Stingray (1985 TV series)

Did You Know?

• The series won the Primetime Emmy Award in 1986 for Outstanding Graphic and Title Design.
• Notable guest stars included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, John Amos, and Robert Vaughn.
• The 1998 TV series Vengeance Unlimited featured a similar premise of a mysterious individual who takes favors as payment.

Plot

Ray lives in Southern California and helps people in trouble, advertising surreptitiously in newspapers with an ad offering a 65 black Stingray for barter only to the right party, including a telephone number. Those who understand the ad's real meaning can call him for assistance. It is unclear if Ray is his real name or a nickname derived from his car; in the pilot he says it is short for Raymond, but this may be a cover. In one episode he identifies himself to police as Charles D. Stroke and offers fingerprint verification, yet that name is never used again. End-credit stills from another episode show a trailer with the name Ray Simpson. Ray does not accept money for his help; instead, he requires a future favor from each client, which may be easy or difficult and cannot be refused. Over the series, he calls in favors from past clients to aid current ones, such as when a physician client secretly performs surgery in Ray's place.

Production

The eight-episode first season of Stingray was filmed in Southern California in 1986. For the second season, creator Stephen J. Cannell, advised by star Nick Mancuso, planned to shoot in Toronto due to favorable exchange rates, but no crews were available there. Consequently, the first seven episodes of the second season were shot in Calgary, and the remaining eight in Vancouver.

Music

Music for the series was composed by Mike Post, Pete Carpenter, and Walter Murphy, longtime collaborators with Cannell. The show featured frequent quick-cutting of visuals in time with the incidental music and inserted music video style interludes with original pop songs written by Stephen Geyer and Post, performed by semi-obscure vocalists such as David Pack, José Feliciano, Richie Havens, Taj Mahal, Timothy B. Schmit, and Jennifer Warnes. End credits displayed still photos of the production crew. The episode Sometimes You Gotta Sing the Blues included a song of the same title sung by Lois Blaisch, which was never publicly released.