Let’s Watch Cop Rock – Episode 0007

Let's Watch Cop Rock!

Welcome to Episode 7 of “Let’s Watch Cop Rock,” an 11-episode podcast discussing that classic police procedural rock musical soap opera crime drama Cop Rock, 11 episodes of which aired on ABC during the fall of 1990.

Over the course of this podcast as a whole, we discuss the events of the show, our reactions to the music, and the ways this program worked, or didn’t work, and why some of it still seems very relevant today. Sometimes we get political. Sometimes we crack up uncontrollably. Sometimes we tell unbelievable but entirely true stories of our own lives’ intersections with crime or law enforcement or both. Every episode we play Good Cop, Bad Cop, or Innocent Bystander?

In Episode 6 we discussed the ways Cop Rock still feels current, especially around questions of race and American culture and politics. That thread continues in this episode, which is almost twice as long as other episodes because there’s so much to unpack. This episode does contain discussion of some really explicitly racist material contained in the episode. That’s just a heads-up. This stuff is important to talk about, perhaps now more than ever. We like to think we live in an enlightened age in which these things no longer happen, but a cursory glance at the news of the day will show that is not the case. These questions of equality, and racism, and access, and privilege, are ones with which we still struggle on societal and personal levels. As the show goes on, these questions are explored in other interesting ways. Keep watching and listening, listener(s), because Cop Rock has some interesting stuff for us to consider nearly three decades later.

Watch the seventh episode of Cop Rock before listening. Trust me, it’ll make a lot more sense that way. You can get Cop Rock on Amazon or direct from Shout Factory. There are links for each in the show notes. I want to remind you, we’re not affiliated with Shout Factory, we’re not affiliated with Cop Rock, and we gain nothing from that purchase.

You can find Officer Orifice on Twitter as @OfficerOrifice. I’m there too as @CopRocker.

Our theme music is “The Crime” by reiswerk, with full attribution in the show notes. And now… Let’s Watch Cop Rock!

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cop-Rock-Complete-Ronny-Cox/dp/B01BHCPQXA

Shout Factory: https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/cop-rock-the-complete-series

The Crime by reiswerk (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Reiswerk/55464 Ft: Anchor