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Barnaby Jones was able to defy the expectations of critics everywhere
Series star Buddy Ebsen was confident in the show's success.
Despite Buddy Ebsen’s high hopes for Barnaby Jones, producers and critics alike were less invested in the show than he might have hoped.
Ebsen discussed the show’s surprisingly popular premiere episode. “Despite the auspicious debut, reviewers found little to praise in Barnaby Jones,” wrote the actor. “In a world dominated by Columbo, Kojak, Mannix, McCloud, Cannon, and McMillan and Wife, our show was dismissed as just one more cop show. They predicted…Barnaby’s disappearance from the tube in just a matter of weeks.”
The success of Barnaby Jones took everyone by surprise, except for Ebsen, of course. The older actor had seen his fair share of underdog successes, including his previous sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies.
“Just as in the case of The Beverly Hillbillies, the ratings confounded and annoyed the critics,” wrote the actor. “The show played out its original thirteen weeks, bouncing about among the first ten or twenty in the ratings with a healthy audience. Although Barnaby was perceived and fixed in the minds of the network brass as merely a thirteen-week replacement, the ratings by the end of the first half-season were of such substance that they were afraid to cancel it. Hedging, they purchased another twenty-three episodes.”
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