Barnaby Jones

In 1973 Quinn Martin produced what I believe was his last hit series. That series was Barnaby Jones a detective drama that starred Buddy Ebsen. Ebsen had starred for almost a decade as Jed Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies. Perhaps the transition from a sit com to a drama was easy because he was the straight man to his crazy family and friends on the show. The Beverly Hillbillies was canceled because the networks didn’t want shows that only appealed to the rural sections of the country. There wasn’t as much money there to attract advertisers. Beverly Hillbillies ended in 1971 so Mr. Ebsen only had a short rest before Barnaby Jones. Mr. Ebsen said that he had a friend who couldn’t tell when something was going to be a hit. Every time he asked his friend if he should do something his friend would say it would be a flop. He said his friend said that about the Beverly Hillbillies and Barnaby Jones so he knew they would be hit shows. At age 65 when most people are thinking of retirement Buddy Ebsen was embarking on another career move. Mr. Ebsen might be the first actor who went from making people laugh to solving crimes. Others who do so in later years were Dick Van Dyke with Diagnosis Murder and Bill Cosby with the Cosby Mysteries. The closest that I can think of before Mr. Ebsen is Dick Powell who went from movie musicals to playing movie detectives.
Barnaby Jones aired on January 28, 1973 to September 4th 1980. During that time its production company, QM Productions, was sold to Taft Broadcasting. I remember watching the show with my parents and my Grandma. We use to tease my Grandma telling her that her boyfriend’s show was coming on.
Barnaby Jones was a retired private investigator who left the business to his son Hal. When Hal was murdered while working on a case, he was shot to death while calling his Dad, Barnaby came out of retirement and along with Hal’s widow, played by Lee Meriwether, solved Hal’s last case and caught his murder. They worked well together and they decided to keep the Jones detective agency open. Like Columbo many crooks mistook his home-style country ways and his age as making him seem abit slow. They really masked a keen detective mind. Their mistake gave Barnaby the upper hand in solving the crime. Later Mark Shera, formerly on the show S.W.A.T., as his young cousin Jedeiah Romano (J.R.) Jones. He did Barnaby’s leg work on investigations while also study for the bar to become a lawyer. He was a welcome addition to the cast but it always seemed funny that J.R. would chase the crook through half the city. The only way he caught the crook was when Barnaby would show up gun in hand at the end of the trail. He usually said “Hold it right there!” With Barnaby in front of him with a gun and J.R. coming up from behind the villain knew he was cornered and gave up. When the show Cannon was on the air the two shows would often cross over.
When the show ended in 1980 Mr. Ebsen went into semi retirement. He came out on occasion to do TV movies mostly reunion movies for the Beverly Hillbillies. He did do some episodes of other shows and I heard that his last TV work was a voice over on King of the Hill. His last film before he died was the film version of the Beverly Hillbillies. He played Barnaby Jones who was hired to find Granny when she was kidnapped. Mr. Ebsen died in July of 2003. Mr. Ebsen had started writing a Barnaby Jones novel before he died. It has been completed and will soon be released. You can go to his website to learn more.
I loved that I found this TV Guide cover. You see my first part-time job when I was a kid was delivering TV Guide to their local customers. This cover I remembered as being one of those that I delivered.