Watch the Opening Credit of an Imaginary 70s Cop Present Starring Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett: avant-garde dramatist, brooding Nobel Prize winner, poet, and…gritty television detective?
Unhappyly, no, however he had the makings of a terrific one, no less than as lower together by playwright Danny Thompson, cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck.
Some 35 years after Beckett’s dying, Thompson—whose credits embody the Complete Misplaced Works of Samuel Beckett as Present in a Mudbin in Paris in an Envelope (Partially Burned) Labeled: Never to Be Perfashioned. Never. Ever. Ever! Or I’ll Sue! I’ll Sue From the Grave!!!-–repurposed Rosa Veim and Daniel Schmid’s footage of the moody genius wandering round 1969 Berlin into the opening credits of a nonexistent, 70s period Quinn Martin police professionalcedural.
The title sequence hits all the correct period notes, from the jazzy graphics to the presentation of its supporting solid: Andre the Large, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jean “Huggy Bear” Cocteau. (Do you know that Beckett drove a younger Andre the Large to high school in actual life?)
Thompson ups the verisimilitude by copping Pat Williams’ theme for The Streets of San Francisco and naming the imaginary pilot episode after a collection of Beckett’s brief stories.
He additionally jokingly notes {that a} DVD launch of the primary, solely and, once more, completely non-existent season has been held up by the Beckett property. Alas.
Related Content:
Watch Samuel Beckett Stroll the Streets of Berlin Like a Boss, 1969
The Books That Samuel Beckett Learn and Actually Favored (1941–1956)
Hear Samuel Beckett’s Avant-Garde Radio Performs: All That Fall, Embers, and Extra
An Animated Introduction to Samuel Beckett, Absurdist Playwright, Novelist & Poet
When Samuel Beckett Drove Younger André the Large to College: A True Story
Ayun Halliday is an writer, illustrator, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Follow her @AyunHalliday
