Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, But Waterbury Will Bury You

This clever episode has many familiar faces you should notice, like Simon Oakland, Cleavon Little, James Karen, and Val Bisoglio and it revolves around a plot causing the private detectives to lose their licenses, and we later find out that a large company named Waterbury is behind the scheme. Rockford is hired, and after some hard work, uncovers the unusual plot to discredit these poor guys trying to earn a living; one of them works in a shoe store, and another is collecting unemployment and has fallen on hard times. Oakland is his usual funny and boisterous self, although Little was more subdued for much of the latter half of the episode, which was curious; Bisoglio shows up about halfway and unfortunately gets beaten to death, which visibly upsets Rockford. I thought the diversion the 3 men create is a great scene to get inside Waterbury to steal a file which eventually gets the company in serious trouble. In what may be the best moment of the series, watch as Rockford's Firebird smokes a Corvette as it does the famous 180 which leaves the other car with the thugs in the dust. This is a very solid episode and the show is running more smoothly than the earlier seasons.

Mr. Little shows his excellent "minstrel acting" chops that we will all adore in "Blazing Saddles" here, hilariously actin' the foo' in a little shoe-store back-room banter with "Beloved Character Actor" Simon Oakland (I had no memory of this guy's name, but if you're a fan of '70s TV, you'll certainly recognize him). Also of note is that Linda Dano was a complete smokeshow back then... I think that the producers had gotten wind of the audience's interest in the vehicular acrobatics of "The Rockford Files", because this episode is heavy on the stunt driving, very cool! Really great installment of "The Rockford Files"! I know this review is less than succinct, but IMDB has "Standards" (I.e., minimum character count)...

This episode starts out with fellow private investigator Cleavon Little asking Jim Rockford to check out a former client who put him into a jackpot and Little lost his license. What's really interesting here is that during the course of the investigation James Garner runs into both Simon Oakland and Val Bisoglio also colleagues in the Private Investigator profession have also gotten themselves in jackpots and have lost their licenses. There's a woman who has the same description that seems to be at the bottom of all of these and is a common denominator.

Usually that's what it takes, find the common denominator. She works for this posh investigation agency that only the rich and famous can afford. But they are a paranoid bunch who want to eliminate all the competition even these guys who charge $200.00 a day plus expenses.

It gets serious when one of Rockford's colleagues turns up dead. But Garner and the other two work out a beautiful scheme to break into their posh building that the posh investigation agency owns. You have to see what they pull off.

Nicely put together with villains you love to hate.

The main story is not very easy to believe.

(Dennis Becker even says so,out loud,and he's right.) However... What we do have is a lively + entertaining episode that has several good laughs mixed in with some rather grim and harsh situations. This isn't one of the very best episodes but it is not one of the worst ones either,as it does indeed have it's moments. I liked it. 8/10.

An episode written by David "Sopranos" Chase one element of this story is a witty and quite subtle light parody of Watergate. Jim becomes aware that several local PIs have had their licences revoked and sets out to prove that a large corporate investigative agency is trying to ruin the opposition. One of the ironies is that the case can be solved by breaking into the Waterbury (Watergate - get it) building. Becker even asks Jim who his "secret source" (Deep Throat!) is. At Waterbury a John Dean-esquire character asks his boss who casually resembles Nixon "Do you want him killed?" "I never said that" says the boss! The Watergate spoof adds an element of realism to a story which otherwise wouldn't seem very plausible. After all nobody guessed at the truth behind the Watergate break-in when it first broke. Excellent.