McCloud

McCloud was one of my favorite detective series of the 70's. I guess the best thing about it was the way Sam McCloud not only caught the bad guys, but the way he usually was able to make fools of the uptight holier than thou New York cops who considered him a southern country bumpkin. The police chief, Peter Clifford, always looked like he was on the verge of having a stroke whenever McCloud was around. If only he had let McCloud do his job without making such a fuss, the bad guys would still have been caught, and with a lot less trouble.

Sam McCloud is one of the more entertaining characters ever created for television, and possibly the most natural "fish out of water" creation.

In the pilot, McCloud escorts a witness in an important murder case to New York, and winds up solving a complicated case virtually single-handedly. The premise then becomes that he is "assigned" by the Taos, NM Sheriff's Office to stay in New York as learn their police techniques and procedures.

Each episode becomes a study of how McCloud's stubborn, but common sense, demeanor trumps his big city colleagues to find the truth where more common methods fail.

While the cases presented are serious -- most often murders -- the series has a comical edge the will cause you to chuckle out loud at least a few times per episode.

The only failing is that some of the plots have a few holes in them, and today, it's hard to not only find the episodes, but to find uncut versions that don't leave out important scenes.

Dennis Weaver is brilliant in the show.

"There ya go."

I love this website and all the comments on it! McCloud was my favorite TV series and still is way up there. I would love to trade with anyone who has the 90-minute episodes on home video. I have the 2-hour shows from A&E and some of the 90-minute shows from the CBS Late Movie, but fairly often I have only opening and closing credits for episodes (particularly from the poor second season, and the going-downhill seventh).

One correction: "Return to the Alamo," the best episode of the series, was directed by Walter Doniger. E.W. Swackhamer directed the next "Alamo" episode, "The Day New York Turned Blue," which is still my favorite. The first "This Must Be The Alamo" was directed by Bruce Kessler (who does an excellent job), and Dennis Weaver himself directed the last (and least available) "Alamo" episode, "'Twas The Fight Before Christmas," which among other things features "Dallas" star Linda Gray in her first major role. On re-watching this episode last Christmas, I think it may be the best in the whole series.

In my opinion, the show took a while to find its stride. The 60-minute first-season episodes, which were combined into 90-minute or 2-hour TV movies later on, are fair but a little too countrified for my taste. The second season is generally quite bad, due to writing by Peter Allan Fields (five of the seven episodes). When Glen A. Larson got back from "Alias Smith and Jones" and took over the reins in the third season, the writing got noticeably better (he scripted five of the best episodes -- the first three "Alamos," "The New Mexican Connection" and "Butch Cassidy Rides Again," as well as two of the worst -- "The Barefoot Stewardess Caper" and "Night of the Shark"). Michael Gleason was nearly as good a writer (with the fourth season's "The Colorado Cattle Caper" making the top five). Lou Shaw wasn't in their class, but turned in several good scripts ("The Man With the Golden Hat" was probably his best).

The show had more changes in theme music than any other series I know. David Shire contributed a pretty poor twangy theme song for the first two years. In year three, they had four themes in five episodes! (Two of them are "chase music" from the episodes themselves.") The show hit the mark with the fourth-season theme, which was re-arranged each season to lead off with the hard-driving music as McCloud and the horse pounded the pavement. It's my favorite theme of all time (the arrangement for season six is the best). In the seventh season, among many disappointments, the theme was cut down in the opening and used only three times over the opening credits. The 1989 "Return of Sam McCloud" reunion-film theme was forgettable and had no relation to the others. When will people learn that a good theme song and opening sequence is vital to a show's success????

The series really Jumped The Shark when Michael Sloan came on as producer and head writer during the final season. His debut, "Bonnie and McCloud," was pinned by Variety as "perhaps the sappiest episode in the entire series," and his next episode, "The Great Taxicab Stampede," is just plain idiotic. Surprisingly, his other two scripts ("'Twas The Fight Before Christmas" and "London Bridges") are pretty good; I suspect he had uncredited help and a lot of it.

Great job, fans!

McCloud is a good 70's police show. It is never really serious, and McCloud always drives chief Clifford crazy in almost every episode, JD Cannon (the Chief) adds some humor to the show. This is a great show to see famous old time TV and Movie stars make guest appearances. One can also see many stars when they were young and just starting out, example Terri Garr, and Weekend at Bernie's Terry Kizer. I rate this show a 9/10. See it for fun.

Why do we only have McCloud available in seasons 1 & 2?? If those people are only going to release one batch, they should have selected some shows from the whole series.

I remember watching these in the '70's. Forget playing outside, let me know when Sam rides his horse in NYC. I made sure homework was done before he came on. you betcha! What about the guest stars? Jackie Cooper fights Sam on top of a stagecoach in NYC. John Denver is a Deputy Sheriff in Colorado(of course), and I believe he sings his song "I Guess He'd Rather Be In Colorado". Shirley Winters went a round or two with him, also. What about the episode where Sam and Sgt. Broadhurst are handcuffed together out in Oklahoma so Sam's whereabouts are always known? It is amazing how seeing our past shows us how little many things have changed. Let's look and see that less PC time. We were really like that. You Betcha.