Barnaby Jones

Barnaby Jones
Premiere	January 28, 1973
Finale	April 3, 1980
Airs	Tuesdays to Saturdays at 4:05 AM on MeTV
Developed by	developed for television by Edward Hume
Network/Provider	CBS
Style	60-minute crime drama
Company	Quinn Martin Productions
Seasons	8
Episodes	178
Origin	USA

Barnaby Jones is a crime drama that aired on CBS.

After Barnaby Jones had worked as a private eye for many years, he decided to retire and left the business to his son Hal. When Hal was murdered while working on a case, Barnaby came out of retirement to find the killer. His widowed daughter-in-law, Betty Jones joined forces with him to solve the case. The two decided that they worked so well together that they would continue to keep the detective agency open. Jones was unusual, ordering milk in restaurants and bars, counter to the stereotypical hard drinking detective.

Until the cancellation of Cannon, the characters of both series moved back and forth between the two shows.

In 1976, the character of J.R., the son of Barnaby's cousin, joined the cast. He had come to try to solve the murder of his father, but stayed around to help Barnaby and Betty, while also attending law school.

During the first year of the series, a common theme would be where Jones would make an astute observation or collect a sample, such as mud on a car's tire. The criminal, in some cases, called his accomplice and had a conversation along the lines of "there's a Mr. Jones and he's asking a lot of questions," after which the criminal was assured that Jones would be "taken care of". In view of his advancing age – Ebsen was in his 60s for most of the series – Jones rarely engaged in fistfights in the climatic scene of a given episode; instead, anticipating a violent act from an adversary Jones would draw his revolver and get the drop on the villain, or he would use self-defense tactics — e.g., slamming the door on a shotgun-toting villain, or using a judo hold to subdue the bad guy — or relied on others, like J.R., or the police, to overpower and detain the criminals.

Toward the latter part of the series, as Ebsen aged and expressed an interest in slowing down a bit, Meriwether and Shera's characters became more prominent, allowing Ebsen to reduce his role; during the last two seasons, the episodes were divided evenly among the three actors, with Ebsen, Meriwether and Shera each being the focus of a third of the season's episodes.

Cast

Actor	Character	Duration
Main Cast		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Buddy Ebsen	Barnaby Jones	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Lee Meriwether	Betty Jones	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*
Mark Shera	Jedediah Romano "J.R." Jones					*	*	*	*
Supporting/Recurring Cast
John Carter	Lt. John Biddle		*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Seasons

Season	Premiere	Finale				#
CBS
Season One	January 28, 1973	May 6, 1973				13
Season Two	September 16, 1973	March 31, 1974				24
Season Three	September 10, 1974	April 15, 1975				24
Season Four	September 19, 1975	March 18, 1976				24
Season Five	October 7, 1976	May 19, 1977				24
Season Six	September 15, 1977	March 2, 1978				22
Season Seven	September 21, 1978	April 19, 1979				25
Season Eight	September 20, 1979	April 3, 1980				22

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series

DVD Releases

Title			Release			Discs
Season Sets  (Region 1)
Season One			February 16, 2010	purchase		4

External Sites

• Absolute Barnaby: The Barnaby Jones Unofficial Home Page
• opening creditson YouTube