Slattery's People

I saw it, too. I watched it regularly during its brief run (my senior year in high school). I, too, was a political junkie-to-be. I remember enjoying the show and being sorry when it was canceled. The show seemed to be modeled on the California Assembly and I lived in southern California.

If my memory serves--I was 12 at the time--the show opened with a voice over, maybe Crenna's, saying something to the effect that democracy was a terrible form of government: messy, wasteful, etc. BUT, all other forms of government were so much worse. As a callow, Beatle-crazed teen, this was the first time that I recall understanding irony.

I remember that my father watched the show religiously every week. I'm still grateful that he did. I think "Slattery's People" helped to develop my political conscience.

Why aren't these kinds of shows released to DVD?

Why are there 14,000 episodes of "Friends"?

Since I was six at the time,and since it has NEVER BEEN RERUN(note that, TVLand and Trio),I only have vague memories of this show. However, it was one of the first "cult" TV shows.One remarkable thing about Slattery's People:(aside from the fact that it Ed Asners first TV series)is that it was the first serious show ( Idont count The Cisco Kid!)to feature Mexican Americans. Not only were both of Slattery's assistants,Hispanic, it was also the first program to have an episode built around a Hispanic.It was called "Whatever Became of the White Tortilla?(All of the first seasons titles were in the form of questions),and starred Ricardo Montalban as a stubborn Hispanic legislator who tries to pass a bill without any co-sponsors.The director was Sydney Pollack. You know, this might sound crazy, but why doesnt C-Span rerun the show? Every episode was a civics lesson.

And I loved it. Fourteen at the time and still grieving my hero JFK, this program was wonderful. Crenna was perfect and the weekly issue-oriented scripts were decades ahead of their time. I will always remember Slattery's People

By the mid-'60s I was a young "political junkie," so SLATTERY'S PEOPLE appealed to me. The grandeur of it all, you know.

Slattery was a legislative minority leader in an un-named state, and his "people" were the various sorts such a man would encounter, including -- a precocious note -- his girlfriend, a TV anchorwoman. There was nothing spectacular about this series, nor could any of its characters achieve a "following," all of which no doubt contributed to its quiet demise. To be fair, however, every episode involved a bona fide public issue important then and even now. One story was about wiretapping, another was cancellation of commuter train service.

In an interview a few years later, Crenna opined that SLATTERY'S may have been ahead of its time. Things would have to wait until the late 1960s and the blooming of "social conscience" and "getting involved." The fate of this programme probably influenced another proposal's stillbirth, I believe called THE POWER. Raymond Burr was to be a state governor, but he soon found gainful employment regardless.

In its humble way, SLATTERY'S PEOPLE foreshadowed the much celebrated WEST WING: Important people with the subliminal civics lesson. It is too bad the viewing audience was not ready for some low-key political drama.