Background
Ziv Television Programs was founded by Frederick Ziv in 1948. Ten years later, Ziv TV was a major producer of 1950s and early 1960s first-run syndicated series, including Bat Masterson , The Cisco Kid , Science Fiction Theater , Lock-Up , Sea Hunt , and Ripcord .
Ziv Television Programs, Inc. was an American production company that specialized in productions for first-run television syndication in the 1950s.
Frederick William Ziv was an American broadcasting producer and syndicator who was considered as the father of television first-run syndication and once operated the nation's largest independent television production company. An obituary in The Cincinnati Enquirer noted that Ziv "was known throughout the television industry for pioneering production, sales, promotion and marketing of TV series."
Bat Masterson is an American Western television series which was a fictionalized account of the life of real-life of marshal/gambler/dandy Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry, and the half-hour black-and-white series ran on NBC from 1958 to 1961. The show was produced by Ziv Television Productions. "Bat" is a nickname for Masterson's first name, Bartholemew.
Highway Patrol was created by Ziv in response to the California Highway Patrol wanting to be featured in a TV series. However, because Ziv thought that the show needed to have a broader police scope than the real CHP, the generic show name was adopted.
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is a law enforcement agency of California. The CHP has patrol jurisdiction over all California highways and can act as the state police. They also have jurisdiction over city roads, and may conduct law enforcement procedures there.
Crawford signed in April 1955. [1]
Highway Patrol premiered October 3, 1955, with "Prison Break", an episode filmed April 11–13, 1955. Initial ratings were strong the show running second to I Love Lucy . [2]
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning 6 seasons. The show starred Lucille Ball, her real-life husband Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. It followed the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a middle class housewife in New York City, who either concocted plans with her best friends to appear alongside her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz) in his nightclub, or tried numerous schemes to mingle with, or be a part of show business. After the series ended in 1957, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials; it ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and later in reruns as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour. Following the end of that, Ball divorced Arnaz and appeared in three other sitcoms into 1986.
Ziv Television Programs produced 156 episodes spanning four TV seasons, 1955–1959. In the four years of its run, Highway Patrol would feature many actors who would later become successful stars in their own right, among them Stuart Whitman, Clint Eastwood, Robert Conrad, Larry Hagman, Barbara Eden, Paul Burke and Leonard Nimoy.
Stuart Maxwell Whitman is an American actor. He is known for playing Marshal Jim Crown on the Western television series Cimarron Strip (1967). Whitman also starred with John Wayne in the Western film entitled The Comancheros (1961), and received top billing as the romantic lead in the film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965).
Clinton Eastwood Jr. is an American actor, filmmaker, musician, and politician. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, he rose to international fame with his role as the Man with No Name in Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the 1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.
Robert Conrad is a retired American film and television actor, singer, and stuntman. He was best known for his role in the 1965–69 television series The Wild Wild West, playing the sophisticated Secret Service agent James T. West. He portrayed World War II ace Pappy Boyington in the television series Baa Baa Black Sheep. In addition to acting, he was a singer, and recorded several pop/rock songs in the late 1950s and early 1960s as Bob Conrad. He has hosted a weekly two-hour national radio show on CRN Digital Talk Radio since 2008.
Episodes are generally fast-paced—notable considering how a typical episode was filmed: two days on location and one day at the studio. The budget for an episode ranged from $20,000 to $25,000, somewhat higher when a Bell 47 helicopter was used. Producer Frederic W. Ziv said the show moved fast to match Broderick Crawford's acting pace. Ziv said Highway Patrol introduced quick cutting to television, which started a new trend.
Highway Patrol is famous for its location shooting around the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley, then mostly rural. Other notable Los Angeles area locations include Griffith Park, and Bronson Canyon just above Hollywood. [3] The show also filmed at railroad stations at Glendale, California, identified by a large sign, Alhambra, California, Santa Susana, California, and Chatsworth, California.
Unlike the California Highway Patrol, the agency featured in the TV series was more concerned with chasing criminals than enforcing driving laws. Local and county police officers were seldom if ever in evidence, only the Highway Patrol. With such a limited budget, there were very few car chases, crashes, and other motor mayhem that is more common in modern police dramas; scenes were often filmed on rural two-lane paved or dirt roads to save money and because Crawford's own driver's license was suspended for drunk driving. Excitement was mainly generated by Crawford's own rapid-fire, staccato delivery of his lines, frequent shootouts, and numerous plot contrivances in which time was a critical factor, such as a hostage death threat, the escape of a violent criminal, a train derailment, or other imminent catastrophe.
In the first two seasons the series received technical assistance from the California Highway Patrol. The patrol cars in early episodes are actual CHP vehicles with the show's car door emblem covering the CHP emblem (sometimes a real CHP star is briefly visible). For instance, the 1955 Buick Century two-door patrol car seen in early episodes was built exclusively for CHP. Eventually the California Highway Patrol dropped its support, reportedly dissatisfied with how the show had evolved. At that point the show had to create its own patrol cars using non-police models, but still outfitted in CHP-style, distinctly subdued compared with many police agencies.
Officer uniforms are the CHP style of the day. In seasons one to three, the shoulder patch is essentially the CHP patch with "California" and "Eureka" (state motto) removed; the California bear and other California state seal elements are retained. In season four the show adopted a uniform patch that matches its patrol car emblem. Highway Patrol chief Dan Mathews usually wears a suit and fedora, but not to be undercover—he generally drives a black-and-white patrol car.
Art Gilmore's narration gives Highway Patrol a documentary feel, but several details are never mentioned. While described as a state police agency, the actual state is never stated. It is said to be a western state, and borders on Mexico, but only eastern state Rhode Island is small enough to allow Dan Mathews to regularly drive from headquarters to every crime scene in just minutes. Towns have simple names like "Midvale", though sometimes a real place name is used because of a prominent sign. In some episodes Mathews uses an unlabeled wall map that appears to be central-east Oregon, with the towns of Bend and Redmond on the map's left. Cars in the show are always described by color and body style, but never by brand name: "blue coupe", "gray sedan". Cars have the black-on-yellow California license plate of the time, but with a piece of tape covering the name of the state (usually, but sometimes "California" is briefly visible). Episode "Mistaken Identity" did show a 1957 Illinois license plate in the opening scene.
A key element of the show is two-way radio communication among patrol cars and headquarters, with heavy use of police code "10-4" (meaning "acknowledged"). While 10-4 adds a feeling of authenticity, real police use many radio codes for brevity and clarity. The Highway Patrol show radio call signs are CHP-style, except California Highway Patrol uses the first part to indicate the geographic region/office. Dan Mathews unit "21-50" would be a CHP unit at office 21, which is in Napa County, California.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wrote five episodes, sometimes using the pseudonym "Robert Wesley". Future producer Quinn Martin is sound supervisor in the show's early years; style elements of "Highway Patrol" are evident in his later productions: ( The Untouchables , The Fugitive , Barnaby Jones , The Invaders , The FBI and The Streets of San Francisco ).
When asked why the popular show ended, Crawford said, "We ran out of crimes". Crawford reportedly had had his fill of the show's hectic TV schedule (two shows per week), which had caused him to drink more heavily than ever, and he had decided to leave Highway Patrol to make films in Europe. [4] Ziv held up Crawford's ten percent share of the show's gross (some $2 million) until Crawford agreed to sign for a new Ziv pilot and TV show, King of Diamonds. After returning from Europe, Crawford signed his new contract with Ziv and would later star in King of Diamonds playing diamond insurance investigator John King. [4] King of Diamonds lasted only one season before being canceled in 1962. Like most Ziv series, Highway Patrol repeats were syndicated for many years, sometimes with name Ten-4. In 2010, ThisTV began airing the series. In 2017 it was added to the line-up on MeTV.
