On March 11, 1989, Cops, a documentary-style television series
that follows police officers and sheriff’s deputies as they go
about their jobs, debuted on Fox. Cops went on to become one
of the longest-running shows in television history. It went off
the air in 2020.

The show, which was created by John Langley and Malcolm
Barbour, was a pioneer in reality television. Crews with
camcorders followed law enforcement officers on patrol,
tracking down suspects and making arrests. The show was
unscripted, which worked in Langley and Barbour’s favor
when they pitched the original concept to Fox: At the time,
there was a writers’ strike in Hollywood, and the network
needed new programming that wouldn’t require writers.

In 1989, the debut episode of Cops featured the men and
women of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department in
Florida. The show

aired over 1,000 episodes and filmed in 140 U.S. cities, as
well as international locations including London and Hong
Kong. With its widely recognized theme song, “Bad Boys”
by the reggae group Inner Circle, Cops had spawned
numerous imitators in addition to parody shows.

Malcolm Barbour

John Russell Langley
(June 1, 1943 – June 26, 2021

Robert Blake, as ‘Mickey’ in the "Our Gang", shorts (1942).

 
Robert Blake in “Baretta” which ran on ABC-TV from 1975 to 1978.

Actor Robert Blake, best known as the star of the 1970s TV drama
Baretta and the crime film In Cold Blood (1967), died Thursday at
his home in Los Angeles. He had long-term heart issues and spent
the last few years listening to jazz music, playing his guitar and
watching classic movies.

Rawhide is a Western TV series starring Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. The show aired for eight seasons on the CBS
network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959, to September
3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14,
1965, until December 7, 1965, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes. The series was produced and sometimes directed by
Charles Marquis Warren, who also produced early episodes of Gunsmoke. The show is fondly remembered by many for its
theme, "Rawhide".

Spanning 7+1⁄2 years, Rawhide was the sixth-longest running
American television Western, exceeded only by 8 years of
Wagon Train, 9 years of The Virginian, 14 years of Bonanza,
18 years of Death Valley Days, and 20 years of Gunsmoke.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Clint Eastwood will be 93 years old on May 31st.

Thomas Edward Sizemore Jr. (November 29, 1961 – March 3, 2023)

Tom Sizemore is known for his supporting roles in Born on
the Fourth of July (1989), Harley Davidson and the Marlboro
Man (1991), Passenger 57 (1992), True Romance (1993),
Natural Born Killers (1994), Strange Days (1995), Heat (1995),
Saving Private Ryan (1998), Red Planet (2000), Black Hawk
Down (2001), Pearl Harbor (2001), and the revival television
series Twin Peaks (2017), and for voicing Sonny Forelli in the
video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002).

On February 18, 2023, Sizemore suffered a ruptured brain
aneurysm at his Los Angeles home that occurred as a result
of a stroke and was hospitalized where remained in critical
condition, in a coma and in intensive care and never
regained conciseness."

Tom Sizemore and Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The western tv series Bonanza ran on NBC from
September 13, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting
14 seasons and 432 episodes, Bonanza is NBC’s
longest-running western, the second-longest-
running western series on U.S. network television
(behind CBS’s Gunsmoke), and one of the longest-
running, live-action American series.