The NBC Mystery Movie

The NBC Mystery Movieis an American television anthology series produced byUniversal Pictures,thatNBCbroadcast from 1971 to 1977. Devoted to a rotating series ofmysteryepisodes, it was sometimes split into two subsets broadcast on different nights of the week:The NBC Sunday Mystery MovieandThe NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie.

The NBC Mystery Movie
Genre	Movie of the week
Theme music composer	Henry Mancini
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No.of episodes	(list of episodes)
Production
Running time	90 minutes (1971–1974, 1976–1977) 120 minutes (1974–1976)
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	1971(1971)– 1977(1977)
Related
Amy Prentiss Banacek Columbo Cool Million Faraday & Company Hec Ramsey Lanigan's Rabbi Madigan McCloud McCoy McMillan & Wife Quincy, M.E. The Snoop Sisters Tenafly

The NBC Mystery Moviewas a "wheel series",or" umbrella program ", that rotated several programs within the same period throughout each of its seasons. In its first, 1971–72, it rotated three detective dramas that were broadcast on Wednesday nights from 8:30 to 10:00 p.m. in theEasternandPacifictime zones (7:30–9:00 p.m.CentralandMountaintime).

Background

The origin of the "wheel" format was a joint programming and creative production agreement between the NBC Television Network andUniversal StudiosTelevision and Motion Pictures in 1966, in accord with which NBC ordered a multi-year series of dramatic anthology productions from Universal that NBC would broadcast in the United States (both as originals and re-runs), with Universal retaining exclusive rights to overseas release of these productions as feature-length films, while NBC could not offer them as TV re-runs internationally.

The first series created under this agreement wasThe Name of the Game,a drama with three rotating stars. It was followed byThe Bold OnesandFour in One(the similarThe Menwas produced for ABC and involved series from three studios, although one of them was Universal). While it was a long and profitable collaboration, it finally succumbed to the changes of the commercial broadcast market regarding both structure and content by the end of the decade.

By the late 1970s, the increasing popularity of situation comedies, coupled with their lower production costs and much greater scheduling flexibility and resale opportunities, surpassed that of these feature-length (90–120 minute) drama anthologies. The anthologies could not reasonably be reduced for shorter broadcast times for the re-run market. They were not designed for casual or short-term viewers, who would have little interest in the characters or the story of an individual episode. Each episode and each series were of widely varying quality, making package re-sale difficult. However, by the early 1980s, various movie episodes from the formerMystery Movieseries were rebroadcast on late night'sThe CBS Late Movieas a package with an earlier half-hour situation comedy series rerun. While they lasted, the best of them employed the finest actors, writers and production standards available.

Production history

TheNBC Sunday Mystery Movieprogram worked on a rotating basis - one per month from each of its shows. Top left:Dennis WeaverinMcCloud.Top right:Richard BooneinHec Ramsey.Bottom left:Peter FalkinColumbo.Bottom right:Rock Hudson(photo minus his new hep trademark mustache) inMcMillan & Wife.

Inaugural programs

The three original 1971–1972 season shows ofThe NBC Mystery Moviewere:

• McCloud,starringDennis Weaveras a ruralTaos, New Mexicolawman temporarily assigned to theNew York City Police Department(NYPD). Inspired by theClint Eastwood1968 filmCoogan's Bluff,the show debuted the previous season as part of the hour-longNBCwheel showFour in One.
• Columbo,starringPeter Falkas a deceptively bumblingLos Angeleshomicide detective. The series was derived from a 1968 made-for-television movie,Prescription: Murder,which starred Falk in the same role.
• McMillan & Wife,starringRock HudsonandSusan Saint Jamesas a husband-and-wife crime-fighting duo. Hudson's character was a hip, sophisticatedSan Franciscocity police commissioner. Saint James later left the series and it was renamedMcMillan.

The umbrella series was counted a great success in its first season and finished at number 14 in theNielsen ratingsfor the 1971–1972 season.Columbowas nominated for eightEmmy Awardsand won four categories. This success promptedNBCto move the series to the competitive 8:30-10:00 Sunday evening time period for the second season asThe NBC Sunday Mystery Movie.In addition, a fourth show was added to the rotation, lasting two seasons (1972–1974):

• Hec Ramsey,starringRichard Booneas a gunfighter turned frontierforensic sciencedetective in the Old West. This piece of the wheel series was produced byJack Webb.

The NBC Wednesday Mystery Movieprograms

Inaugural

NBC also launched a clone of the umbrella series,The NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie,which debuted in the original time period and featured three new programs:

• Banacek,starringGeorge Peppardas Thomas Banacek, a free-lancePolish-Americaninsurance investigator inBoston.LikeHec Ramsey,it lasted two seasons (1972–1974).
• Cool Million,starringJames Farentinoas a former CIA agent turned private investigator and security/retrieval expert whose fee per case was one milliondollars.
• MadiganhadRichard Widmarkreprising his1968 filmrole as a streetwise veteran detective of the New York City Police Department.

Subsequent

During the 1973–1974 season, the programs rotating on Sunday remained the same, while on Wednesday,Cool MillionandMadiganwere canceled andBanacekrotated with three new series:

• Faraday & Company,starringDan Daileyas a private detective who returns to Los Angeles after a quarter century in a South American jail.
• Tenafly,starringJames McEachinas an African-American private detective.
• The Snoop Sisters,starringHelen HayesandMildred Natwickas two elderly sisters who routinely found mysteries which they solved.

Rescheduling to Tuesday nights asThe NBC Tuesday Mystery Movieduring January 1974 was not enough to help boost ratings, and the midweek series was canceled. The Sunday series continued, anchored by the popular trio ofColumbo,McCloud,andMcMillan and Wife.

Later changes

During subsequent years, these rotated with a fourth series, which changed each year (1974–1977), including:

• Amy Prentiss,starringJessica Walteras the fictional first female chief of detectives for the San Francisco Police Department. This series was a spinoff ofIronside.
• McCoy,starringTony Curtisas a professional con-man/thief.
• Quincy, M.E.,starringJack Klugmanas a medical examiner in the L.A. County Coroner's office.
• Lanigan's Rabbi,about a small town police chief (Art Carney) and his best friend, a rabbi and amateur sleuth (Bruce Solomon), based onHarry Kemelman's popular Rabbi Small mysteries.

Additionally, the two-hour pilot of another Universal mystery series,Ellery Queen: Too Many Suspects,aired in the usual Sunday timeslot of theMystery Movieon March 23, 1975; it was promoted as anNBC Mystery Movie Special.(The resulting series began airing that September, but in a Thursday night timeslot, and not under theNBC Mystery Movieumbrella.)

Of all the wheel series, only the original three —Columbo,McCloudandMcMillan & Wife— survived for the entire run of theMystery Movie.Most of the others were short-lived, and, with the exception ofHec RamseyandBanacek,were all only on the air for one season.Quincy, M.E.,which was the next to last newMystery Movieseries to premiere, ended up outlasting the parent series itself; midway through the finalMystery Movieseason,Quincywas taken out of the wheel lineup and retooled into a one-hour weekly series that ran for six more seasons, coming to an end in 1983.

Although theMystery Movieseries was cancelled at the end of the 1976–1977 season, NBC keptColumboin production and a seventh season consisting of five films premiered on November 21, 1977. After the fifth film aired in May 1978, NBC cancelledColumboas well.

Presentation

TheNBCMystery Movietheme music was composed byHenry Mancini.

The opening credits consisted of a shadowed figure carrying a flashlight slowly walking toward the camera in a desert landscape under dramatically lit clouds, as images of the various rotating series appeared sequentially on the screen; at the end, an announcer (Hank Simms) presented the night's main actors and series(example: "tonight, starring Peter Falk asColumbo").Somesyndicatedepisodes ofColumboretain this opening credit sequence, though the original title caption which included "NBC" and (after the first season), a day of the week was instead replaced by a similar graphic, simply showing multiple colored filmstrips with "MYSTERY" written within the frames, scrolling upwards within a circle (in the original animation, some of these filmstrips contained the NBC logo, and they scrolled upwards at a faster pace), alternatively, the portion of the introduction featuring Columbo replaced the original NBC-branded end graphic. Some syndicated reruns of otherMystery Movieshows retained the intro, but simply faded away before the NBC-branded opening graphic could be shown.

TheNBC Wednesday Mystery Movietheme was composed byQuincy Jonesfor its first season and had an animated open to show the lineup.

Post-series

In 1989, Universal Television andABCteamed to launch a revival of the mystery wheel, titled theABC Monday Mystery Movie.The network brought back originalMystery MovieseriesColumboto be part of the wheel, with Peter Falk returning in the title role. Two new series joined Columbo in its first year,Gideon Oliver,starringLouis Gossett Jr.as a crime solving anthropologist, andB.L. Stryker,which featuredBurt Reynoldsas aSouth Floridaprivate investigator.It was originally meant to be on Saturdays, but moved to Mondays amidst production delays related tothe 1988 Writers Guild of America strike.

ColumboandB.L. Strykercontinued in the wheel's second season on Saturday (asABC Saturday Mystery Movie) with two other series in August 1989: the newChristine Cromwell,aSan Franciscobased mystery starringJaclyn Smith,and a revival of CBS' 1970s crime dramaKojak.The wheel series ran irregularly from February 1989 until August 1990. After theABC Saturday Mystery Movieended, ABC keptColumboin production and Falk starred in an additional fourteen episodes before the network discontinued the series in 2003.

Universal broughtMcCloudback for a reunion film in 1989. The film, titledThe Return of Sam McCloud,featured Dennis Weaver in the role of United States Senator Sam McCloud. However, unlike the television series, the reunion film aired on CBS.

TheABC Mystery Movietheme was composed byMike Post.

Friday Night Mystery

In the fall of 1993, NBC made an attempt to revive the wheel format, this time calledThe NBC Friday Night Mystery.This rotation included:

• MacShaynestarringKenny Rogersas a gambler turned house detective to pay his debts.
• Hart to Hart,a revival starringRobert WagnerandStefanie Powers.
• Staying AfloatstarringLarry Hagmanas a former millionaire who becomes a jet-setting government operative.
• The Cosby Mysteries,a telefilm starringBill Cosbythat was spun off into a weekly one-hour series for the 1994 season.
• A continuation of thePerry Masontelefilms that were already airing on NBC.When starRaymond Burrdied after filming only the first of six scheduled films for the series, NBC retitled the seriesA Perry Mason Mysteryand castPaul Sorvinoas Anthony Caruso,a close friend of Mason, to continue the series in a second film with an option for one more.Three subsequent films aired starringHal Holbrookas “Wild Bill” McKenzie.
• Ray Alexanderwas a late addition starringLouis Gossett Jr.as Ray Alexander, a detective-restaurateur, with co-stars James Coburn and Ossie Davis. This series' first installment,A Taste for Justice,aired on May 13, 1994 with two more films planned.However, only one additional film,A Menu for Murderwas filmed and aired the following season.

Promotional materials originally included a revival of the CBS telefilm series,Janek,which debuted in 1985 starringRichard Crennaas New York City Police Lieutenant of Detectives Frank Janek. An alleged feud between the two networks led to CBS demanding that NBC not proceed with production.

In popular culture

• The cast ofMystery Science Theater 3000would often make a recurring joke ( "It'sThe NBC Mystery Movie!") whenever a character in a movie shone a flashlight. Eventually, at the beginning of the episodeTeenagers from Outer Space,Joelhas the robots in electrical shock therapy to try and break them of the habit.
• A 2008 episode ofThe Simpsons,"Dial 'N' for Nerder",ended with a reference to theNBC Mystery Movieopening sequence, featuringNelson Muntzas Columbo,Dr. Hibbertas Quincy,Rich Texanas McCloud and Mr. Burns and Smithers as McMillan and Wife.
• In an episode of the cartoonKing of the Hill,Hank Hillrefers to Hec Ramsey as an under-appreciated part of theNBC Mystery Wheel.

U.S. television ratings

The NBC Mystery Moviemaintained high ratings finishing in the top 30 of shows for the first four seasons. The show rated as the following:

Television ratings

Show	TV season	Rank	Households (millions)
The NBC Mystery Movie	1971–1972	#14	14,40
The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie	1972–1973	#6	15,68
The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie	1973–1974	#14	14,69
The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie	1974–1975	#24	14,59
The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie	1975–1976	#53	N/A
The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie	1976–1977	#62	12,76
ABC Mystery Movie	1988–1989	#29	13,92

See also

• List of The ABC Mystery Movie episodes

External links

• The NBC Mystery MovieatIMDb
• The NBC Mystery Movieat theMuseum of Broadcast CommunicationsEncyclopedia of Television