TV Series

Series Name:	Cannon
Format:	TV Series
IMDB:	IMDB Page
Years:	1971 - 1976
Country:	USA
Language:	English
Genre:	Crime
Rating:	7.1 Rate
Collection:	Seen It Wishlist
Community:	22 Have Seen
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Selected Cast	William Conrad as Frank Cannon

Notes

Preceded by a pilot TV movie that aired in early 1971. Followed by the 1980 TV film The Return of Frank Cannon. The series also aired a crossover multi-part storyline with Barnaby Jones.

Notable as one of the few major US TV drama series of the 1970s to have only a single lead actor in an ongoing role.

Comments and Reviews


BigBadBluesMan 3rd Feb 2022



23skidoo 12th Jun 2015		It also helps to look at Cannon in the context of what types of series were being produced. From the late 60s into the late 70s there was a whole string of detective and cop shows where they attempted to move away from the "masculine action hero" trope and feature people succeeding at solving crimes despite physical limitations. There was Ironside (disabled), Harry O (middle aged and dealing with a long-standing back injury caused from being shot), Barnaby Jones (elderly), and Cannon (overweight). There were other examples from the time as well. So Cannon fit right in.



BiggieTembo 10th Jun 2015		Yeah Cannon were good! I liked the fact that there was this large guy with a moustache. In the 70s, everyone was large and had a moustache, and I'm not even being ironic - they did! The character of Frank Cannon seemed quite geniune back then. Had a kind of relaxed, real quality, like some of the guys I used to work with when I was a machinist. They were just guys keepin' it real. I felt the same about James Garner's Jim Rockford character from The Rockford Files. Regular guys just trying to do a job. No fancy over-the-top dialogue or action. Nice. Real.



23skidoo 10th Jun 2015		@Monolith. I used to think that too until I actually watched some episodes with fresh eyes. (I hadn't seen it in 40 years and the memory cheats). They don't actually make Cannon do a lot of running around. it's a very cerebral show - a lot of discussion and old fashioned detective work. One episode had Cannon as a truck driver without a lot of running around. If people can take Nero Wolfe seriously, they can take Cannon seriously. As for casting, William Conrad was the original Matt Dillon in the radio version of Gunsmoke, so he had the chops and the show was always going to be about a fat detective. That's why the show was different from Mannix and the two dozen other detective shows on the air, just like Barnaby Jones was about the elderly detective. I was very impressed by the episodes I saw, so my rating on this is quite high.



Monolith 9th Jun 2015		Just couldn't take it seriously, an old overweight asthmatic blob running after all those fit young villains. Plausibility and logic took a day off when someone came up with the idea of who should play the lead.

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