by Linda Kay
Original Air Date: April 17, 1975
Starring: Yankee
Directed by: Richard Donner, John Peyser, Stuart Hagmann, Russ Mayberry and Corey Allen
One episode in this review contains a severe Kitty Carnage Warning!
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this series!
Synopsis: The series focuses on serious but sensitive police detective Alex “Bronk” Bronkov (Jack Palance) who balances time between capturing truly evil criminals as a personal investigator for the Ocean City’s Mayor and caring for his daughter Ellen (Dina Ousley) who was seriously injured in the same car accident which killed his wife.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Ellen owns an adorable longhair white kitty named Yankee. In the pilot episode which aired April 17, 1975, Bronk arrives home and starts searching what was clearly his daughter’s childhood room, calling for Yankee. As he looks, he sneezes. Bronk is allergic to cats but when Ellen was injured and eventually admitted to a rehabilitation center in an unresponsive state he brought the cat into his home anyway. He finds the cat hiding under the bed and pulls him out, giving the kitty a pat. After retiring to his own room to play his harmonica he hears Yankee meow and calls out, “Use the litter box!”
Kitty Cameo: While visiting romantic interest Shirley (Joanna Moore) in her pet shop, Bronk starts to sneeze and Shirley calls for a ginger tabby named Angel, finding the kitty nearby and moving her to the back.
As he leaves the shop Bronk finds a note on his car telling him to go home. When he arrives home he finds the place has been ransacked. He immediately runs upstairs and frantically searches for Yankee in his daughter’s dishevelled room. The panic in his voice is palpable as he suspects the worst. He finally pulls open the bathroom door and the frightened cat falls into his arms. Bronk is so relieved he hugs the cat closely despite his allergies in a very touching scene. When the man responsible (David Birney) shows up to make demands, Bronk leaves him to clean the place and tells him to feed the cat.
At the end of the telefilm, Bronk brings Ellen a stuffed cat that looks like Yankee (apparently cats aren’t allowed at the rehabilitation center) and encourages her to pet it. For the first time Ellen responds and strokes the toy, leading Bronk to believe she has a chance of recovering.
When CBS commissioned the pilot to become a series in September 1975, the scene of Bronk cuddling Yankee from the pilot episode was used in the opening theme.
Yankees’ appearances throughout the series were minimal, however. In episode 3, The Gauntlet, Yankee is sitting on a chair and Bronk picks him up and sets him on his lap as he talks to Mayor Pete Santori (Joseph Mascolo).
In episode 5, Terror, Yankee is handed to Ellen by her caregiver Mrs. Roy (Peggy Rea) as Bronk brings home a confused and clearly distressed lost girl named Kim (Brooke Palance, Jack’s daughter).
Later Ellen befriends Kim, talking to her with Yankee on her lap.
In episode 6, The Fifth Victim, Yankee is sitting on a windowsill as Mrs. Roy wheels Ellen into the house after her pool exercises.
Kitty Cameo: In episode 7, Short Fuse, a woman is being threatened and a female police officer is assigned to protect her. She collects the milk delivery from the front step and is carrying it inside when a ginger tabby cat (not previously seen) starts to meow. Laura pours a little milk from the bottle and sets a saucer down for the kitty.
Kitty Carnage Warning! Unfortunately the milk has been poisoned and the cat lets out a strangled mew offscreen and is shown lying lifeless on the floor.
Yankee’s last appearance on the series was in episode 11, Crackback, in which the cat is sitting with Bronk in a chair as he plays his harmonica. Over the course of the series Ellen began making remarkable progress in her recovery, appearing less as she became more independent. Eventually her character and Yankee were dropped from the show altogether.
Behind the Scenes
Unfortunately not much is known about the cat actor who played Yankee. Newspaper reviews and interviews often brought up Bronk’s cat allergy but also mistakenly identified Yankee as being his cat, not his daughter’s. In fact the CBS press release seemed to miss the entire point of his relationship with the cat as presented in the pilot episode, and sadly the series itself missed the mark when adapted from the original telefilm.
Gary Deeb, a TV-Radio critic, bemoaned the fact that the network botched the series by playing around too much with the original concept. The character of Bronkov was co-created by actor Carol O’Connor and a then unidentified associate (Ed Waters) and it was O’Connor who presented the idea of playing Bronkov to Palance. The original concept, which was much more obvious in the pilot, was the exposing of police corruption (incredibly the original title of the series was reportedly supposed to be The Mayor’s Pig). At some point the network decided these kind of stories would limit the program and it was decided to turn the focus to that of more common police procedurals.
When newspaper articles stated that Yankee was Bronk’s cat, this misses the entire point of the cat’s inclusion which was to show just how much he loves his daughter; that he would tolerate being uncomfortable to protect the kitty his daughter loves. The scene in the pilot in which Bronk desperately searches for Yankee after his house is ransacked is one of the most touching moments, and what cat owner couldn’t relate? Wouldn’t looking for your cat be the first thing you would do in such a circumstance?
Interviews with Jack Palance and producer Bruce Geller revealed the inspiration for the cat’s inclusion. Bruce Geller was himself allergic to his daughter’s cat and adapted that into the plot. Both Palance and Dina Ousley were cat lovers in real life with Palance reportedly owning 27 cats on his Tehachapi ranch “to keep the field rodents out of his hair.”
Final Mewsings: If you introduce a cat into a series you darn well better not write them out!
Many thanks to Laurie Morrison for letting us know about the cat in this series.
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