Plot
Created by Stephen J. Cannell, the weekly, hour-long crime series Baretta rose from the ashes of 1973's Toma, a short-lived weekly based on the exploits of David Toma, a real-life undercover cop with a penchant for elaborate disguises. For the "new" series, only two vestiges of the original Toma remained: Lead character Tony Baretta was an undercover detective, and he revelled in adopting bizarre costumes and eccentric "alternate" personalities. Otherwise, the two characters could not have been further apart. Remaining faithful to its source, Toma featured a tough but compassionate New Jersey cop who, though he preferred to buck the system and argue with his superior officers when pursuing a case, generally played by the rules; he also had a loving wife and two darling children, and lived in a modest but comfortable and well-appointed home. Conversely, Tony Baretta was a logical extension of Robert Blake, the bantam-cock actor who played the role. Like Blake, the streewise Baretta was fiercely, almost violently independent, bending and breaking the rules whenever possible and making no secret of his disdain for the by-the-book instincts of his superiors. And if Toma was diligent in his pursuit of lawbreakers, Baretta was downright savage; one suspects that he would have blown them to bits had he possessed the appropriate hardware. Also, unlike family man Toma, Baretta was single and a loner, his one bid for domestic bliss having been destroyed when his erstwhile fiancée was killed in the very first episode. Almost as if he was doing penance for allowing himself to be happy, Baretta lived in a rundown flophouse, managed by disheveled former cop Billy Truman. Outside of Billy and his pet cockatoo Fred, Baretta had no close friends: Certainly there was no love lost between himself and his commanding officer Insp. Shiller (Dana Elcar), while Tony's favorite street informant Rooster (Michael D. Roberts) was not exactly the sort of fellow one could call a bosom companion. Baretta was unceremoniously tossed into ABC's Friday-night schedule beginning January 17, 1975, as a midseason replacement for the canceled Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Clearly, the network felt that the series was expendable, inasmuch as it was slated opposite NBC's ratings magnet Police Woman. Within a few weeks, however, Baretta developed a respectable following, most of which was engendered by press reports of star Robert Blake's tiltings with the "suits" (his word for network executives) over the series' violence quotient and overall authenticity. By the time the series had completed its inaugural 12-episode run, Baretta was a shoo-in for renewal -- and Robert Blake had earned enough clout to start calling the shots so far as program content and casting choices were concerned. ~ Hal Erickson, RoviCast
- Robert Blake - Det. Tony Baretta
- Dana Elcar - Insp. Shiller
- Tom Ewell - Billy Truman
- Michael D. Roberts - Rooster
- Chino "Fats" Williams - Fats
Credit
Roy Huggins - Executive Producer, Bernard Kowalski - Executive Producer, Leigh Vance - Executive Producer, Anthony Spinner - Executive Producer, Jo Swerling, Jr. - Executive Producer, Dave Grusin - Composer (Music Score), Tom Scott - Composer (Music Score), Sherman Kunkel - Cinematographer, Alan Godfrey - Producer, Charles Dismukes - Producer, Sammy Davis, Jr. - SingerEpisodes
Baretta: Season 01 (1975)Created by Stephen J. Cannell, the weekly, hour-long crime series Baretta rose from the ashes of 1973's 'Toma, a shortlived weekly based on the exploits of David Toma, a real-life undercover cop with a penchant for elaborate disguises. For the "new" series, only two vestiges of the original Toma remained: Lead character Tony Baretta was a undercover detective, and he revelled in adopting bizarre costumes and eccentric "alternate" personalities. Otherwise, the two characters could not have been further apart. Remaining faithful to its source, Toma featured a tough but compassionate New Jersey cop who, though he preferred to buck the system and argue with his superior officers when pursuing a case, generally played by the rules; he also had a loving wife and two darling children, and lived in a modest but comfortable and well-appointed home. Conversely, Tony Baretta was a logical extension of Robert Blake, the bantam-cock actor who played the role. Like Blake, the streewise Baretta was fiercely, almost violently independent, bending and breaking the rules whenever possible and making no secret of his disdain for the by-the-book instincts of his superiors. And if Toma was diligent in his pursuit of lawbreakers, Baretta was downright savage; one suspects that he would have blown them to bits had he possessed the appropriate hardware. Also, unlike family man Toma, Baretta was single and a loner, his one bid for domestic bliss having been destroyed when his erstwhile fiancee was killed in the very first episode. Almost as if he was doing penance for allowing himself to be happy, Baretta lived in a rundown flophouse, managed by a dishevelled former cop Billy Truman. Outside of Billy and his pet cockatoo Fred, Baretta had no close friends: Certainly there was no love lost between himself and his commanding officer Insp. Shiller (Dana Elcar), while Tony's favorite street informant Rooster (Michael D. Roberts) was not exactly the sort of fellow one could call a bosom companion. Baretta was unceremoniously tossed into ABC's Friday-night schedule beginning January 17, 1975, as a midseason replacement for the cancelled Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Clearly, the network felt that the series was expendable, inasmuch as it was slated opposite NBC's ratings magnet Police Woman. Within a few weeks, however, Baretta developed a respectable following, most of which was engendered by press reports of star Robert Blake's tiltings with the "suits" (his word for network executives) over the series' violence quotient and overall authenticity. By the time the series had completed its inagural 12-episode run, Baretta was a shoo-in for renewal--and Robert Blake had earned enough clout to start calling the shots so far as program content and casting choices were concerned. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Baretta: Season 02 (1975)
Baretta may have started life as a hastily-assembled, second-echelon rehash of the failed 1973 cop series Toma, but by the time the program entered its second season in the fall of 1975, it had scored a solid hit--and, in the bargain, earned an Emmy award for its star, Robert Blake. Feeling his oats, the maverick Blake began exercising more control over such matters as story selection and casting choices, and also had the last word concerning directorial decisions. In a sense, the series became an extension of the established Blake persona, and the character of Baretta morphed into the star's alter ego. The viewer learned that undercover cop Tony Baretta had grown up in a poor, dysfunctional Italian-American family, and that he had been a street punk who miraculously turned his life around and joined the forces of law and order; similarly, in real life Blake had become a child actor to support his impoverished and fractious family, and upon growing up had endured several years of personal torment thanks to bad business decisions, his volatile temper and an on- and off-drug habit before "reinventing" himself as an actor of stature and respectability. And, like Baretta, Blake angrily bristled when told to merely follow the orders of his superiors, preferring to march to the beat of his own drummer in pursuit of professional excellence. Though the production staff underwent numerous changes of personnel, Baretta's supporting cast remained substatianally the same as in Season One, with Michael D. Roberts, as flamboyant street snitch Rooster, graduating from recurring character to series regular. The one major on-screen change was the replacement of Dana Elcar as Baretta's superior officer Insp. Schiller with Edward Grover as Lt. Hal Brubaker. Comfortably settled in a Wednesday-night timeslot just before the popular ABC crime drama Starsky and Hutch, Baretta finished off the 1975-76 season with a respectable 21.3 rating, ranking 23 out of the top 25 network shows. During its second season, the series also copped another Emmy (rather belatedly) for Harry L. Wolf's cinematography in the first-season episode "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Baretta: Season 03 (1976)
The saga of maverick undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake) sailed effortlessly into a third successful season in the fall of 1976. Although star Blake continued to engage in highly publicized battles with the series' producers and the ABC network "suits", audiences loved both the star and his series, as indicated by the ratings: Ranking 23rd out of 25 top shows during the 1975-76 season, Baretta closed out 1976-77 in eighth place, with an impressive 23.4 rating (it was tied with ABC's Sunday Night Movie and CBS' One Day at a Time). The fact that the series' Wednesday-night "lead-in" was the new ABC hit Charlie's Angels was a significant contributor to this remarkable boost in viewership. The regular cast of Baretta remained intact from Season Two. Most of the personnel changes were manifested in the production end of the series. Every member of the producers' roster, new and old, was nominated for an Emmy award, as were series costars Robert Blake and Tom Ewell. This time, however, none of the nominees took home a statuette. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Baretta: Season 04 (1977)
Although Baretta entered its 4th season with strong ratings and an excellent timeslot (Wednesday evenings, just after the ABC ratings powerhouse Charlie's Angels and opposite such "soft" competition as NBC's Big Hawaii), things went downhill fairly rapidly thereafter. Perhaps the character of maverick undercover cop Tony Baretta had worn out its welcome, or perhaps viewers were growing weary of publicity surrounding the never-ending hostilities between series star Robert Blake and the network "suits." In addition, Blake was himself getting tired of the weekly series grind, and his lack of enthusiasm might have begun showing up on screen. Whatever the case, Baretta didn't even crack the "top 25 program" ratings during the 1977-78 season. ABC responded to this viewer dropoff with more than the usual quota of pre-emptions, and in February of 1978 the series lost its Wednesday-night berth to the more successful Starsky and Hutch. Relocated to Thursday evenings opposite CBS' unassailable Barnaby Jones, Baretta limped onward toward its inevitable cancellation, though ABC opted to rerun the series as part of the network's late-late-night manifest until the fall of 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
