Dog and Cat is an American television series that aired on ABC on Saturday night at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time in 1977.

Premise

Sgt. Jack Ramsey (Lou Antonio), an undercover detective with the Los Angeles Police Department, teams up with a partner named J.Z. Kane (Kim Basinger). Together they form a relationship based on friendship and trust (completely platonic) that leads them to capture many of L.A.'s criminals. Lieutenant Arthur Kipling (Matt Clark) is their boss. "Dog and Cat" is a slang term used by police officers to denote a male-female partnership. The show is especially remembered for the car that Kim Basinger used in the series: a souped-up Volkswagen Beetle with a Porsche engine.

Production history

Lawrence Gordon pitched the show to ABC, who bought it. He took it to Paramount, who produced it. The show was one of the first supervised by Brandon Tartikoff when he was at ABC. It replaced Most Wanted which moved to Monday night.

Reception

Critical

The New York Times described one of the earliest episodes, "Live Bait", about a rapist, as "a particularly repulsive tale" and thought the male lead was a rip-off of Baretta and the female lead too obviously inspired by Charlie's Angels. The Washington Post said Antonio does "a nice, grumpy job" and Basinger was "a little saltier than Angie Dickinson's Pepper" but liked the fact it was not overly violent and "had a sense of humour. It could be around in the fall".

Ratings

The first episode after the pilot was meant to be "Live Bait" (directed by Steve Stern, written by Rudolph Borchert), about a rapist. However it was changed to be about a corrupt cop. It got a 40% rating and was the 23rd most watched show of the week. Joel Silver reported that Walter Hill's original pilot script inspired Shane Black to write Lethal Weapon.

Credits

Directed by: Writing credits (in alphabetical order) Credited cast The rest of cast listed alphabetically:

Episode guide