Barnaby Jones

Do as I say!

I can’t see shit!

This Corey - the kidnapper

Barnaby!

Pussywether!

One thing I love about this show is the Ford vehicles.

Betty driving an orange Ford Pinto. FFS! I wonder if it got passed over to Kate Jackson on ABC?

Barnaby drives a land barge. A big brown Ford LTD couple - chocolate brown

They always styled Lee Merriwether in unflattering clothing and dated hairstyles

Corey murdered Wanda Jean!

But it never mattered r7. She was always lovely no matter how they presented her. It feels like they were trying hard to make her less so and it didn't, couldn't, work. Maybe crabby old Buddy Ebson was worried about being overshadowed by a beautiful younger costar, but along came JR and he had two of them to contend with.

During Covid I discovered one of those antenna stations, ME TV, running this show in the wee hours along with Mannix and Cannon. The 70s loved their private detective shows. I was in my teens when they first aired and only saw episodes here and there back then. Studying, sports, and socializing cut into my tv viewing.

There seemed to be an inordinate number of episodes putting poor Betty in mortal danger.

I think Cannon and Barnaby Jones were QUINN-MARTIN productions, well-known for their use of FORD vehicles.

My grandparents had that same LTD in blue, r6!

R9 you're right about Betty being in constant mortal danger and also about LM having to do the bulk of the location work and scenes. And the cases move so...slowly. Further, it's off-putting in the later seasons to see her still inept with guns and combat, still terrified of bad guys, still making foolish mistakes, still unable to solve the puzzle when over on ABC little Cheryl Ladd could drop a muscular hulk with a single deft Angel Chop and Jaclyn Smith shoots people with her eyes closed.

Still love Barnaby Jones anytime it has to do with something lurid: drugs, prostitution, sex, fetish killing--it's hilarious.

In later seasons the show gets worse re: making LM the emotional workhorse. Barnaby will just be on the phone or behind the desk for the entire episode except maybe a little backlot wrap up scene. No chases on foot, even car chases in front of the rear projection are rare.

Lee Meriwether has always had nothing but praise for Ebsen being professional, memorized, and hardworking. As for her, she acts every episode with a seriousness of intent and dialed-up concentration that would rival Linda Dano. And her peculiar regionalism-neutral, stagy diction adds to the effect.

Why do the episodes on Amazon Prime look so terrible? Like film transferred to tape and not remastered.

Would have been more fun if the show had been Barnabas Jones about a vampire private eye solving lucid cases.

Lee was also great when she'd come to Canada as a celebrity guest on our game shows. Smart, funny, quick to find humor on the fly. I remember her from either Headline Hunters or Definition as coming across as almost cannabis-induced giggly and fun. And lovely as always. I think she's a former Miss America or Miss USA.

[Quote] And her peculiar regionalism-neutral, stagy diction

Ain’t it so?!

It would have been better with Shelley Hack!

Her older model Pinto was even uglier and shittier than Sabrina’s

I wrote 3 fan letters as a kid/teen. One was to Buddy Ebsen. He wrote me back. I have the responses somewhere with my scrapbooks.

R17 the other 2

Barry Manilow

Some soap actress

No, the other 2 were Johnny Carson and the cast of St. Elsewhere. Both replied also although I imagine a staffer wrote Carson’s letter. I got an autographed cast photo from St. Elsewhere.

Did Buddy send a dick pic?

I've posted it in other BJ threads but who cares. I LOVE Lee. I wish she had a bit of a better career but she didn't do bad. I never can understand how they styled her for this show. She was a strikingly beautiful woman. Yet they always managed to make her look like a 40 year old den mother. About to host her boy scouts troop. Maybe back then it was a rocking style but I just can't.

Stunning

Meow

It was the times. There was an episode on the other day with Stephanie Powers. From the neck up she looked like a cover model, and from the neck down, an extra from Little House.

R21 look at any of Charlie’s Angels - even Kate Jackson and compare how un-hip her hairstyles and clothing were throughout most every episode.

They gave Lee the old lady look even though she wasn’t.

She was an iconic Star Trek character. She carried Barnaby Jones for at least the last three seasons. They should have changed it to Betty Jones and the Cute Nephew.

whores wouldn't let me link there site above.

it should have been a fucking crime to dress her like this

Who among us has not longed to put a piece of tape over Lee Merriwether's mouth?

Pussywether!!

25 posts and no mention yet of Mark Shear? You whores are slipping.

Shera

Stupid autocorrect.

Shera was very hot.

I mentioned JR several posts ago and acknowledged he was was younger and more attractive than Buddy, much like Lee.

I was hoping someone else would pick up on it so we might as well start now. He was hot. And that show could have continued without the old crab. Betty and JR were the only reason to watch, aside from the old Ford LTDs (with opera windows and deep plush pile carpeting)

FAT ASS Cannon needed the bigger Lincoln Continental.

Also the Barnaby Jones theme music and uninspired visuals in the opening were very lame.

R35 the whole show was lame. The opening titles and music not withstanding

Mannix was great too. I just wish they had gotten past the censors and were able to make a full fledged romance between his Black assistant, Peggy. They flirted with it the whole show. Gail Fisher I believe was the first black actress to win an Emmy. I really liked her. Her and Mike Connors were off the chemistry charts.

I think I read somewhere that Barnaby only ever fired his gun twice on the show, the first time being the pilot episode. And yes, Mark Shera was cute - he had a slight smart-ass quality which I kinda liked...

Mark Shera was on Rookies too. That was a great show.

I like McMillan & Wife a lot

Mark Shera played Jesus in Godspell. I spotted Joel Grey sitting next to Mike Douglas.

I wish Barry Brown had taken me hostage.

r42 he took pussywether hostage

he should have then taken her to see a different stylist who would have prescribed a head-to-toe makeover.

The Godspell clip was great.

Was he in the original cast?

My mom took my cub scout den to see it in Boston. My Grandmother, who was chaperoning, was disgusted and went to sit in the car until the show was finished.

And Buddy Ebsen was a cunt to DL spirit animal Nancy Kulp so there's that to consider.

Mark Shera today aged 70

He looks great. Natural aging is so rare these days.

Meriwether and Shera tried to get Ebsen to do a reunion movie but he kept saying no though he did a cameo as barnaby jones in the Beverly hillbillies movie.

The show was on for 8 years. The network begged them to make it an even ten with a two year extension. The three cast members were all no thanks. I would have taken that money. LOL

I remember in the 1970s seeing gossip magazines on the new stand (how quaint!) with cover stories about Lee Meriwether having 'taken up' with a Latino trapeze artist. I think she met him at one of the Network of the Stars contests. He taught her some trapeze tricks.

Omg r49. I bet they did it in a sex swing

R49 That would've been between her divorce from Frank Aletter in 1974 and her marriage to her current husband Marshall Borden in 1986, and around the time Lee's last eggs were dropping, as she turned 40 in 1975 and would be right in her horny cougar years and she was at peak fame as Barnaby Jones ended in 1980, so if the trapeze artist wanted his name in the paper, hitting it with late-1970s Lee was a solid plan of action.

She seems nice and I hope she did meet a nice Latino trapeze artist who took care of her business but good for a little while. After putting up with those crappy scripts all those years, especially the ones built around untold humiliations happening to Betty and her other women friends, she deserves a little fun and some orgasms too.

Did anyone see her play Mame?

R51 you seem creepy

Supposedly she hooked up with Andy Griffith.

Lee on What's My Line?. She's very poised and funny for someone who had zero experience before the public before the Miss America Pageant. Some guys from a fraternity entered her in the Miss California pageant. Her father had just died and she wasn't taking it well at all. Her friends thought it would help get her out of her depression and something to take her mind off her loss. It worked. She was absolutely stunning. If I were competing against her that year the minute she came out on stage I would have taken one look and gone back to my room and packed my bags to go home. This is why her wardrobe, hair, and makeup just made no sense on Barnaby Jones.

Stunning. A lot like Maureen O'Hara.

She's got the nicest teeth I've ever seen on anyone.

I find watching this show to be retro relaxing. Lee Merriwether is a striking woman. Her poise and diction very classy in these episodes. Her hair and wardrobe seem to be improving as the years go along. Currently Pluto TV are showing season 5 - 1976. A vast improvement can be seen. Buddy is stoic and the same in every episode. The guest actors are fun fun fun to see as a open door to every working TV actor in Hollywood in the 70s.

Don't you find that even in the syndicated versions the stories move very slowly? Also, there's not much detective work, just a slow reveal and sequence of events.

Yes.

I love the episode where Bill Bixby is a "blind" singer.

Oh do you?

The acting is just horrible

Barnaby: Betty, get me the Miller File.

Betty: Get it yourself. I’m sorting the contents of my purse.

Barnaby: Ugh! Well son-of-a-bitch!

Lee was one of the few former Miss Americas to defend Vanessa Williams during her PENTHOUSE nude photo scandal.

Barry Brown had a sad life, ultimately committing suicide at the age of twenty seven. Another brother also killed himself. A surviving sibling wrote a book about it all…

R64 never heard of him before

Wow I’m watching an episode from season 7 called Stages of Fear. A murder in a local theater group. Betty auditions for a part. Sybil is a young woman being terrorized for her inheritance. David is played by Johnathan Frakes. Piss poor acting but hilarious in how the director and cast members interact with each other. Lots of stereotypes. Entertaining to watch in how awful it is. Betty’s vocals sound like Auntie Mame! lol

I just saw the very tail end of the lamest episode of ANY TV show ever. Betty grabs a retarded girl around 8 or 9 years old out of school by yanking and pulling her arm then takes her outside and goes in back of the school where she tells the retarded gurl to watch what she’s doing. Betty then kneels down and stabs a stuffed animal with a knife. The girl then starts shouting in a heavy southern accent “ you ain’t gonna steal my husband!” Betty then stand there for a minute before some poorly styled female character surprises Betty by holding a pair of Fiskars shears up to her face and threatens to stab Betty. Betty plops on top of the woman and all of a suddden the police are there and take the women with the scissors into custody. Later Betty, Barnaby and Jebodiah (wearing big white bell bottom slacks) joke about whether the retarded girl knew what she was even saying to Betty earlier. Talk about crap.

Mark Shera had no discernable bulge in those tight pants he would wear on the show. But I'd still suck it.

He wasn’t attractive to me in the slightest. Betty is very odd. Acts so awkward under pressure. She was styled to look dated and older than she was. I could never understand why. The whole look of the show was unhip even for the time period (70s) I’m convinced they tried hard to not be stylish in any way shape or form. Stark contrast Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman.