"Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." - Robert Blake as Tony Baretta
Baretta: Season One DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Baretta, starring Little Rascal Robert Blake, premiered on ABC on January 17, 1975. Created by producer extraordinaire Stephen J. Cannell, the series follows the exploits of streetwise undercover cop Tony Baretta as he tracks down drug runners, killers, and other hoods in his hometown. Baretta himself was once a petty criminal, but he vowed to his dying father that he would mend his ways. This eventually led to his joining the police force.
Still a man of the streets, Baretta learns to use his former connections to help crack cases. Queeny hustler Rooster (Michael D. Roberts) often provides information on perps - usually in exchange for a twenty dollar bill. Baretta also lives in the neighborhood he is trying to protect, staying in the rundown flophouse King Edward Hotel run by his old pal Billy Truman (Tom Ewell). Billy serves as his father figure, and helps to take care of Baretta's cockatoo, Fred, whenever an undercover operation or stakeout keeps Baretta away from home. Dana Elcar (MacGyver) rounds out the cast as Inspector Shiller, Baretta's exasperated boss.
Unfortunately, Baretta has not aged well. The series is from a time when screenwriters apparently felt that police officers needed some sort of Dirty Harry connection - a personal tragedy that fuels their quest for justice. As a result, in the first episode of the series, Baretta takes down a numbers racket and the criminals retaliate by killing his girlfriend. On the night of their anniversary. Immediately after he proposes. If only she had been a fellow cop on the verge of retiring, every cliché could have been hit.
Baretta pretty much forgets about his fiancé-to-be after the first couple of episodes, but he still has a personal connection with almost every subsequent case. In each episode a friend of his is falsely accused of a crime, is killed by bad guys, or actually does commit a crime. He seems to have an awful lot of "best friends" who inevitably get into trouble with the law. Perhaps a more self aware (or less civic minded) person would realize this and start over again in a nicer town. (Possibly Mayberry. After all, Sheriff Andy Taylor only had to worry about Otis the drunk, and he usually turned himself in).
Robert Blake's performance as Baretta is mixed. Although he is sometimes engaging and provides some nice character touches (like the unlit cigarette he constantly "smokes"), he just as often barrels through the show on one note - loud and dumb, as if doing the world's most prolonged Jerry Lewis impression. On sheer loudness, however, Blake cannot compete with Elcar. His Inspector Shiller shouts every "Good morning" as if trying to be heard from the bottom of a well.
Another problem with the show is that Baretta is too much of a loner. While the loner image is meant to be an integral part of the series' concept, Blake is at his best when playing off of a partner. Whether his "stringbean" of a cop buddy in episode one, his thieving girlfriend in episode five, or the fallen undercover officer played by Michael Parks in episode eight, Blake has an easy rapport when teamed up with other people. The very fact that he seems to know everyone in the city is an acknowledgement of the fact that the writers realize that loners do not often make for compelling television characters. When such a temporary partner does not figure in to the plot, Baretta is often reduced to talking to himself just to get a little conversation in.
One exception to the partner rule is Burt Young's portrayal of a mentally disabled "best friend" of Baretta's. Take the worst bits of Charly and Rainman, mush them together, and you still would not come close to Young's indifferent acting in the episode "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow." His performance (and indeed the entire episode) is simply embarrassing.
Baretta's undercover getups range from the ridiculous to the downright bizarre. In two consecutive episodes he puts on cowboy duds and pretends to be a hick visiting from Texas. In another, he wears a patchwork denim leisure suit, and struts around an apartment building as a lisping decorator. (The gay theme continues a few episodes later when he dresses in an outfit that leather daddy from The Village People would have dismissed as too over-the-top). He also dresses as Speedy Gonzalez-influenced Mexicans and as an African-American masseuse - complete with afro fright wig and blackface. Politically correct it is not. These characterizations do not come across as offensive as much as they do stupid. Who could ever take this guy seriously?
Fred the cockatoo's tricks are also a tad grating. Each episode finds him performing the same tired gags that would not have cut it as "Stupid Pet Tricks." They are so overused that they often feel like time fillers. The idea is not a terrible one, but it is run into the ground.
Without Blake's involvement in his own real life Baretta episode, it is doubtful that this set would have been released. There is nothing inherently wrong with capitalizing on preexisting publicity - good or bad - to sell a few DVDs, but there are other shows in the Stephen J. Cannell cannon (The Rockford Files, for example) that are far more deserving of release.
The twelve episodes that make up the first season are divided onto three discs. The simple menu design allows the viewer to play all of the disc's episodes at once or to select individual episodes. The episodes are divided into chapters, but the menus do not allow the selection of individual scenes.
