Cannon (TV series)

Did You Know?

• The series was parodied in a 1976 Benny Hill sketch called "Murder on the Oregon Express".
• Notable guest stars include Johnny Cash, Mark Hamill, Nick Nolte, and Roy Scheider.

Synopsis

Frank Cannon is a Korean War veteran and former Los Angeles police officer who works as a private detective. He is street smart and also displays a high level of education, with knowledge of several languages and subjects such as science, art, and history. Cannon is a widower; his wife and son died in a bomb attack while he was on the police force. William Conrad was overweight, and the series often references Cannon's weight, with a tuba leitmotif in the musical score. Other characters sometimes criticize his weight, while Cannon makes self-deprecating jokes about his size and love of food. He is an epicurean and gourmet cook who enjoys preparing lavish meals. Despite his large size, he is a man of action, skilled in marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, and the knifehand strike. He prefers using his wits but engages in fistfights and shoot-outs when necessary. Plots involve Cannon solving crimes for various clients, including insurance companies, former police colleagues, or people from his past. He sometimes must clear himself of falsified charges. Many episodes have him traveling and dealing with incompetent or corrupt law enforcement.

Production

An episode later in the series explains that his wife and child died in a car bomb intended for him, leading him to leave the Los Angeles police force and start working as a private eye. For its second season, the show moved to Wednesday at 10:00 pm, then to Wednesday at 9:00 pm for the third season, where it stayed for the rest of its run. After three seasons in the Nielsen Top 20, the fifth season featured more violence and controversial topics, dropping the show to 39th place and leading to its cancellation. Throughout the series, Cannon drove Lincoln Continentals. The pilot featured a 1970 four-door hardtop sedan, which was later wrecked. In the 1980 TV movie, he drove a 1978 Cadillac Coupe de Ville that had been turned into a convertible. Cannon often used a car phone, a rare Motorola IMTS model, in his Lincoln.

Episodes

Barnaby Jones came from the same creator and producer as Cannon, Edward Hume and Quinn Martin. Its first episode, "Requiem for a Son," was originally written for Cannon's second season but became the debut of the new series instead. William Conrad appears in that episode as a guest star. The second part aired two nights later as the season premiere of Barnaby Jones.

In other media

A series of nine original tie-in novels were published in the 1970s by Lancer and Magnum in the US, and in the UK by Triphammer, Star, and Corgi. Only the first two, by Richard Gallagher, were published in the US and later reprinted by Triphammer in the UK: Murder by Gemini and The Stewardess Strangler. The remaining seven were by British writer Douglas Enefer. The first five appeared under the pseudonym Paul Denver, possibly because Enefer was creator and editor of the Triphammer imprint and did not want the byline indicating he had commissioned himself. He maintained the byline when Star took over and abandoned it for the final two, published by Corgi. The British titles were unnumbered. Enefer created a few recurring characters not in the TV series, including a young assistant investigator. The British titles (and US reprints) were: The Golden Bullet, The Deadly Chance, I've Got You Covered, The Falling Blonde, It's Lonely on the Sidewalk, Farewell, Little Sister, and Shoot-Out!. On The Falling Blonde the guest star is Lynne Marta. Two covers used rendered artwork: Farewell, Little Sister shows Ralph Waite, who never appeared in a Cannon episode; Shoot-Out! shows Monte Markham, who appeared in the episode "Vengeance". The use of Waite's likeness suggests the painted guest star images may have been unlicensed.