of the show was set in Florida and titled “Pirate’s Key,” but CBS moved the setting to San Diego. Created by Philip DeGuere, who was the executive producer for the show, he was attempting to portray a modern Buth Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The show was on Tuesday nights. It had some tough competition up against Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, both top twenty shows. When it didn’t garner decent ratings, CBS announced it would be cancelled, but DeGuere convinced them to move it to Thursdays after Magnum PI. It was successful and they drew a lot of new viewers, and the show was in the top ten until 1985 when it fell to the top thirty; its competition on Thursday nights at the end of its run was Cheers and Night Court. In an effort to boost ratings, the show moved to Saturday nights, but the ratings dropped even more. This wasn’t too surprising because now it was facing The Golden Girls and Empty Nest, well-established shows that were always in the top ten. CBS had approved 13 shows for the 1988 fall season but cancelled the show before the final two episodes aired.
The original theme, “Best of Friends,” was composed by Linda Creed and Barry De Vorzon. When the show switched to Thursdays, De Vorzon and Michael Towers created a new theme, an instrumental featuring slide guitar and saxophone. De Vorzon would later compose the music for S.W.A.T., another popular show in the 2010s.
It was not the end of the Simon Brothers who showed up in a made-for-tv movie in 1995. In this version, A.J. is divorced, working as an attorney in Seattle. Rick visits him while he is transporting an expensive yacht. When the yacht gets hijacked with their mother on board, the two brothers are back to crime solving.
Sometimes we forget when we watch a half-hour or hour show how much time and creative planning goes into the filming of every little detail. During his Television Academy interview, Thomas Del Ruth talked about the photography he did on Simon & Simon. He worked on both the first pilot set in Florida and the second pilot set in San Diego. When he worked on the Florida set, they were trying to capture sunset there. The theme was blue and green for the show, so they had a jungle and next to it was a beach. They set up three hours early just to capture the sun at the exact moment it was on the horizon. It was supposed to convey to the viewers that this was sunset, and the next scene was set at night, so it was an important transition. He said the brothers were going to ride a jeep onto the beach and he needed to get all of that in the shot.
When they had two minutes to go, Corey Allen, the director, decided he wanted wildlife in the shot. Del Ruth said no, there wasn’t time, but Allen insisted, so he had a wrangler quickly bring a flamingo and they put filament around its neck so it would be stationary while the jeep drove by. Del Ruth said, of course, after waiting three hours, they took the shot, but the flamingo went crazy when the jeep got near and his neck went one way while his head went another. The filament kept him from running, but he went up in the air and when his feet came down, he kept digging a hole, kicking sand everywhere. The shot was ruined and they had to wait two days to come back and do it again, minus the flamingo. It’s hard to imagine all the work and planning that goes into every scene of every episode. Del Ruth later was photographer for The West Wing, and I’m sure he had some great stories about that series as well.
