77 Sunset Strip and Its Rip-Offs
77 Sunset Strip (1958-64) was a groundbreaker in oh, so many ways. At a time when most private eye shows were a half-hour long, and lone wolf P.I.s were doing their darnedest Phil Marlowe or Sam Spadeimitations, the Warner Bros. show boasted a team of good-looking private eye hunks in an exotic (or at “cool”) location, surrounded by pretty women and quirky, eccentric recurring characters (“Hey, Kookie, lend me your comb!”), all played out in slickly produced 60-minute episodes that focussed as much on banter, snazzy cars and clothing as on the plots, which were often all over the place.
The detectives worked together and separately, but there was no doubt that each and every one of them had partners ready and willing to lend a hand. And it allowed the producers to churn out episodes more quickly, by filming simultaneously, spotlighting one lead or the other.
It was a formula that proved surprisingly popular, and quite easy to imitate (Warner Bros. themselves tried three more times), but not necessarily guaranteed to succeed.
- Bourbon Street Beat (1959-60)
- Hawaiian Eye (1959-63)
- Surfside Six (1960-62)
- The Brothers Brannagan (1960)
- The Investigators (1961)
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
