Thu 12 Oct 2023
A TV PI Mystery Episode Review: THE CASE OF THE DANGEROUS ROBIN “The Tin Caper†(1961).
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
THE CASE OF THE DANGEROUS ROBIN “The Tin Caper.†Syndicated / ZIV. 10 April 1961 [as aired on KNXT, Los Angeles] (Season One, Episode 26). Rick Jason (Robin Scott), Jean Blake (Phyllis Collier). Screenplay: Robert Lesllie Bellem. Director: William Conrad. Currently streaming on YouTube (see below but note that the picture quality is only fair at best, and the sound synchronization is way off).
Robin Scott was a free-lance insurance investigator, which I’m going to say qualifies him as a PI. His usual fee is ten percent of whatever he saves the insurance company in that week’s episode. It isn’t particularly noticeable in this one, but his primary gimmick is that he does not use a gun, only karate. His girl friend Phyllis Collier somehow gets mixed up in all of cases, either by hindering or on occasion (perhaps) helping.
Gone missing in this one is a ship’s cargo of tin, dumped overboard, the captain and crew claim, during a violent storm that otherwise threatened to sink the vessel. Robin thinks otherwise. In the guise of wanting to elope and kidnapping Phyllis for a large ransom from her father as well, he wrangles his way onto the ship, gets both of them captured, only to escape, and gee it’s all too easy.
And not very involving, either. Other episodes may be better, but on the other hand, I seriously doubt if many of them still exist. The Case of the Dangerous Robin lasted for one season of 38 episodes.
October 12th, 2023 at 4:58 am
I’m perversely impressed by how many episodes got churned out for a loser show like this — 39! A successful show today will have at most 22 episodes per season, and sometimes as few as 13.
October 12th, 2023 at 10:39 am
I think that some of us have pointed this out before:
Back In The Day, it was the practice of syndication outfits like ZIV to offer complete series (39 episodes, a whole season’s worth) to regional sponsors, who in their turn would sell them on a station-to-station basis at a flat rate.
ZIV had many successes with this system (Sea Hunt is one example that will serve for many), but by the ’60s the system was evolving/mutating/whatever into the network-dominating mode … and we know the rest.
What the situation is today (21st-century crazy), I’ve lost track of a long time ago – as have we all, comes to that …
October 12th, 2023 at 3:44 pm
FWIW, I would have thought there would have been 39 episodes filmed for this series, too, 39 being exactly 3/4 of a 52 week year, but I found 38 as the number I quoted on the Classic TV Archives website:
http://ctva.biz/US/Crime/CaseOfTheDangerousRobin.htm
October 13th, 2023 at 8:22 pm
If Rick Jason had been any more wooden drugstore Indians would have protested unfair competition. The one I saw had obvious LA streets posing as European neighborhoods.
Whatever vibe they were trying for it didn’t come across.
I only know of two episodes available to watch and neither encourages me to watch more if they show up.
October 14th, 2023 at 10:21 pm
The other episode that’s available is here:
https://archive.org/details/case-of-the-dangerous-robin-tv-1960-colorized-s01e10-the-zippered-notebook
and most amazingly, as perhaps you can make out from the URL, it’s COLORIZED. Why??