Tail O' the Pup Teamwork, Season 7, episode 3

 Los Angeles landmark the Tail O' the Pup makes a partial appearance in this one.

This type of architecture, which was very big in the 1930s and beyond, is known as mimetic, programmatic, novelty, or sometimes vernacular. There are several books and websites dedicated to this stuff. I absolutely love it, but very little survives. A few more modern ones have cropped up. In North Hollywood, the big barrel-shaped Idle Hour was revived. Probably the most famous outside of its native Los Angeles was the Brown Derby location on Wilshire. The Tail O' the Pup survives, but was removed from its original location near Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. 

You can also see the Tail O' the Pup in the Columbo where Ted Baxter's brother ("No. Ted is my brother!") murders Alternate Universe Malloy. Saving that for another post. 

The crimes for which police resources were used in this episode are so far removed from 2021 Los Angeles that it's almost a parody. Now you can walk into any business and walk out with $950 worth of merchandise and the police will not be called. You can read about the situation under Gascon elsewhere. It makes my blood boil. 

Sherman, set the Wayback for 1974.

But in this episode, Reed and Malloy will come to your house for a safety check. 

It's like another planet. And we're driving all over town!

Then you can show off your early 70s set decor living room. 

One of the guest actors is child actor Eric Shea. Sorry, but in my MST3K type mind, he's "Poseidon Adventure kid" -- and that's not a bad thing. [Mystery Science Theater 3000 kept referring to another actor as the "liver-faced Paper Chase guy" -- episode 501, Warrior of the Lost World.]

Of COURSE the little brother had a tour of the ship and could tell Gene Hackman one part was "shaft alley!" Of all the things I remember from the Poseidon Adventure (I've even seen it on the Big Screen twice -- who else hears Crow T. Robot saying "oh Gene Hackman, he's good in anything"?), one of the most prominent things I always think of is this kid saying "shaft alley."

There were/are other Bob's locations with the same "Bob's" signature logo, but this one was on the corner of Moorpark and Kraft in Studio City. Pete is driving west.

From Laurel Canyon, not Moorpark Street, but just two nice modern pics of the streetlamp style I'm talking about. Many of these remain around Sherman Oaks, Studio City, and Toluca Lake.

So many of the driving scenes are pieced together from a bit here, a bit there -- naturally they throw in a shot down Riverside Drive in Toluca Lake! They really like this clip as well:

Personal story: My dear Burbank friend [I envy her having always lived in Burbank -- it's still a nice place, even now] and I were in this Trader Joe's together once. Although many vegetarians shop there, it is not a vegetarian store. We were griping about that and got some serious hostility from one particular female shopper. That was probably 20 years ago, but it's my one memory of that Trader Joe's location. I wonder what business it was when the Adam-12 car raced by?

Wait, what? When do the Adam-12 boys ever patrol West Hollywood? Maybe patrolling other districts is part of this "teamwork"!  To get you oriented, if you kept going north (now), you'd come to the Pacific Design Center (the big blue whale building) on Melrose. If you kept going north in 1974, you'd find the Pacific Design Center under construction (completed in 1975).

How many more fine cars must die for this show! It kills me to see them sacrifice beautiful cars.

You get to see a bit more of one '20s home than you can see now:

Not in the episode, but nearby:

Two actors from the West Hollywood [unincorporated LA County at that time] scene of the accident:

Tail O' the Pup was walking distance (for normal people, not Angelinos) south of the accident scene, so the location of one inspired use of the other, clearly. 

IMDB tells me he was the uncredited voice on the "My Friend, Mr. Nobody" episode of Lost in Space. If only Bill(y) Mumy had done an Adam-12. Well, Adam-12 got 3 out of 7 from the Jupiter 2, plus this voice actor. Then Milner got handed over to Irwin Allen as a non-space Robinson. Please remove my temptation to view that short-lived show again after all these years. That one needs to stay back in the 70s, even the Leslie Nielsen episodes. [But "Pete" got to grow his hair out!]

Then Tail O' the Pup Part Two, where you can see two interesting things in the background:

The oddest spelling ever of "Llewellyn" (not so odd in Welsh!): Lewelleyn

I learned from Malloy that you had to be 5'8" to be a policeman in 1974. Made sense. 

Poseidon Adventure kid wants to know if he'll be arrested for a 311. 311 is indecent exposure, but it's also the number you call for non-emergency services, like if the crime has already happened. 311 La Cienega was also the original address of Tail O' the Pup. Ha!  Speaking again of Tail O' the Pup's location, Beverly Park and Kiddieland was very close by -- oh why oh why didn't you film there! It closed in 1974, and Adam-12 could have been the last production to film there. So close... But they did get that glimpse of the Ferris wheel, I'm quite sure.