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Did you ever notice they swapped wives on Officer Reed in Adam-12?
Oddly, they both had romantic ties to Ricky Nelson, too.
Look, we get that continuity was not a high priority for creators of classic television. Producers hardly envisioned people repeatedly watching episodes or recording them, let alone nitpicking little details half a century later. Still, it's always a little surprising and exciting when you catch an inconsistency in a rerun.
Different actors would often play the same character without a costar doing a double-take or making note of the change. Take Adam-12, for example. Officers Reed and Malloy were tight-knit partners, but they certainly had their differences, right down to their love lives. Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) was a bachelor, showing up with different women on his arm throughout the series. (We'll talk about a particular Mayberry woman in a minute.) Jim Reed (Kent McCord) was a married man.
Jean Reed appeared in a handful of episodes over the course of seven seasons. Did you notice that two actresses played his significant other?
Mikki Jamison was the first Mrs. Reed. You can see her wearing the orange dress on the upper right. She popped up in three episodes of season two. For whatever reason, we saw nothing of Jim's wife for five years.
Then, in "Ladies' Night," a lighthearted episode in season seven, Jean returned. Only, she was portrayed by Kristin Harmon.
As you might guess from her last name, Kristin is the sister of Mark Harmon. But you might know her better as Kristin Nelson, onetime wife of teen idol Ricky Nelson. She married Nelson at the age of 17.
The Everett CollectionHarmon and Jamison with Ricky Nelson on 'Ozzie and Harriet'Here's the fun coincidence that classic television so often provides: Mikki Jamison also had a link to Ricky Nelson! In "Rick Sends a Picture," an episode of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Jamison guest-starred as Betty, a blind date for Rick. She would return (as a different girl) for a double date with Rick and Wally in "Any Date in a Storm."
While we are on the topic of sitcom connections, let's go back to "Ladies' Night." Loverboy Pete Malloy turns up with a date in that episode, too — Aneta Corsaut, best known as the lover of Sheriff Andy!
Kristin Nelson would not appear on television again after Adam-12. Jamison would make just one more appearance on a series, in Wonder Woman.
26 Comments
Star Trek's "The Man Trap" who sucks salt out of humans.
I hope Malloy remembers to bring the table salt when he goes to Jim's home for dinner, you
don't want Nancy Crater to be jonesing for a sodium fix.
I was making a joke. Since two different actresses portrayed Mrs. Reed, I explained that it must
mean Jean Reed was a shape shifter, to explain why Jean Reed looked different in different episodes. Hence Jim was married to an alien, the Star Trek creature. I wasn't claiming that
Jeanne Bal played Mrs. Reed.
Also, there is quite a bit of contradiction of which division they were in. In an episode of Dragnet, they were in Sunset division. Most sources have them in Rampart division. About 85-90% of the show that wasn't shot on the Universal lot was shot in North Hollywood and environs. AND the NH station was the one shown during establishing shots. But they had an episode or 2 where they were 'visiting' other divisions; Harbor, Foothill, Pacific just to name 3 plus the 2 times they were on loan to LAX. BUT, to make things even MORE confusing, their call sign was 1 Adam-12. The first number is supposed to be the division number. One would be Central which would include downtown LA. And whereas the DID show up in the downtown area now and then (the final 7th season opening showed City Hall, again, most of the show was filmed in and around N Hollywood. SO, If they were Rampart, they would be 2 Adam-12. Well, except that 12 is the district number within the division. And for whatever reason, district numbers were all odd numbers. The even 12 was probably used because it would be fictitious just as precincts on NYPD based shows are defunct or inactive. NH would have them be 16 Adam-12.
the unofficial spin off that became Adam-12. Wasn't Kent McCord on two or three Dragnets
as different characters? Maybe Webb was trying to decide how to use him.
77 Sunset Strip had 3 or 4 backdoor pilot episodes, but unlike Adam-12
they didn't go anywhere.
(Actress Deborah Harmon, who appeared in small roles in two of the three Back to the Future movies which prominently featured a De Lorean automobile, is not related to the other Harmons mentioned above.)