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| Norman D. Golden II and Burt Reynolds in Cop and a Half. |
Remember when cops dominated movies and TV? When I was growing up, they were the closest thing we had to real-life superheroes. From the 1970s to the 1990s, we thrilled to the big- screen and small-screen adventures of maverick plainclothesmen who drove flashy cars, carried powerful guns, routinely roughed up (or just flat-out killed) suspects before bringing them to trial, flagrantly ignored the rules, and infuriated their stressed-out superiors. They did what they had to do to keep the scum off the streets and protect the citizens. Sometimes, they were lone wolves. Other times, they'd be given humorously mismatched partners, who didn't even need to be cops. But we loved everything about them, right down to the clever catchphrases and gratuitous car chases.
That time seems very distant today and impossible to revive or replicate in the 21st century. Too much has happened since the '90s. Too many sad, scary headlines. Nevertheless, in this week's installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we are revisiting the era of the fictional supercop. In particular, we are reviewing Henry Winkler's Cop and a Half (1993) starring Burt Reynolds. This movie was made during the post-Happy Days years when Henry walked away from acting and tried to reestablish himself as a producer and director.
But Cop and a Half wasn't just a straightforward cop movie! Nope. Burt's character, Detective Nick McKenna, was given an unlikely partner: a wisecracking eight-year-old named Devon Butler (newcomer Norman D. Golden II). You have to understand, this was just a few years after Home Alone (1990). America wanted stories about precocious, resourceful kids who could make helpless fools of the grownups around them. And Hollywood was more than happy to supply these stories. You'll hear all about it on this week's show, which is conveniently available right here:
