Alex Parker (Alex and the Doberman Gang)

Created by Richard Chapman & James D. Parriott
Based on characters created by Louis Garfinkle & Frank Ray Perilli

After a trio of low-budget, dumb-but-entertaining movies, The Doberman Gang (1972), The Daring Dobermans (1973) and The Amazing Dobermans (1976) scored surprisingly well at the box office, it was almost inevitable that TV would come sniffing around.

The 1980 NBC TV-movie Alex and the Doberman Gang was the result — a pilot for a proposed weekly series, with Byron Ross Chudnow handling the directing chores, as he had for the three feature films.

But the premise, that a pack of Doberman Pinschers specifically trained by criminals to rob banks, would be a hard sell for network television. Especially as a weekly series, and especially back then. So a few things had to be tweaked.

In the films, the  larcenous mutts were all named after famous criminals (Dillinger , Bonnie, Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, and Ma Barker);  in the made-for-television movie, they were named after classic movie stars (Duke, Rocky, Harlow, Little Bogie, and Gable).

And it would never do to have these lovable (?)  pooches owned by a crook. Nope. Their new master was a stumblebum private eye, ALEX PARKER, who inherits five Doberman Pinschers (not sure what happened to the sixth). I’d say the supposedly reformed dogs cramped Andy’s style, disrupting his personal and professional lives, but the doofus doesn’t seem to have much style  to cramp.

But this is television, and so of course the mutts soon become “trusted allies,” aiding and abetting Alex on his cases, and he grows to love them.

Awwwww….