'' was a police drama television series starring
Fred Dryer which ran on
NBC from
1984 to
1991 . The titular character, Rick Hunter, was a wily, physically imposing and oftentimes rule-breaking homicide detective with the
Los Angeles Police Department .
Stepfanie Kramer co-starred as Hunter's female partner Dee Dee McCall. Created by
Frank Lupo , the show in its early episodes played as television's answer to
Dirty Harry . The show's co-executive producer was noted producer
Stephen J. Cannell . Cannell's company produced the series.
In an odd coincidence, the main character of the first part of the
Robotech animated series (adapted from the Japanese series
The Super Dimension Fortress Macross ), airing one year later, was also named
Rick Hunter .
Initially placed in a Friday-night slot against the then-popular
Dallas , the show struggled to find an audience and drew criticism for its often graphic depiction of violence. In the first season, the producers sought to create a hook by giving the main character a catchphrase, "Works for me", which was sometimes used two or three times an episode and was even tacked on to the end of
Mike Post and
Pete Carpenter 's opening theme music. Several early episodes featured montages set to popular songs from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Mid-way through the first season, with ratings showing no sign of improvement, Cannell gave network chief
Brandon Tartikoff a private screening of a two-part episode ("The Snow Queen") that had yet to air and asked him to give the show time to find its feet. Tartikoff liked what he saw and put the show on hiatus until a better time slot could be found. Two months later, Hunter returned to the screens on Saturday nights and viewership slowly started to rise. The first season ended in joint 79th place in the
Nielsen Ratings . Hunter would go on to become a mainstay of NBC's Saturday night schedule.
For its second season, Cannell brought in his mentor,
Roy Huggins , best known for his work on
Maverick and
The Rockford Files , to refine the show. As the new executive producer, Huggins toned down the violence, softened the main character's fractious relationship with his superiors, dropped a backstory concerning Hunter's family ties to the mob, and played up the chemistry between Rick Hunter and Dee Dee McCall. Huggins also moved the show's setting out of the back streets and into the more desirable areas of
Los Angeles . Emboldened, Dryer and Kramer frequently toyed with the scripts by ad-libbing, and the Hunter character broke the
Fourth Wall for the first time with an aside to viewers at the end of the two-parter "The Beautiful And The Dead". Viewers responded to the changes, and the show's second season ended in 38th place in the Nielsen Ratings.
Just before work on the third season began, Dryer threatened to walk out unless his salary, reportedly US$21,000 per episode, was raised and creative changes were made. Cannell hit back with a US$20m breach-of-contract suit. A compromise was reached, with Dryer reportedly landing a new deal worth US$50,000 per episode. The third season, again helmed by Huggins, saw the arrival of
Charles Hallahan as Captain Charlie Devane.
Huggins retired at the end of the fourth season, which placed 18th in the Nielsen Ratings.
For the fifth season,
George Geiger took on the role of executive producer, having worked in the same capacity on
Scarecrow And Mrs. King and as co-executive producer on
Miami Vice . While in the first four seasons Hunter and McCall typically worked on cases together, allowing the producers to showcase the chemistry between the actors, the fifth season increasingly had them working separately, ostensibly to lessen the workload of Dryer and Kramer and to allow richer, more complex stories.
By the sixth season, Dryer's growing influence had won him the role of executive producer. The sixth season featured one episode ("Unfinished Business") in which it was revealed that Hunter and McCall had once slept together. At the end of the sixth season, which placed in the top 25 of the Nielsen Ratings, Kramer left to pursue a career in music. In the season's final episode, McCall was shown marrying an old flame.
For the seventh and final season, the producers moved the lead character from homicide to metro division, and NBC shifted the show to 10pm, Wednesdays. A new female co-star,
Darlanne Fluegel , was brought in, only to leave halfway through the season. Her replacement was
Lauren Lane .
A revival TV movie, "The Return of Hunter: Everybody Walks in L.A.", saw Dryer and Hallahan reprise their roles. Airing on NBC in 1995, the movie took the
O.J. Simpson case as its inspiration.
In April . It was cancelled after three episodes aired, with another two filmed but never shown in the US.
In the pilot episode, Rick Hunter used a
Desert Eagle in
.44 Magnum and Dee Dee McCall used a
Beretta 3032 Tomcat in
.32 ACP . During the first two seasons, he used a
Desert Eagle in .
44 Magnum and she used a
Beretta 3032 Tomcat in
.32 ACP . During seasons 3 and 4, both Rick and Dee Dee used
Smith & Wesson Model 629 in
.44 Magnum . During seasons 5 through 7, Rick used a
Beretta 92F/FS in
9mm Luger . During seasons 5 through, 6 Dee Dee used a
Smith & Wesson Model 629 in
.44 Magnum this time in
Stainless Steel .
