Rockford Files RIPOFF! The Ep That Sparked a Beatdown On Set
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
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-- Stolen Eps --
"This Case is Closed" (The Rockford Files)
Airdate: Oct. 18, 1974
Written by: Stephen J. Cannell
& John Thomas James (Roy Huggins)
Rockford (James Garner) is tasked with looking into the background of a socialite's (Sharon Gless) finance. But his digging gets him in trouble with the mob, the cops, the FBI, and even other private eyes.
This episode sparked a controversey when Glen A. Larson (Magnum, pi, Battlestar Galactica) copied the story (and even some of the dialouge) for an episode of his show Switch (starring Robert Wagner) called "Death by Resurrection." Though fined by the WGA, Garner decided to teach Larson a lesson on the backlot at Universal.
#RockfordFiles #JamesGarner #StephenCannell #GlenLarson - Розваги
James Garner was 6'5", weighed about 225 pounds and was a legit combat soldier in Korea. When he says, "Get your arm off me." it's basically a warning shot that Larson didn't heed.
Actually he was 6'2", maybe pushing 6'3".
@@bobjohnson205 My Google search just suggested he was 6'3". I was sure, after reading your post, my recollection on the matter was wrong. Thanks for the alert!
Two Purple Hearts
Well, he wasn't such a badass when he got his ass kicked and needed stitches after a road rage incident around 1980
@@jibbityjab2469 Does that make you feel good? Trying to bring down a good man like that? He still served his country with distinction. He was loved by millions for his work in film and television. Do You imagine your little story invalidates that in any way?
No disrespect to Mr. Larson, but seeing Jim Gardner punch someone out IRL must have been awesome. We miss you Jimmie.
They don't make 'em like James Garner anymore. Jim also had a run in with a idiot driver one time and punched him. Jim was right in both cases. I wish I could have met the man. I have been a fan of his since I was a kid growing up on the Rockford Files.
Who's Jim Gardner?
@@stephenturner6075 Karen
@@tracycase4520 ?
@@stephenturner6075 I think he's a distant relative of Jim Garner. He seems to get mentioned a lot. He must be a heck of a guy! lol 😉
Interesting that Switch is largely forgotten while the Rockford Files can still speak for itself.
Yes I was kinda shocked to see it lasted three seasons.
Must have been the writing! lol
I always thought Rockford itself took some inspiration from ‘The Sting’ considering how many episodes featured someone (usually Rockford himself) running some sort of con.
@@tedhaulley9885 Yep. Plenty of those episodes.
As one commenter pointed out, some in Hollywood pointed out that the first half of the Sting bore startling similarities to “Shady Deal at Sunny Acres” ep 2.10 (1958) of Maverick… created by Roy Huggins and starring James Garner.
James Garner was physically fit and performed his stunt work on the Rockerford Files. Thus, he was more than capable of knocking out Glen Larsen.
Garner’s knees and hips were beaten running on concrete and stairs on Files.
The guy was a Korean War Vet, he knew how to fight....
At one time I found out that an episode of "Remington Steele" and an episode of "Hart to Hart" actually used the same script, they just changed the names of the characters.
I watched a new episode of Charlies Angels one day and was shocked it was almost identical to a rerun of the Mod Squad I'd seen that morning.
Yeah I used to notice the same thing when I’d watch THE FACTS OF LIFE and HOGANS HEROES, they’d just swap out MrsGarrett for a Nazi. Lol JK
My mom Joan aka "Jodie" Shoemaker went to high school (same class) at Venice High with "RJ" Wagner and Larson.... went on one (and only one) date with "RJ" as he preferred to be known..... didn't think much about him (RJ) or any of his friends.
The Rockford Files is my favorite TV show ever.
The best PI series ever, with the possible exception of the original Sherlock Holmes.
I think that was almost like a trope in the 80s. Everybody had an episode about a biker gang being brought to justice by the heroes.
Cannell wrote that episode himself, a handful of times, starting with The Greatest American Hero episode "Hog Wild" in 1981.
"The Rockford Files" even had one!
Then, in a more cynical time of anti-heroes, we got Sons of Anarchy.
The Fall Guy had an episode like that to only they dressed up as bikers to fight a corrupt town.
@@bobjohnson205 With Dennis Burkley!
It's interesting how some people in the comments are trying to defend Larson for stealing a script. I mean he literally stole a script from other writers. How would you feel if it was your script he stole?
You can't really steal a script without losing a lawsuit. Any real plagiarism will get you sued out of existence. Tossing around themes is another story and you can't make anything without similarity to and inspiration by something else.
Recycling scripts was a common TV practice in the 1950s. I remember watching an episode of Cheyenne that was recycled into an episode of Maverick. As I recall, the writers caused a big stink over this because they were only being paid once for a script that was used twice.
When I was working for Roy Huggins he told me that the Fugitive was based partly on Shane .
The Fugitive was one of the BEST series. I envy your conversation.
An interesting thing is that the "Battlestar Galactica" episode "Experiment in Terra" from 1979 has great similarities with the whole premise of "Quantum Leap" from 1989.
I never thought about that, but you’re right. Interesting that Bellisario wrote many Battlestar episodes, but not that one.
Sorry, I don't see any similarity between star wars and battlestar galactica other than being in space. Plot lines are completely different.
It's like saying Star Wars was based on Space 1999 just because it came first.
It's the implication with locale and wardrobe. It was a new conceptual backdrop is why. Westerns have been around so people don't perceive it the same way. It's the nature of perception.
If Battlestar Galactica ripped off anything, it was Erik van Daniken's absurd thesis of ancient aliens, which unfortunately has been absorbed into the Alien franchise and other works. Only the excellent 2004 BSG series made something good of it.
@@johnclawed LMAO, why would you say it's "unfortunate" that fictional stories would use fictional story components? You're trying so hard to be angry that your attitude doesn't make sense.
@@jamescarter3196 I don't know what you're talking about. Trying hard to be angry? I'm only as "angry" as I am, which is not angry but merely annoyed that van Daniken has had so much influence on science fiction. I didn't say it was unfortunate because van Daniken is fictional. I said it was unfortunate because he is absurd. "Here we see a stone carving of two people examining a box with another box inside. A nuclear reactor has a core inside a containment vessel [unless it's a Russian design], so this must be a diagram of a nuclear reactor. The Mayans couldn't have done that without help from aliens, so aliens must have visited ancient Earth." All that based on a rectangle inside another rectangle. Why would I say it's unfortunate that such crap influenced science fiction?
Doesn't seem like Larson had ideas. It seemed all he head was the golden goose of opportunity. What information did he have over some Universal Executive that allowed him access? Ideas are just ideas, getting them made requires access. That's just a fact like gravity.
Thanks for the episode, Eps. Take care.
I always loved this story and I am so glad you put it all together in a neat package like this. Great job!
Thank you so much!
I agree with James Garner. Great video.
Thanks!
Larson had one great idea and that was to get credit for writing the theme song to his shows. He knew it was a way he could get paid extra every time any episode of one of his shows aired.
And even that was an idea that Gene Roddenberry had first: he wrote some (abysmal) lyrics to Alexander Courage’s theme to Star Trek so he’d be entitled to half of Courage’s royalties.
Nothing like a knuckle sandwich to get your message across
Another great episode! I’m torn on this one. Knight Rider was one of my top four childhood tv shows (Airwolf, Street Hawk, and Blue Thunder) I never missed. I’ve watched countless hours of interviews with Larsen about Knight Rider and can’t wait for the Knight Rider Historians to tour the country in the restored original semi and functional trailer. While I’m not a fan of the plagiarism, the fact that he never complained when others copied his work does suggest some self-awareness which I can respect. Love him or hate him, he was an 80s tv icon for sure.
The narrator is trying *way* too hard to make a case. Fans of Battlestar Galactica (the original) would argue there is very limited similarity to Star Wars - the concepts are different, the technology is different and the characters are distinct. BG had no doe-eyed farmboys like Luke Skywalker in it - unless one counts Zac, who was killed in the pilot episode. The rest of the heros are professional military pilots and commanders.
Before Glen Larson died I had dinner at a restaurant with a group of people. One of them bragged that she was friends with Glen Larson so I brought up the story of James Garner punching Larson out for stealing a Rockford Files script. She had actually never heard about this as Larson clearly didn't talk about it, and he never sued James Garner because the last thing Larson wanted was to have even more people find out about his larceny.
Everything I've read or heard about James Garner presents him as a genuine nice guy. But he was also a WWII and Korea combat vet, and not someone you wanted to f%^k with. It says a lot about how much respect he had in the industry that Sharon Gless would tell him about what was happening.
Larson wrote the Galatica script long before Star Wars He had more hits than Harlan Ellison ever had
You're not the first person say that.
And that name, Good Day at White Rock & the others was a rip off of, Bad day at Black Rock made in 1955 with Ernest Borgnine & Spencer Tracey. This movie was based on a short story called, Bad time at Honda, I loved this film & highly recommend it.
Yeah I mentioned that but had to trim it for time. Plus the whole Wild One connection. But thanks for the recommendation and the clarification!!
@@tvsbesteps I just wanted to add a little info especially for others to hopefully get to watch it. BTW, great video & channel, I enjoy the content you choose too, I'll be watching ... 🤠
Bad day at black rock was a top 100 movies but can’t see how a tv show really matters that movie was ahead of it’s time .
The remake of the magnificent 7 was a dud but sold tickets and American Graffiti and happy days the tv show were based off the movie .
Battle Galactica was more like Wagon Train than Star Wars. And Rockford was a TV version of Marlowe.
I believe Gene Roddenberry once said Star Trek is Wagon Train in space and said that Kirk and Spock were based on Paladin from Have Gun Will Travel.
Imitations happen all the time.
@@tedhaulley9885 Roddenberry wrote for "Have Gun, Will Travel", though. He won an award for at least one episode he penned. But I get the point.
Hollywood still does it they make the same movie twice Ants and A Bug's Life both came out in 1998 .
Strangers On A Train / Throw Momma From The Train
Fear And Loathing... / Where The Buffalo Roam
The Flintstones / The Honeymooners
@@Typical.Anomaly Braveheart/Rob Roy
Were "The Yellow Rose" (NBC) and "Dynasty" ripoffs of "Dallas"?
"The Fugitive," about a brooding, solitary figure who.is wrongly convicted, inspired "Kung Fu," "The Incredible Hulk," "Renegade," "Run For Your Life," "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams," and even "The A-Team."
Roy Huggins: "When I walked into Universal on the morning "Sting" came out, Max Baer Jr. was...outside my office, and he says, "Roy, are you going to sue?" I didn't know what he was talking about. "What do you mean?" He says, "You didn't see 'Sting'?" I say no; he says, "Well see it, because the first half of it is 'Shady Deal at Sunny Acres'!"
Which is one of TVs Best Eps. And def on my list. Thanks for the insight. For those interested: Maverick Season 2, Episode 10. And it is great.
In watching reruns of some of Glen Larson's shows...I caught on to a production technique he occasionally used that I think is pure genius and I've not seen other shows make use of. Obtaining music rights for a popular song, even a decades old song, can be incredibly expensive. That's why in most TV shows from at least the 60's and going forward...you'll hear canned or production music. It's generic, usually doesn't include vocals and is merely evocative of a music style or era. It's relatively inexpensive and it sets a scene. Several times that I've noticed...a Glen Larsen show will set a scene by having a tune played, usually on a car radio and it's an actual, popular song complete with lyrics. His trick was, he only had to pay for the rights to use the song and not pay a needle drop fee for playing the original recording, which can be an astronomical expense. This was prior to karaoke being popular, so there weren't backing tracks available. He would have had to hire a cover band and record them doing a version sounding as similar to the original as possible. It probably didn't cost him much more than buying the rights for generic production music...possibly less. He made good use of his background in the music business. I'm betting he didn't have to do more than pick up the phone, call a buddy and say, "I need a minute and twenty seconds of "Fun, Fun, Fun" by the Beach Boys. Can you get some guys together and get that to me by next Friday?"
Happy Days did that with the jukebox songs. It was Anson Williams singing.😅
For the record, Larson also plagiarized the Knight Rider theme.
Back in the early 1990’s Fox network had a huge hit in “The X Files.” Show creator Chris Carter said in multiple interviews it was based on a short lived, mid 1970 series called “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” Starring veteran stage and screen actor Darren McGavin. McGavin played Kolchak, a reporter who worked on paranormal stories that his newspaper refused to print because it would scare the unsuspecting public. Instead of a middle age reporter, Chris Carter changed the characters into Mulder and Scully. A couple of young, hipsters. And instead of a newspaper, they worked for the ultra cool FBI. By tweaking the concept just a little, Chris Carter had a huge hit on his hands with many of the initial episodes reworked versions of “The Night Stalker.” And to pay homage to the show he ripped off, Chris Carter had Darrin McGavin guess star in “The X Files” as Mulder’s predecessor of said division. In short, Chris Carter pulled a Glen Larson. And Darrin McGavin had the good sense and manors not to hit anyone over it.
Concepts, ideas, and scripts get passed around Hollywood faster than your wife at a swingers party. Or put another way, you can’t take your wife to a swingers party and hit some guy just because he came on to your wife. You’re there, you know the rules of engagement. James Garner understood Hollywood. His actions were way out of line…..
Way to go, Jim! P.S. You should have used your right hand! 😉
Excellent. Hollywood history and retribution.
Love James Garner. "Glen Larceny" LOL
Sharks eating sharks.
In the UK ITC Entertainment recycled ideas and scripts all the time. One episode of The Baron used a recycled script from The Saint and both ended up being screened on a US channel back to back!
Larson(ist) was just one of the more obvious examples, of an industry wide tendency, to plagiarise anything and everything.
If you try to pitch an entirely unique idea in Hollywood, you have to say it’s a cross between successful project A and successful project B.
That’s the language they talk in.
Originality never comes into it.
I LOOOVED Alias Smith and Jones....BECAUSE it was a rip off of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, one of my favorite movies back then❤😎👍
Interesting. You generally only hear glowing descriptions of Garner. This is why it puzzled me that after Charles Bronson died, he did so much trash talk on Bronson. However, knowing he had a grudgeful side helps it make sense. It still would have been nice if he had publically trash talked Bronson while Bronson was able to respond.
Or it would have caused an unnecessary public feud for no good reason, and there's nothing smart about complaining that somebody held back on insulting a living person. The whole 'don't speak ill of the dead' thing is just stupid.
There was an episode of Rockford Files lifted directly from a Travis McGee novel.
You might be thinking of season four's "The Competitive Edge" (4.19). However, this might be a case of author John Macdonald looking the other way. Yes, Stephen J. Cannell was a fan of Macdonald's Travis McGee detectives novels. But Macdonald himself was a big fan of Rockford Files. He wrote in TV Guide that Rockford had “…good tight dialogue, good pictorials, and a strong emotional evolvement keep the story afloat. And it is heartening to a book writer to note the success of the series that most nearly fulfills our scriveners’ standards.”
So perhaps Cannell and Macdonald had a little unspoken mutual admiration society going.
Other than "space" I don't see any similarity between Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. You might as well say that Star Wars "ripped off" Star Trek... similar names, huh?
Yeah, in think the criticism is more about how it “looked” suspiciously like Star Wars. I know Glen wrote the original pilot “Adam’s Ark” in 1971 and based it more off his Mormon roots (and his association with Gene Coon of Star Trek). And he really only sold it because the network saw Star Wars and said “we want that on tv”. Plus he used the same SFX guy as on SW (John Dykstra) so the similarities would be inevitable there. Plus I thought BG had a better story. Thanks for the comment.
Two sides engaged in battle in space using space planes basically, the good side being a ragtag group that doesn't have as much experience or resources as the evil side that has the advantage and a bunch of disposable foot troopers.... I agree that there's more much similarities for brand confusion between Battlestar Galactica and star wars or them having a valid case against Galactica or anything but there are SOME small similarities, tho not enough and now similar enough. Definitely a stretch no matter how you look at it.
Probably one of the reasons Fox lost the lawsuit.
@@tvsbesteps Wrong. Fox won the lawsuit:
At first, Lucasfilm was cooperative with Larson, who agreed to lease ILM's special effects equipment for Battlestar Galactica. But there were conditions:
1) The spaceships and blaster shots weren't supposed to look similar to the ones in Star Wars. The original Colonial Viper was going to look like the fighters used in Buck Rogers, but at the last minute Larson had them changed into 3-winged X-wings. The blasters deliberately copied Star Wars' tracer round look, too.
2) The equipment had to be returned before ILM started work on "Star Wars 2" by late 1978. Larson hemmed and hawed about returning it.
3) Battlestar Galactica would NOT be released in theaters. Larson/Universal reneged on that one, too.
This led to several years of bad blood between Lucasfilm and Universal/Larson. Tom Selleck was all set to play Indiana Jones, but he was under contract to do Magnum PI (a Glen Larson production) and while Lucasfilm was willing to shoot around Selleck's schedule (both the TV show and part of Raiders of the Lost Ark were shot in Hawaii), Larson refused. A few years later, the parties settled.
"On November 18, 1983, an Agreement for Settlement of Lawsuit and Release was agreed upon and, on March 5, 1984, a $225,000 settlement was paid to Twentieth Century-Fox." --From the late JW Rinzler's "The Making of the Empire Strikes Back"
So the real winner in all of this was Harrison Ford.
During Glen A Larson's heyday (70s and 80s), television was much more formulaic in nature.
This was the era before cable and steaming with only three major networks (ABC, CBS & NBC). Everything was much more clean cut and straight laced. Good guys vs bad guys and heroes always prevailed.
The television landscape of today is vastly different and much more diverse as a result.
Folks like Larson, Irwin Allen and Aaron Spelling would be out of depth in today's environment as their style of programming and approach to storytelling would seem quaint.
As successful as these men were in their time, they did foster a mindset that television was derivative when compared to feature films and that the medium was a dumping ground for hacks who couldn't come up with original ideas.
That of course has now changed with television pushing the boundaries in a way they couldn't previously do and being as creative as those who work on the big screen.
Nicely presented all in all. JAMES LYDON, not Lyndon, a great old character actor. AND, huge omission, Garner owned the show and the production company... Makes a big difference.
lol yeah my bad.
Wasn't there a Rockford Files where he and a friend take in a motorcycle gang? That was long before Knight Rider.
And they were, of course, Big Bad Evil Nazis.
The best Star Trek (TOS) episode is almost word for word the submarine movie “The Enemy Below.”
"Balance of Terror"?
Correct. Thought I’d said that, but I guess I didn’t.
He had that thieving reputation in Hollywood.
While Star Wars is nothing like BATTLESTAR, I do think bj and the bear was a huge ripoff of Eastwoods movie
Nah, the movie was about a truck driver with an orangutan, the TV show was about a truck driver with a chimpanzee. That's completely different. : )
@@joerogers9413 well they’re both about big hairy animals who play with their own shit, and that’s just the humans.
In defense of Glen Larsen, he was a very wise man to turn the other cheek and walk away. Only a dummy would counter-sue for pain and discomfort or press charges against Jim Rockford. He came there in good faith and good intentions at a time when he thought there was water under the bridge. And as far as the charges of plagiarism, whenever this issue comes up, has it ever crossed anyone's mind that two people could have the same idea at the same time---like in rock music, for example, this comes up a lot. Does anyone ever think that perhaps someone could come up with the same chord progression as another artist, independent of them, just on their own? Or the name of a band? There is such thing as brilliant minds thinking alike. I believe I came up with the idea of a 24-hour Cartoon Channel long before Ted Turner did, but only he ever executed on it. But I'm not suing him for my idea. So there's that, also
FWIW, anyone moaning about Battlestar Galactica ripping off Star Wars is out of their tree. They're both scifi with fighter ships. Sometimes you see mooks wearing what looks like futuristic armor. That's it. That's the similarity.
I really don't want to give him credit for anything, he, argument aside created tv tropes.
From what I have heard about the stand up type of guy James Garner was, you must have done some shit for him to come after you.
I remember The Rockford Files. I don’t remember Switch. It really didn’t matter if he stole a few ideas, did it?
Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner. I vaguely remember ir myself.
@@visaman I didn’t even remember that, and loved those guys: Eddie Albert from the hilariously Kafka-esque theatre of the absurd Green Acres, and Robert Wagner from It Takes a Thief (co-starring Malachi Throne). I remember THOSE details. But Switch is a total blank.
@@nsnopper kafka-esque is surreal in a "nightmarish" or "oppressive" manner. Green Acres was never that. Absurd? Absolutely.
@@spockboy Yes, absurdist is the word I was looking for. Theatre of the absurd.
guess you could say that what Larson did was not plagiarism but Poetic justice ... He got Away with words ....for a while at least.... and IMHO, being the 1970's, they must have thought were were too stoned, to notice the similarities. 😁
Glenn Larceny as he was known.
there are a lot of good books that could be made into movies or TV. but it seems like they keep rehashing the same old stuff . not to mention all of the movies that have been remade. new material is not that hard to come by.
a thief named larson..
Garner is an interesting character. Over the years he's gotten great press because I think people have confused him with the Maverick character. They think he's very laid back and fun to be around. If you watch the bloopers from Rockford, you will sometimes see an angry man who would be somewhat scary to be around. He seems to be tightly wound with a bad temper. There are numerous reports of him punching people out and these are stories he himself seems to like to tell. Of course the one story he doesn't tell is the 1979 incident when another driver kicked his ass in a case of road rage. He has also bad mouthed other stars such as McQueen and Bronson, after they were dead. Again ,everyone seems to love Garner but there does seem to be this dark , angry side to him.
Actually, the road rage incident occurred Jan. 16 '80. 🙂 He got beat-up - BAD!
@@bobjohnson205 I was off by a month but correct regarding the incident
@@gerrydooley951 Actually, you were off by a year! lol
actually just about half a month, I said 1979 and it happened Jan16 1980
Sounds like you've got some kind of funny little grudge against him that doesn't mean anything, and you have that goofy little 'don't speak ill of the dead' bs that you're really fragile about, so that's just a bunch of silly crybaby shit, and it's pathetic that you're trying so hard to paint this 'dark Garner' picture but you don't have anything meaningful to say about it. Pretty stupid bunch of rhetoric you got there.
Brandon Tartar sauce
This one incident was pretty bad. But other than that, Larson was right. For the most part, everyone was just jealous because he executed their ideas better then they did. And Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica were absolutely nothing alike.
star wars and galactca both took place in space and the cylons were a total ripoff of darth vader. glen larson-y.
@@seemee548 Star wars was about a rebellion against a tryanical govt led by a person with “magical” powers where Battlestar was about a group of survivors being fleeing from a “race” of robots intent on destroying them.
While in school, I bet students hid their test papers from you.
So, I guess AI scripts and pictures will be just perfect for you. Plagiarism is your jam.
Agreed! George Lucas has made it his lifelong job to sue anyone who looked at him wrong. Having a show take place is space is not Star Wars, no matter what insults numbskulls throw. Also claiming Knight Rider is the Lone Ranger is such a crazed reach. It smacks of desperation to create a narrative out of ill will.
No mention of Addams Family/Munsters, Bewitched/Jeanne, and look at how many westerns were on in the 50's/60's.
There are only so many stories. Claiming because they have a general similar premise, such as a detective in Hawaii, or they are both Westerns, is not plagiarism.
You're talking about copying a genre, completely different than what this video is referring to.
Lol! I always assumed McCloud was a direct TV adaptation of Coogan's Bluff. So it was just a rip off.
Gardner is beloved and respected. The only work of Glen Larson's I know of with any flair was QUINCY. I may be unaware of its source material.
I remember making fun of Quincy when it was on. So sanctimonious.
@jaleach123 I've only seen a few episodes -- and in the last few years. What I saw was decent, especially for a 1970s crime show. And the medical examiner as detective was pretty fresh. Plus Klugman was good, if no James Gardner.
No wonder James Garner was Vice President under Ronald Reagan.
Switch was poorly written and poorly filmed, I don't remember who was on the show.
Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner.
@@visaman Ah! That's right, I knew it wasn't the actors that were bad. It was all the writers/directors. I can remember how surprised I was as a kid when it was so bad.
Advertizers not viewers decide whats on tv
A thief who steals from a thief is pardoned for one hundred years.
OK so try saying something meaningful next
Interesting....WHY would you be "a fan" of this guys ripped off products??? a lot of them made money but they were SH*T ideas....BAD TV
Meh. I like Battlestar and Magnum.
Speaking of derivative, and barely concealed ripoffs...
Has anybody listened to the music coming out since the mid 90s?🤨
Nope.
@@rediband Lol!
Wow, you can't even find anything original-sounding on the internet? You must be REALLY stupid! It's funny as hell how you people blurt out these things that just illustrate how locked-in you are to a tiny little world and you pretend like 'other people aren't creative enough', LMAO
Ummm... Don't think Battlestar G was ripped off of Star Wars. The story is based on the Old Testament.
Ummm, it's frigging stupid to act like it has to be one or the other, and even dumber to pretend like the sudden popularity of the Old Testament in the '70s is what precipitated a bunch of space-battle movies.
The same thing happens with every product that is successful -
No, that's a really stupid comment just to defend crooked behavior
Gene Roddenberry sold Star Trek to NBC as “Wagon Train to the stars.” There are certain stories and concepts that work in television. That can be told in a 60 minute format and they get retold over and over. I have no problem with producers and writers wanting to compensated for their intellectual property and it happens constantly in Hollywood. As was the case with that episode of the “Rockford Files.” But James Garner never would have known had it not been for Sharon Gless. Garner was way out of line. He didn’t write the episode. He only acted in it. At the end of the day you’re talking episodic television. Not Shakespeare. Lighten up Jimmy….
Mr. Garner owned the series through his Cherokee Productions company and was the producer of the series.
He and his people worked 6 and 7 days a week from 12 to 16 hours per day when they were in production. To say he was completely committed to The Rockford Files would be an understatement. He did not just act in it - he owned it.
Try working that hard at something and have someone waltz over after they've stolen your intellectual property and say, "no hard feelings" and put their arm around YOU. Larson is lucky he didn't wind up in Cedars Sinai . . .
@@ricksand6477 and James Garner is lucky he didn’t get sued. He certainly expected to. And Larson would have won. What Garner did was uncalled for. We’re not talking high intellectual properties here. Brett Maverick and Jim Rockford are the exact same characters. With James Garner basically playing himself each time.
Everyone works 12 to 14 hours a day 6 or 7 days a week on a weekly television series. It’s called deadlines and everyone is under pressure to stay on schedule. Yes, Garner owned “The Rockford Files” and he made millions and millions because of it. One episode that virtually no one remembers cost him no financial hardship and did not justify his actions.
@@thomasmoshier3920 I hear what you are saying, Thomas. But Mr. Larson could not justify his actions either - which is likely why he didn't sue Mr. Garner and have his modus operandi come out in open court.
@@ricksand6477 Glenn Larson didn’t have to justify anything. He didn’t steal the scripts. They were given to him. He was sued and he lost. The original writers got credit and financial compensation over the episode and that should have been the end of story. I’m sure Larson heard Garner was pissed so he tried to clear the air. Garner assaulted him. There is simply no actions by Larson to justify physical violence against him. To single out Glenn Larson when ALL of Hollywood was doing the exact same thing is hypocritical to say the least. As a veteran of both movies and television James Garner, who was known to be a hot head, had to have known this. Glenn Larson was the bigger man here. He did cry when lost his lawsuit and he didn’t sure Garner either. Which would have been settled out of court for a hefty fee. He let it go.
The Rockford Files was so much better than Shakespeare it's ridiculous to compare them.
Larson was terrific. No one wrote better strong likeable male characters than he did.
In what way?
I didn't like this u put a ad in a minute in. FAATAC.
UA-cam puts ads in.
@@tvsbesteps Yes but I've watched videos over an hour long with no videos. It's annoying when I get interrupted.
There are some popular Black actors that had appearances on the Rockford Files playing stereotypical bad guys, so there's that.
Isaac Hayes' character wasn't so stereotypical. His conscience was tormented for a crime he hadn't realized he had committed. I don't remember others, but it's been a while.
But they did hire writer producer Charles Floyd Johnson for season two and beyond. So there’s also that.
No, there's not really that and if you want to go there then start talking details because Garner hired more non-white and non-male actors and crew members than most productions around that time. So there's that, and there's you pretending to make a point with zero details, while you ignore the fact that the whole show was about sketchy people, Rockford included to a large degree.
@@jamescarter3196 It was an episode with Roger Earl Mosley that I was thinking of ("Dirty Money, Black Light") It was strange seeing him in a role like that, is all. (I was just testing.)
There's no Wikipedia page for Rockford Files.! Weird!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rockford_Files?wprov=sfti1
Try this link
Galactica is NOTHING like Star Wars. At all.
what about soap operas? i mean how many times and shows have recycled the well the actor left so we have to kill off the character........... wait 3 to 5 years, actor wants back so now we do............. just in time for his wife who thought he was dead to remarry. i forgot what year it was but the summers or falls of 88-90, abc did this at least twice, nbc once and cbs at least once. IN THE SAME NOT ONLY YEAR, BUT I THINK AT LEAST 2 WERE GOING ON AT THE SAME TIME ON SEPERATE NETWORKS? a couple of years later some character is remarrying and i say to my sister well so and so must be rejoining the show. she's like no he left mad. he won't be back ever. 2 weeks later we had the "mysterious figure" show up and kind of start stalking the wife, 3 weeks later (on a friday cliff hanger no less again not like that's not been reused to death), oh guess who's back? and wanna take a guess what scene they were doing? yep the wedding............... my sister just looked at me like........... well even you're right now and then. it's like come on guys can't we just once do something different? just once? like instead of showing up at the wedding fake her death or something?
I see no problem with Larson, you don't see Ronald McDonald taking a swing at every burger joint in town, it's all about the execution of the idea not who thought of it.
They at least put their own spin on it, even though burgers were around far longer than McDonald's burger.
The creator of “The Rockford Files” is on record as saying that “Jim Rockford” is a contemporary version of “Brett Maverick.” Also played by James Garner. So did James Garner punch the creator of his PI series for ripping off his old western? I see a double standard here…
Same guy created both. Roy Huggins.
@@tvsbesteps In 1972 James Garner starred in a series called “Nichols.” Don’t recall who created the series but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Roy Huggins. Set around the turn of the century Garner played a reluctant sheriff with his long time buddy Stuart Margolin as his trusty deputy. Basically it was Brett Maverick with a badge. In fact several of the episodes were reworked old Maverick episodes. All of these shows, Maverick, Nichols, and Rockford are repurposed efforts of the same thing. The point I’m making is James Garner had no moral high ground to do what he did and he was a willing participate in the system he so despised.
Sounds like you really don't know the situation beyond what's said in this video and therefore you don't have an intelligent opinion to share. It''s silly that you're trying to get snarky about it and trailing off with an ellipsis like you think that makes a bad point better.
@@jamescarter3196 here’s the situation that I know James. Back in the early 60’s what was popular on TV were westerns like Bonanza, The Virginian, The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, and the list goes on. They were all virtually the same show and told the same stories. They ripped each other off and no one got punched in the face over it. Then in it was campy comedies like Gilligan’s Island, I dream of Genie, Bewitched, Batman, Hogan’s Heroes, that were in vogue. Once again virtually all the same. As a kid I watched Flipper and Big Ben. They were the exact same show. The only difference, one was about a dolphin and the other a bear. Lost in Space was a blatant rip-off of Swiss Family Robinson. In fact, the family was called the Robinson’s! Beretta, staring Robert Blake was a blatant rip-off of the movie Seprico. Happy days is American Graffiti. The list goes on and on and on. To suggest that this was unique to Glenn Larson or that James Garner was somehow justified for his actions is just wrong.
I am a fan of Garner but he was 100 percent wrong. He should have been arrested and prosecuted. He should have been sued. The matter had already been settled in his favor. He and his partners had WON. Resorting to violence (when you are not in any danger, whatsoever) that could have left permanent damage is grossly disproportionate to the copyright offense.
I liked Avitar better when it was Dances With Wolves.
One more bonehead pretending that's a comparison no matter how stupid it sounds. Boneheads always think they're smart for noticing bonehead details.
While this episode isn't about this, and honestly I wouldn't know about most of these shows as I've not seen most of them, when It comes to Battlestar Galactica I do know and your comparison in the credits is false. The original Battlestar concept was originally developed in the 1960's and was pitched to studios back then but passed over 10 years before Star Wars. They didn't actually opt to pick it up for a test and pilot until the mid 70's still years before Star Wars was annouced. Now, what did happen was two things that caused the comparison. Work on Battlestar picked up after Star Wars premiered to take advantage of the Star Wars craze and two the guy who developed much of the special effects on Star Wars was hired to help out with Battlestar, but the original concept, that pre-dates Star Wars by a decade, and the show is mostly in tact from that period. Look up I think its Roland J Cowan, he did a Retrospective on Battlestar Galactica (all of them) and while it mostly just confirmed what I know (I had known this before I used to have the original art book God knows where it is now) he does go into that comparison and why it exist.
Garner was a left wing nut!
Bet you can't explain why that is an issue. In the meantime, what's your address? I'll send you some tissue.
LMAO, don't be an embarassment in front of so many people. You people just say the dumbest crap and pretend you're smart for being so fragile and ignorant.
@@davidc6032 Google is your friend and I live in the house next to you. SMH…
9:30 actually the title is a play on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Day_at_Black_Rock
But with bikers instead of gunfighters. Like The Wild One.
He definitely ripped off the James Bond movies with two TV movies entitled wine women and war and the solid gold kidnappings two TV movie sequels to the TV pilot The six million Dollar Man if you notice when producer have Bennett took over as producer for the six million Dollar Man when it became a series that was definitely a reworking of the character making him less James Bond and more Gary Cooper