Have you ever seen the film Dirty Harry? One person sure has: Alan Spencer, creator of Sledge Hammer!
This sitcom is meant as an over-the-top parody of that film. Spencer had been inspired by another television program growing up: Get Smart, which had revolutionized the way we look at the spy genre. So too did Spencer feel the need to revamp the 'cop' genre, adding to it a nihilistic attitude, and one of disregard for the law in order to carry out law enforcement. It looked at gratuitous violence and satirized it. Unfortunately, many viewers did not see the satire within the show and therefore did not enjoy mass appeal.
Sledge Hammer! was, however, critically acclaimed. Still it suffered a horrible fate at the bottom of the ratings for two seasons. You may well ask how such a revolutionary, refreshing, and acclaimed series could be at the bottom of the ratings. Quite simply, it was competing with the colossal hits Miami Vice and Dallas in the first season, and The Cosby Show during the second season.
Thanks to the proliferation of television series DVDs, Sledge Hammer! lives on, only better than ever. When the show was originally aired it was shown with laugh tracks added (screen testing had shown that the addition of laugh tracks helped ratings tremendously), but on the DVDs, that pesky canned laughter has been removed.
First Episode: 1: 1x01 -- Under the Gun (Pilot) (Sep/23/1986) [Special Airtime: 08:30 pm]
Meet Hammer: a cop who's not afraid to skirt the law in order to catch criminals. Although just put on suspension, Hammer is personally brought back on the force by the mayor after his [mayor's] daughter is kidnapped. Hammer is all too happy until he is saddled with a female partner.
USA)
