The Detective Shows That Took Over Television in the 1970s

There was a time when turning on the television almost guaranteed that somebody was trying to solve a murder.

Maybe it was a rumpled lieutenant in a raincoat who seemed to have forgotten half the questions he wanted to ask. Maybe it was a private investigator living in a trailer on the beach. Maybe it was a tough New York cop with a bald head and a lollipop, or an older detective driving around in a huge Lincoln Continental.

The 1970s belonged to the television detective.

Crime shows certainly existed before the decade, but during the 1970s they seemed to multiply across the television schedule. Some were traditional police dramas, others followed private investigators, and a few blurred the lines between mystery, comedy and character drama. What they shared was a simple promise: before the hour was over, someone was going to start asking questions.

And millions of viewers were going to follow along.

Columbo Didn’t Look Like a Great Detective — And That Was the Point

If television had asked viewers to design the perfect detective, they probably wouldn’t have come up with Lieutenant Columbo.

Peter Falk’s detective arrived looking slightly disorganized, wearing his wrinkled raincoat and driving a battered Peugeot. He misplaced things, talked about his wife, wandered toward the door as though the interview was finished and frequently gave suspects the impression that they were much smarter than he was.

Then he would turn around.

“Just one more thing…”

That became one of television’s most recognizable moments because viewers knew exactly what it meant. Columbo had noticed something.

The brilliance of Columbo was that the audience usually already knew who committed the crime. Many episodes began by showing the murder itself. The mystery wasn’t “Who did it?” but rather “How is Columbo going to catch them?”

That changed everything. We watched the murderer underestimate him while Columbo quietly pulled at one loose thread after another. His greatest weapon wasn’t a gun or a laboratory. It was patience.

Kojak Brought New York Attitude to Prime Time

If Columbo appeared harmless, Theo Kojak rarely bothered pretending.

Telly Savalas gave Kojak an entirely different energy when the series arrived in 1973. Lieutenant Theo Kojak was confident, streetwise and unmistakably New York. The city wasn’t merely a background for the show; its streets, buildings and atmosphere became part of its identity.

And then there was the lollipop.

It was such a small detail, but like Columbo’s raincoat, it became inseparable from the character. Add Savalas’s shaved head and his famous “Who loves ya, baby?” and you had one of the most instantly recognizable television detectives of the decade.

Kojak also reflected a changing television landscape. Crime wasn’t always presented as a neat puzzle. The city could be dangerous and complicated, and the people Kojak encountered weren’t simply pieces on a mystery board.

The detective show was getting grittier.

Jim Rockford Was a Different Kind of Private Eye

Then there was Jim Rockford.

The Rockford Files debuted in 1974 with James Garner as a private investigator who seemed to spend almost as much time avoiding trouble as solving it.

Rockford wasn’t wealthy. He lived in a mobile home in Malibu. His answering machine greeted viewers at the beginning of episodes with messages that were often funny, annoying or related to some unpaid bill. He drove a Pontiac Firebird, dealt with difficult clients and frequently found himself in situations where the smartest decision was simply to get out.

That made him incredibly likable.

Rockford wasn’t a superhero. He got punched. He worried about money. He didn’t particularly enjoy being shot at, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

James Garner gave the character an easygoing charm that made The Rockford Files feel different from the harder police dramas surrounding it. There was crime and danger, but there was also humor and a sense that Rockford was an ordinary guy who happened to be very good at figuring things out.

And, of course, there was that theme song.

For anyone who watched television in the 1970s, sometimes just hearing the opening few seconds is enough to bring the whole show back.

Cannon Didn’t Need to Chase Anyone on Foot

Frank Cannon didn’t look like the television action heroes that would become common in later decades.

Played by William Conrad, Cannon was a former police officer working as a private detective. He was older, heavyset and more likely to outthink someone than outrun them.

And audiences loved him.

Cannon, which ran through much of the decade, demonstrated something that 1970s television understood particularly well: a leading man didn’t necessarily have to look like a conventional action star.

Conrad’s deep voice and imposing presence gave Cannon authority before he even did anything. He drove expensive cars, enjoyed good food and approached investigations with the confidence of someone who had already spent years learning how criminals behaved.

Today, Cannon isn’t mentioned nearly as often as Columbo or The Rockford Files, but during the 1970s it was part of the television landscape.

For millions of viewers, William Conrad simply was Thursday-night crime television.

Barnaby Jones Proved Detectives Didn’t Have to Be Young

Television detectives were also allowed to grow older.

When Barnaby Jones premiered in 1973, Buddy Ebsen was already in his sixties. His character was a retired private investigator who returned to detective work following the murder of his son.

That could have been the setup for a short-lived series.

Instead, Barnaby Jones remained on television until 1980.

Ebsen brought a quiet, methodical quality to the character. Barnaby didn’t need to kick down every door or win every fistfight. He watched people. He asked questions. He noticed inconsistencies.

There was something reassuring about him.

In an era filled with tough cops and streetwise investigators, Barnaby Jones often felt like the experienced older man who had already seen every trick someone might try to pull.

And chances were, he had.

McCloud Brought the Cowboy to New York

The 1970s detective boom also produced some wonderfully strange combinations.

McCloud gave viewers Dennis Weaver as a deputy marshal from New Mexico temporarily working with the New York City Police Department.

Essentially, television put a cowboy in Manhattan and told him to solve crimes.

It worked.

McCloud’s Western mannerisms contrasted with the crowded streets and impatient New Yorkers around him, giving the series a personality of its own. He wasn’t simply another big-city detective. He approached New York with the instincts and personality of someone from a completely different world.

The show became part of NBC’s rotating Mystery Movie lineup, one of the cleverest television concepts of the era.

Instead of watching the same detective every week, audiences could rotate between characters and series including Columbo, McCloud and McMillan & Wife.

Even the opening theme for the NBC Mystery Movie, accompanied by the image of a figure carrying a flashlight, became part of the experience.

Sunday night had a sound of its own.

McMillan & Wife Added a Little Romance to the Mystery

Not every detective show needed to be dark.

McMillan & Wife starred Rock Hudson as San Francisco police commissioner Stewart McMillan and Susan Saint James as his wife, Sally. Their relationship gave the mysteries a lighter, more playful quality than many of the police dramas surrounding them.

The series mixed crime with domestic comedy and romantic banter, demonstrating just how flexible the detective format had become.

By this point, television had discovered that a mystery could be almost anything.

It could be serious.

It could be funny.

It could take place on the streets of New York, inside a wealthy Los Angeles home or around the dinner table of a married couple.

As long as there was a crime to solve, viewers would follow.

Charlie’s Angels Made Detectives Glamorous

By the second half of the decade, the television detective was changing again.

When Charlie’s Angels premiered in 1976, private investigation suddenly became considerably more glamorous.

Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith played former police officers working for the mysterious Charles Townsend. The Angels went undercover in different professions and situations, giving the series an excuse to move from crime drama to fashion, action and adventure almost effortlessly.

The show became a cultural phenomenon, and Farrah Fawcett’s famous poster became one of the defining images of the decade.

Critics didn’t always take Charlie’s Angels seriously, but audiences certainly watched it.

And by then, the detective genre had become broad enough to include it.

There Were Detectives Everywhere

And these were only some of them.

There was Mannix, which began in the late 1960s but continued well into the following decade. Harry O gave viewers David Janssen as a former San Diego police officer turned private investigator. Switch paired Robert Wagner with Eddie Albert. Police Woman starred Angie Dickinson as undercover officer Pepper Anderson. Starsky & Hutch brought a younger, faster and more action-oriented style to police television.

Even shows that weren’t strictly detective series borrowed heavily from the format.

Someone committed a crime.

Someone started investigating.

And viewers settled into the couch to see how it would all turn out.

The Cars Were Almost Characters Too

Of course, no discussion of 1970s detective television would be complete without mentioning the cars.

Jim Rockford had his gold Pontiac Firebird Esprit. Starsky and Hutch had their unmistakable red-and-white Ford Gran Torino. Frank Cannon drove enormous luxury cars that seemed perfectly suited to his personality.

Cars mattered because so much of these shows took place outside.

Detectives drove through real-looking streets, pulled into motel parking lots, followed suspects across town and parked outside houses while waiting for someone to appear.

The result was an accidental time capsule of 1970s America.

Watch one of these shows today and sometimes the background is almost as interesting as the mystery: the cars, storefronts, gas stations, restaurants, clothes, furniture and city streets.

They weren’t trying to preserve the 1970s.

They simply did.

Why Did We Love Detective Shows So Much?

Perhaps the answer is that detective television offered something reassuring.

A crime created disorder.

The detective arrived.

For the next hour, we followed the clues together until the pieces finally fit.

But the best shows gave us more than mysteries. They gave us characters we wanted to spend time with.

We weren’t watching Columbo simply because we wanted to know whether the murderer would be caught. We wanted to watch Columbo annoy them until they made a mistake.

We didn’t watch The Rockford Files merely for the case. We wanted to see Jim Rockford talk his way into another situation he probably should have avoided.

The mysteries changed every week.

The detectives were why we came back.

Just One More Thing…

Looking back, it’s remarkable how many different television detectives could coexist during the same decade.

Columbo had his raincoat.

Kojak had his lollipop.

Rockford had his Firebird and answering machine.

Cannon had his Lincoln.

Barnaby Jones had decades of experience.

And somewhere on another channel, another detective was already knocking on someone’s door.

Today we can choose almost any television series ever made and begin watching it instantly. But in the 1970s, you waited for your detective to return the following week.

You heard the familiar theme music.

The opening credits rolled.

Someone was already in trouble.

And for the next hour, there was a mystery to solve.

Because in the 1970s, television didn’t just have detective shows.

Sometimes it seemed like television was detective shows.