Hal Linden Breaks Down the Secret Formula That Made ‘Barney Miller’ a Hit
It seemed like Hal Linden, 94, and Max Gail, 82, could have fielded Barney Miller questions for hours at the Hollywood Show in Burbank, California, on June 7, 2025. A room filled with adoring fans lobbed plenty of questions at the stars during their one-hour panel; they answered each one and reminisced on episodes with unwavering focus and meticulous recall.
One favorite topic? How the show maintained such a high level of quality for its eight-season run on ABC from 1975-82.
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Linden shared that when he was originally offered the job to play Barney Miller, he was considering three different pilots. When he decided to go with Barney Miller, “one of the reasons, aside from the writing, was that it was in front of an audience,” he admits. “I was coming from Broadway and I thought I’ll be at home in front of an audience. It’d be easier. I was quickly dissuaded of that.”
The live audience only lasted a few seasons, and making the show definitely proved far from easy. But that was due to the cast and crew being dedicated to quality, no matter how much effort it took.
Here are a few of the production secrets that fans were not aware of — but which helped the show achieve a spot among the greatest sitcoms of all time.
The Series Was Shot Like a Movie
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The process began with a table read. “Normally we read about half a script because the second half Danny Arnold was still rewriting, but that was the wonderful part of it. It was done like a movie where each scene was done separately, and we’d film it until we were happy with it, and then we would go on to the next scene. It was much like live theater,” Linden continues. “We got to chew it over and try it this way. Try it that way. How about this? How about that? Until we were all happy — and we weren’t all happy.”
Actors Were Allowed to Express Their Opinions
Gene Trindl/ TV Guide / Everett Collection
Not every actor was happy with the narrative of every episode. Linden singled out one episode in particular, Season 5’s “The Harris Incident,” as an example of how the cast and crew dealt with these issues.
“We did a show where Ron Harris [who was played by Ron Glass] was pursuing a perp down an alley with his gun out and was shot at by a uniformed police officer, because [the uniformed police] saw a Black man in civilian clothes running down an alley with a gun in his hand and, instinctively, he shot at Harris,” Linden described.
“Barney, being the guy who had to live through everything — the guy who tried to smooth things over, ‘Don’t get too excited, relax, we’ll take care of it.’ At the end of the show, there was a scene where there was a big fight between Harris and myself over this, and he leaves. Eventually, he comes back and apologizes for having lost his temper.”
Everett Collection
While the script detailed that narrative, it sure didn’t sit well with Glass, and he made his opinion known.
“We were shooting that last scene where he comes back to apologize, when Ron Glass said, ‘What the hell am I apologizing for? I’m the guy who got shot at, why am I?’
“And it was after midnight by now, so we were on golden time — this was expensive shooting. Danny was there, and we sat down around a table and discussed it. The crew sat down, and we talked about it —’What would happen? How could we finish this in such a way that the squad could continue and yet everybody would be happy with what they did?’ And after midnight, we scratched out a scene where Harris didn’t have to apologize. He didn’t have to because the minute he said, ‘What the hell am I apologizing for?’ everybody looked at each other and said, ‘He’s right. He’s right. What’s he apologizing for?’ That was the kind of atmosphere in which Barney Miller was done. It wasn’t a question of ‘get it shot.’”
And that’s why Barney Miller stands the test of time.
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September 2023
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