Cop Rock: The Worst TV Show Ever? (Gone But Not Forgotten)

Last Updated on April 28, 2023

Every once in a while you will hear a story that makes you say to yourself “there is no way this is true”. Hearing facts like If you hold in your farts long enough, the gas can be re-absorbed and come out of your mouth or that one point in history, turkeys were worshipped as gods. These are facts that are surprisingly true. But in the world of television, there is one show that many people still think was a myth. That show is called Cop Rock…

Yes my friends, this is a real show. Not a parody, not a fever dream, not a glimpse into television from an alternate universe. No you guys, this was an actual television show that lasted 11 episodes. Let me repeat that ,this is a show that aired….on network television….11 episodes….of dancing and singing police officers

So sit back folks, and let me tell you the story of the showrunners who said “you know what a gritty police drama needs to elevate it to a new level? show tunes” In this episode of Gone But Not Forgotten.

Cop Rock was created by legendary writers and producers Steven Bochco and William M. Finkelstein. William M. Finkelstein has had a long career in television and is still working today. The late Bochco was a legend in police dramas. He created iconic shows like Hill Street Blues, L.A Law, NYPD Blue, and one of my personal favorites Doogie Howser. The idea of Cop Rock began when a Broadway producer approached Bochco with the proposal of making a Broadway musical of Hill Street Blues. Bochco was intrigued by the concept; however, the Broadway show fell apart. But the idea of combining a musical with a cop drama was always in the back of his mind. 

So in 1987, ABC made the commitment to produce ten of his future shows. Since he now had the guarantee to do anything he wanted, he decided to experiment and create a cop show musical.  He then approached Bob Iger who was the head of the network at the time and pitched the series. Iger did not have any faith in the show but gave the go-ahead anyway since he wanted a cop series from Bochco.

Casting began and 200 actors auditioned for roles on the show. Some were from Broadway but many who were cast were actors who had no experience in musicals. After watching this show, you can tell. Many of the actors never went on to do any singing or dancing again. A large number of them just went on to work in the crime drama genre.

After the casting was done, Bochco approached Randy Newman to write the songs for the pilot. Yes that’s right, Bochco chose Randy Freaking Newman to write songs for a police procedural musical TV show.

He only wrote the songs for the pilot, and after that, legendary TV composer Mike Post took over. Post has been involved in many of the past shows that have covered on Gone But Not Forgotten: Quantum Leap, Greatest American Hero, A-Team just to name a few. Post had been working for Bochco for decades so he was the obvious choice to be in charge the music in the series. Post told him Cop Rock was a stupid idea but still worked on the series due to their friendship.

But enough of that, for now let’s get into the fever dream that was the show itself. The opening scene pretty much establishes the problem with the show. It begins with the police conducting a raid on a crack house which winds up turning into a rap song. 

The reason why I say this is a problem is that Bochco has no idea how a musical works. The big misconception is that musicals are just a story that has characters that break out into song. But it’s not that simple. Musicals follow a formula that allows the audience to accept the concept of the reality of people breaking out into song. 

Rule number 1: It must have a good story

The audience must be engaged in the storylines and become emotionally attached to the characters. Sadly, Cop Rock has neither. The premise is about a group of police officers dealing with the standard police drama that everyone has seen a million times before. You have the rookie cop who wants to see justice and fairness in a hard and unforgiving world. You have the serious captain who is a rule follower. In his mind these are rules from God. You have the cop who breaks the rules to put criminals behind bars by lying and beating them to pay for their crimes.

The storylines that run throughout the entire season are very dull. The first is a mayor who has aspirations of becoming governor. The second is about a police officer who crosses the line by killing a murderer in cold blood. Then you have the standard romantic plots that you have seen a million times before. 

So you have flimsy two-dimensional characters in boring stories. 

Rule number 2: The songs have to be good

They have to be something that you can hum to yourself on a long walk, or that you can sing in the shower.  Basically something that will resonate with you emotionally. Even though there are a few good songs, there are also some real stinkers. A large chunk of the bad songs are the ballads. Bochco was told that the show had to have five original songs per episode. This was a huge problem since there were a lot of songs that you could tell were just jammed into an episode to meet that commitment. They were so bad. The only one I enjoyed was a lullaby that a junkie sings to her baby before she sells her for drugs. 

This song works for two reasons. First was the length and the other was that it was an emotional scene. We’ll get into what I meant by emotional scene in a bit. 

The length of the songs is a clear example of why Cop Rock did not work. The people who wrote the songs were songwriters who wrote for bands or artists. One of them even wrote the classic Dirty Dancing song “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”. This was a huge mistake. Broadway songwriters know that songs have to be a certain length. The audience will sit through a long big musical number but it can only be done two or three times. The rest must be relatively short. The audience will become restless if you keep doing long numbers. The exception to this, is if the musical is an opera like Jesus Christ Superstar. The viewer is already on board because they know that the play or movie will be a string of musical numbers one right after another.

The people behind Cop Rock were treating the musical numbers as music videos and not Broadway songs. Almost every song was over three minutes. I found myself fast-forwarding through many of the numbers because I was getting exhausted. They just went on and on. Worst of all they were not even good. After rewatching the show, I realized that the most popular songs were the short ones or the most extravagant numbers 

Rule number 3: They have to have movement

I don’t just mean singing and dancing but they should also have good visuals. As I stated before the more extravagant songs were the more memorable ones. The song called “Nowhere To Go, Nothing To Do” is a perfect example. The song was about a community of homeless people who are being run out of the area by the cops. It’s a large dance number that even ends with an emotional line.

Rule number 4 and the most important of all: There must be a reason for musical numbers

Musicals and especially filmed musicals require a method for the audience to accept such a weird concept as people breaking out into song. There are different ways to do this, it could be straightforward like Glee where the musicals happen in glee practice, auditions, or competitions. You could go the route of Chicago the movie or Zoey’s Infinite Playlist where all the musical numbers take place in the main character’s brain. But the most common is when a character is expressing a strong emotion. Cop Rock does none of this or at best is not consistent.

The characters sing about anything. It’s completely random. Sometimes you have characters sing because they are in despair, but then you have them singing in a police lineup or envying rich people. All it does is confuse the audience and prevent’ them from making any connection to the characters. It’s not a parody because it takes itself too seriously. This is weird because some of the best songs are the ones that are parody based. My favorite one is “He’s Guilty” where Quark from Deep Space Nine and one of the main characters from the show sway the jury to convict a drug dealer.

Can you believe the judge is played by Judas from Jesus Christ Superstar? It’s so awesome. That song is memorable because of the visuals. I think some of the others songs are filmed very cleverly. It’s incredibly creative. 

Another favorite song that I had stuck in my head for days was an insane one. It was about human trafficking called “Baby Merchant”. It’s now become very popular thanks to a joke from Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. Why was this song written? Who knows, but it’s very catchy.

Even the opening intro of the show is bizarre. Randy Newman is playing the theme for the rest of the cast. I am still trying to figure this out. Are these the actors? Or have the characters somehow wandered into a studio with Randy Newman playing?  If it’s the actors why does one of them have a gym bag? Did he ever make it to the gym? Are they pretending to like the song? Do they like it? Were they forced to be here? What is this man doing? Because it sure as hell is not dancing 

After researching the show, I learned why the show had this problem. The writers and songwriters wrote separately and it’s obvious that there was a communication breakdown. The screenwriters would just instruct the songwriters to write songs about particular moments. The problem is that they had no idea why a song in that scene would not work since they had no experience in musicals. 

It’s a shame because I found myself chuckling in the most inappropriate moments on the show. For example, there is a song that’s played when some mothers see a young boy’s body after tragically being caught between two gangs. I should feel sadness when they begin to sing but all I wound up doing was laughing. This should not happen.

The shows tone is all over the place, and I’m not just talking about the songs. One of the characters is the chief of police who is obsessed with westerns. Now in any other show, I would go “okay that’s quirky” but on this show, it just becomes insane when it’s revealed that HE HAS A FREAKING ROBOT FOR TARGET PRACTICE IN HIS OFFICE!!

I swear I have never seen a show that has made me say “what the f*ck am I watching?” so much…. and I have seen all of Riverdale! 

Even before the show aired, critics were saying how much of a disaster the show was. After people satisfied their curiosity by watching the pilot the show’s ratings sank like a stone. The network tried to save the series by conducting focus groups but all they learned was that the minute a song number began the viewers would change the channel. ABC tried to convince Boncho to remove or at least reduce the number of songs on the show. He wouldn’t budge. 

So ABC pulled the plug and it ended on the eleventh episode. This is probably the most bizarre last episode of a TV show I have ever seen. It ends with the rouge cop being acquitted and reinstated. He gets punched by his former partner and then the chief of police and his second and command are talking about how much it sucks that the show got canceled.

This is when….wait for it…the entire cast walks into the room and begins to sing about it’s not over until the fat lady sings and A OVERWEIGHT WOMAN COMES DOWN FROM THE CEILING TO SING THE END OF THE SONG!!!!

I assure you, I am not on drugs. This actually happened on TV. 

This is when you begin to doubt your sanity because your brain is trying to grasp what it’s watching. 

So that is Cop Rock. Now should the show come back?

There is no world in the multiverse that could ever have this show on the air. I could say that it could be a parody but even that’s a stretch. But, even though Cop Rock was a failure it was an impressive one. As I said before they had to write five original songs per episode. Incredibly, they were able to pull that off. Were all the songs are good?…no… but not many people could do that. The visuals were great at times and I have to give them this, they took a risk. They experimented to create something different. Even though it blew up in their face, at least they had the balls to try. 

If you are curious and want to watch the show, the entire series is on Youtube. Although the quality is not good. If you are willing to shell out the cash for Cop Rock, Shout Factory released it on DVD. It’s not that expensive and has as an interview with Bochco on it. 

I would say if you are curious give it a watch. If you do, get ready to sit back and watch something truly bizarre. However, if the police knock on your door and begin to sing, ask for your phone call. Just make sure it’s not to a dancing lawyer.