Petrocelli

My name is Tod Persellin - my family lived at 515 avenida de palmas in Tucson - not sure exact date of the scene shoot, but the Petrocelli show used our home for the episode that aired Mar 13, 1975

Anyway, I had been out in our backyard playing wall ball at the time - if they shot it in 75 I was 10 - for some reason, I didn't know they were shooting at the time - anyway, I went into the house thru our kitchen backdoor and made my way to the front of the house (wondering why it was so quiet, where everyone was) - low an behold, once I hit the living room, there was a HUGE party going on in there! The actors and actresses sure were surprised to see me - there was a huge cake, and they said "hey kid, want some cake"? I think someone even said "you're gonna be on tv" lol - they were all very nice about it, laughing it up, and I got cake out of it too!

Turns out I had botched the scene - the film crew was in the front driveway, they were into the shot already - my parents (also outside around where the crew was) told me later the director shouted "who the hell let that @#^%&@% kid in there"! True story

The Star or Citizen wrote a story about the scene they did at our house - it was titled "Petrocelli Visits The Persellins", but there was no mention of my cameo! One of the show artists did a cat drawing for us (we had several cats back then) - anyway, a neat little piece of movie trivia that hasn't been shared (it took me this long to go thru every episode to find the one they did at our home)

This became a staple diet of my Fresher's year at uni (1997). This show took over from Quincy in the post neighbours slot on bbc1 and was a massive hit in my student flat.

I'd advise anyone to give this series a go, it has an awesome charm and Newman is fantastic. As far as I can remember, Pete never managed to get paid and Tony didn't finish his house - although it did progress upwards from the foundations throughout the two series.

They did mess around with the format a bit towards the end, which was a little disappointing and they became increasingly obsessed with kidnappings. Having said that when Tony was stuck in the desert with a criminal and two blokes trying to shoot them it was pretty cool even if it wasn't sticking to the usual format.

"You gottta tell me the whole story"

I, too, loved this TV series when it originally aired and am now rewatching every episode on the DVD set that was released last year. My publisher asked me to write a book about "Petrocelli," and I'm happy to oblige. I'd love to have your help, though. Please tell me the episodes you liked best, your favorite characters, and/or how the series impacted your life. Since I can't give you my e-mail address here, the managers of this website would probably be fine with your posting these opinions about the series here, in the review section of IMDb. Thanks much.

I think the best lessons "Petrocelli" teaches us are that 1) things aren't always as they seem, and 2) there's a good reason to presume a person innocent until proven guilty - because he just might be innocent, after all. This is a cast that worked very well together, and the writing, too, was excellent. I liked the fact that we would see the crime being committed from different perspectives. I don't know if "Petrocelli" was the first show to ever do that, but it sure kept me tuned in every week. It would be wonderful if TV Land would run this series again.

Of all the imported US cops and lawyers series shown on British TV in the early 70's, including Kojak, Columbo, Rockford, Cannon, McMillan and Wife, Banacek, Harry O and McCloud (I can't remember anymore!), this is the one I liked best. Barry Newman stars as the eponymous title character, apparently reprising an earlier film role, a smart-suited, sharp-witted Italian-extraction lawyer building his own home out in the country along with his ever-supportive wife (Susan Howard), who becomes the go-to guy for a seemingly never- ending array of almost-beyond-doubt guilty defendants who he then proceeds to unerringly got off in the last reel thanks to his Sherlock Holmes-like deduction skills. In this he was assisted by his loyal, if somewhat slow assistant, Cowboy Pete.

The shows took on the whodunit format of Columbo, invariably presenting an open and shut case against the plaintiff only for Petrocelli to turn things around with his own reconstruction of the actual events, usually after he's put himself and / or his wife and / or big Pete in harm's way first to get at the truth. That's the good thing about a whodunit, it keeps you guessing and watching to the very end.

Formulaic it may have been, but Newman played the title role with some flair and some flint garnering good support from Howard who was far from the shrinking wife in the background. I remember in particular Newman's habit of saying "No further questions" after he'd roasted a hostile witness on the stand, plus did he ever finish building that house of theirs out in the back of beyond?

Anyway, for me this is another of those vintage shows from my youth that I loved at the time and which I'm pleased to say, dodgy fashion aside, holds up well to watching again today.