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L.A. Law

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L.A. Law
Created bySteven Bochco
Terry Louise Fisher
Starring(See entire cast list below)
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes172
Production
Executive producerSteven Bochco
Running time45 minutes
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseSeptember 15, 1986 –
May 19, 1994

L.A. Law was an American television legal drama that ran from 1986 to 1994. It was one of the most popular American television shows of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As with thirtysomething, L.A. Law reflected important social and cultural issues of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The series was set in and around the fictitious Los Angeles law firm McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak and featured attorneys at the firm and various members of the support staff.

It was co-created by Steven Bochco (who had created the landmark NBC show Hill Street Blues and would later co-create another successful drama series, ABC's NYPD Blue) and former entertainment lawyer Terry Louise Fisher.

The show won numerous awards, including the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 1987, 1989, 1990, and 1991. Some of the actors, such as Larry Drake, also received Emmys for their performances. The series shares the Emmy Award record for most acting nominations by regular cast members (excluding the guest performer category) for a single series in one year with Hill Street Blues and The West Wing. For the 1988-1989 season nine cast members were nominated for Emmys. Larry Drake was the only one to win (for Supporting Actor). The others nominated were Michael Tucker (Lead Actor), Jill Eikenberry and Susan Dey (for Lead Actress), Richard Dysart and Jimmy Smits (Supporting Actor), Amanda Plummer, Susan Ruttan and Michele Greene (for Supporting Actress). Another Emmy Award record that the series shares with both Hill Street Blues and The West Wing is that all three are tied for winning the Outstanding Drama Series award the four times.

After the end of the regular series in 1994, it returned for a single broadcast in 2002 as L.A. Law: The Movie. On May 24, 2007, the AmericanLife TV Network announced that it would begin rebroadcasting L.A. Law starting June 3, 2007, Sundays at 10 pm. [1] From 2000 until 2004, A&E had been rebroadcasting the show. [2] Lifetime Television also reran the show until the late 1990s.

Cast and characters

The show's original ensemble cast:

Over the run of the show additional cast members included:

Trivia

  • The personalized license plate bearing the title of the show belonged to the character Arnie Becker (Corbin Bernsen). Changes in Becker's vehicles were reflected in updates of the opening sequence, as were the year stickers ('86, '88, '93, etc.) During the 1994 season, the plate fell off of the Bentley at the beginning of the show, reflecting a crash scene that had just occurred between Becker's Bentley and another car.
  • The building shown to house the McKenzie-Brackman law firm is the Citigroup Center in Los Angeles. Sometimes called the "444 Building" or "The Fantastic Four Building", it is located at 444 S Flower Street and is adjacent to the U.S. Bank Tower. It features three large numeral fours (i.e., "444") outside on the top floor.
  • The "Chaney" mentioned frequently as a partner in the firm is Norman Chaney, who was found dead in his office in the pilot episode. The character's one appearance, as a rigor mortis-afflicted corpse, was played by stuntman Loren Janes.
  • The theme song, composed by Mike Post, features a saxophone solo by famed smooth jazz artist David Sanborn. Typically, the beginning of the theme song would provide foreshadowing, with a saxophone indicating a light-hearted episode while a long, deep synthesized note warned of a darker, serious episode.
  • At the height of the show's popularity in the mid-1980s, attention was focused upon a fictitious sexual technique named the "Venus Butterfly". The only clue describing the technique was a vague reference to "ordering room service". Fans and interested persons flooded the show's producers with letters asking for more details about this curious kink.
  • Series creator Steven Bochco was so taken with the show being parodied on the cover of the October 1987 issue of Mad Magazine that he staged a photo shoot with the show's actors matching the poses of their caricatures. Mad ran the photo in a subsequent issue.
  • Series co-creator Terry Louise Fisher, former deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County, former entertainment lawyer for 20th Century Fox, and producer-writer for Cagney & Lacey, composed a form letter she was thinking of sending to lawyers who complained about the show: "Dear So-and-so: If I were a good lawyer, I'd still be practicing law. Instead, I'm stuck in Hollywood, making 10 times as much money. I hope you are as conscientious about your clients as you are about our show. Thank for your writing."
  • L.A. Law took over NBC's prized Thursday 10PM (9PM Central) time slot from another Bochco-produced show, Hill Street Blues and was itself eventually replaced by another hit ensemble drama, ER, which still holds that slot.
  • In early 1991, a Season 5 episode had two female characters, Abby (Michele Greene) and newcomer C.J. (Amanda Donohoe) kissing after a tough case. That was recognized as the first sexually-charged kiss between two women in a prime time series and created controversy.
  • The scene where Leland McKenzie, played by Richard Dysart, was shown in bed with his enemy Rosalind Shays, played by Diana Muldaur, was ranked as the 38th greatest moment in television (the list originally appeared in an issue of EGG Magazine).
  • During the seventh season the executive producers were fired midseason and while the show went on hiatus William Finkelstein was brought in to fix it.
  • In the final eighth season, the characters of Denise Ianello (Debi Mazar) and Eli Levinson (Alan Rosenberg) were transplanted from the cancelled Bochco legal series Civil Wars, which had run on ABC from 1991-3. Eli Levinson was retconned into being Stuart Markowitz's cousin.
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