Sledge Hammer! is an American satirical police sitcom produced by New World Television that ran for two seasons on ABC from September 23, 1986, to February 12, 1988. The series was created by Alan Spencer and stars David Rasche as Inspector Sledge Hammer, a caricature of the standard "cop on the edge" character.

Episodes

Cast and characters

Main

  • David Rasche as Inspector Sledge Hammer: The titular character of the series, he is stubborn, sexist, and reactionary (all of this by his own admission), but also a serious and respectful detective from the San Francisco Police Department. Hammer's most prized possession is his Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum with a customized grip, featuring an engraving of a sledgehammer. Hammer sleeps and showers with his gun (which has its own satin pillow), and even talks to it (to which a character will reply "Who are you talking to?"), referring to it as his "amigo." He believes in shooting and asking questions . Unlike other comic crime fighters, Hammer is a blunderbuss that is effective and even capable of humanity on rare occasions. Spencer chose Rasche, since he was someone who was not already known as a comedian, but "someone that could make you believe that this man really was having a relationship with his gun".
  • Anne-Marie Martin as Detective Dori Doreau: A sensitive, intelligent, and sophisticated police detective, she becomes Hammer's partner. In an interview with The A.V. Club, Spencer said he needed someone that the "audience would look up to, and adore, and like. And she was the validation for Sledge Hammer because Anne-Marie is such a wonderful actress—appealing person, sexy, with authority, and strong. And if she likes Sledge Hammer, that means he's okay, so she was kind of the insurance on screen. No matter what he was doing, as long as she liked him, believed in him, and was his partner, he was going to be okay". In season 2, Spencer was asked to develop her relationship more with Hammer as with ABC's flagship Moonlighting, but he preferred to have it be more like in Get Smart.
  • Harrison Page as Captain Trunk: Hammer and Doreau's supervisor, he is regularly driven into fits of rage by Hammer's inconsiderate and brash attitude. Spencer related Page's portrayal to Louis Gossett's character in An Officer and a Gentlemen with regards to his yelling, and also Herbert Lom's character Inspector Dreyfus in The Pink Panther film series.
  • Diane Sainte-Marie as Lisa Ellerblub: a local news anchorwoman (a play on Linda Ellerbee), she is usually on the receiving end of Hammer's chauvinistic insults.

Guest appearances

Some notable figures who made guest appearances on Sledge Hammer!:

  • Adam Ant ("Icebreaker")
  • Lewis Arquette ("Witless")
  • Bill Bixby ("Hammer Hits the Rock"); also directed a number of episodes
  • Mark Blankfield ("State of Sledge", "Comrade Hammer", and "The Secret of My Excess")
  • Bud Cort ("Last of the Red Hot Vampires")
  • Bill Dana ("Haven't Gun, Will Travel")
  • John Densmore ("State of Sledge")
  • Michael Des Barres ("Sledgepoo")
  • Sarah Douglas ("Play It Again, Sledge")
  • Norman Fell ("They Call Me Mr. Trunk")
  • Conchata Ferrell ("Jagged Sledge")
  • Dennis Fimple ("They Shoot Hammers, Don't They?" and "If I Had a Little Hammer")
  • Kurt Fuller ("Hammer Hits the Rock")
  • Sid Haig ("Hammeroid")
  • Mark Holton ("The Secret of My Excess")
  • Clint Howard ("State of Sledge")
  • Brion James ("If I Had a Little Hammer" and "Model Dearest")
  • Davy Jones ("Sledge, Rattle & Roll")
  • Bernie Kopell ("Last of the Red Hot Vampires")
  • Dan Lauria ("A Clockwork Hammer")
  • Robin Leach ("The Spa Who Loved Me")
  • Beverly Leech ("Wild About Hammer" and "A Clockwork Hammer")
  • Lance LeGault ("The Spa Who Loved Me")
  • David Leisure ("Hammer Hits the Rock" and "Magnum Farce")
  • Peter Marshall ("To Live and Die on TV")
  • Richard Moll ("Hammeroid")
  • Ronnie Schell ("Hammer Gets Nailed")
  • Armin Shimerman ("Hammeroid")
  • Don Stark ("Under the Gun" and "Sledgepoo")
  • Brenda Strong ("Miss of the Spider Woman")
  • John Vernon ("Under the Gun" – parodying his role in the first Dirty Harry film)
  • Ray Walston ("Big Nazi on Campus")
  • Patrick Wayne ("Brother Can You Spare a Crime")
  • Duane Whitaker ("Hammer Gets Nailed")
  • Mary Woronov ("The Spa Who Loved Me")

Actor and director Jackie Cooper directed a few episodes including "Witless", "All Shook Up" and the first-season finale, "The Spa Who Loved Me".

Production history

Inspired by Clint Eastwood's no-nonsense approach to law enforcement in the Dirty Harry films, teenager Alan Spencer dreamed up the idea of a police officer whose approach was even more over-the-top, to the point of absurdity. At the age of 16, Spencer wrote a screenplay based on this idea. The script and the main character were both named Sledge Hammer.

Despite his youth, Spencer had already written for Rodney Dangerfield and such television shows as The Facts of Life and One Day at a Time. He sold his script upon the release of the fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact. The popularity at the time of NBC's Dirty Harry-inspired action series Hunter suggested to HBO the potential of a similar but satirical police television show. When the company approached Leonard B. Stern, former producer of Get Smart, about developing such a show, Stern recommended Spencer's "Sledge Hammer!" idea. Stern knew of Spencer due to Spencer having helped Don Adams by personally writing a few gags for the comedian on the set of The Nude Bomb and was returning the favor.

The pilot of Sledge Hammer! was completed just as Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer" became a huge hit. ABC took advantage of this coincidence by using the song in television, radio, and film advertisements for the show.<!-- https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/sledgehammer/hammer-and-doreau-s-precinct-t221290.html -->

Intro and theme music

thumb|right|240px|Image from introduction

The introduction to the show features long, near sensual closeup shots of Hammer's .44 Magnum as it rests on a luxurious satin pillow. The show's ominous theme music, composed by Danny Elfman, plays in the background. Hammer then picks up his gun, spins it expertly like a cinematic Old West gunslinger, and utters his catchphrase, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing", just before firing into the screen, making a hole in it. According to the DVD release extras, the original version had Hammer firing directly at the viewer, but ABC executives feared this could be too shocking, possibly even causing heart attacks (and leaving the network liable). Thus, Hammer fires into the screen at a slight angle. Sledge Hammer! struggled in the ratings partly due to being repeatedly bounced around ABC's fall schedule. During the same season Sledge Hammer! made its debut, ABC scheduled a high-profile comeback vehicle for a then 75-year-old Lucille Ball entitled Life with Lucy that was not well received by critics or audiences. After only eight episodes aired, Ball's show was canceled and Sledge Hammer! was given her timeslot. appealing to key target demographics also kept it on the schedule.

Because ABC intended to cancel the series, the last episode of the first season ends with Hammer accidentally destroying the city when he attempts to disarm a stolen nuclear warhead. This episode received much better than expected ratings, in large part because the network had moved the show to a better time slot. ABC changed its mind and renewed the show for a second season.

The second season suffered from another extremely undesirable time slot (this time against The Cosby Show), a reduced budget, and lowered filming standard (they went from 35 mm in season 1 to 16mm film in season 2). The cutbacks contributed to the show not being renewed for a third season. The second season was released on DVD on April 12, 2005; the commentary on the final episode ended with Spencer, again, being caught in another earthquake, this time with sound effects and a convenient cliffhanger.

On September 6, 2011, it was announced that Image Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series. It was subsequently announced that they would release Sledge Hammer!- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on December 13, 2011. The set will not feature the documentary, commentaries, the uncut pilot (the broadcast version is used) and other bonus features from the Anchor Bay release.

In Region 4, Shock Entertainment has released both seasons on DVD in Australia.

{| class="wikitable"

! rowspan="2"|DVD name

! rowspan="2"|Ep #

! colspan="2"|Release date

|-

! Region 1 !! Region 4

|-

| Season 1

| align="center"|22

| July 27, 2004

| June 29, 2011

|-

| Season 2

| align="center"|19

| April 12, 2005

| August 31, 2011

|-

| The Complete Series

| align="center"|41

| December 13, 2011

| N/A

|}

Awards

Sledge Hammer! was nominated for a 1987 People's Choice Award in the category of "Favorite New TV Comedy."

Comics

New World's then-subsidiary Marvel Comics released a short-lived comic book based upon the series as a promotion for the second season. In the second issue, Sledge is up against a Spider-Man impostor and on the cover issue a disclaimer hints that Sledge Hammer is actually a mutant when the X-Men series and its mutant spin-offs were at the height of their popularity.

The series only lasted two issues but was only intended for publicity purposes.