You Don’t Know S.W.A.T.

What do you say about a show that launched as a spin-off 50 years ago, lasted only two seasons while spawning a #1 hit song, and lay dormant twice before launching both a film and a hit reboot that’s still running? You’d call it S.W.A.T., and here are five things you probably didn’t know about Hondo and the gang.

1. Rookies Sensation

S.W.A.T.’s story began with ABC’s The Rookies. That show, which debuted in 1972, was executive produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg. That producing pair would dominate the 1970s on the network, routinely dropping hits like Starsky & Hutch, Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, and Fantasy Island. The Rookies was in the midst of its third season when the producers decided to use two episodes, both airing 50 years ago on February 17, 1975, as a so-called “back-door pilot;” back-door pilots are when a series devotes an episode to introducing new characters and situations that could be spun-off into their own show. While The Rookies normally focused on a trio of new uniformed officers, the two-part episode entitled “S.W.A.T.” focused on L.A.’s Special Weapons and Tactics unit, a police team that is designed to handle everything from shoot-outs to terrorist incidents. Response to the episodes was strong, which was good news, because episodes of the series had already been produced and started airing just a week later. The series starred Steve Forrest as commanding lieutenant Hondo and Robert Urich as officer Jim Street. Strangely, the two-part pilot is considered “lost;” despite the fact that The Rookies airs on outlets like Roku, the two S.W.A.T.-related episodes were pulled from the original syndication package and have not, to this writing, been located.

2. The Sound of S.W.A.T.

The original intro and “Theme from S.W.A.T.” (Uploaded to YouTube by 11db11)

One consistent thing about 1970s television was the abundance of memorable TV show theme songs. S.W.A.T. was no exception, delivering one of the absolute best. “Theme from S.W.A.T.” came from composer Barry De Vorzon, who is also noted for co-composing “Nadia’s Theme,” the opening for The Young & the Restless. As opposed to the elegiac “Nadia,” “Theme from S.W.A.T.” was an of-the-moment disco stomp. Recorded as a single by the band Rhythm Heritage, “Theme from S.W.A.T.” soared to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

3. Killed by Violence

In the mid-1970s, one of the raging controversies in the culture was TV violence. Although the airwaves were loaded with shoot-outs, S.W.A.T. was considered a particularly violent series. The public had turned their attention to TV violence after a particularly heinous incident in 1973. As recounted in Stephen King’s non-fiction book, Danse Macabre, a group of teens set a woman on fire after dousing her with gasoline; they alleged that they were inspired by a TV airing of the 1972 film Fuzz, which was based on Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novels. A second incident a few weeks later led to Standards and Practices offices at the networks cracking down on TV violence. When S.W.A.T. began to draw complaints, the show was cancelled after its second season despite being popular enough to have spawned the hit single and merchandise like a toy line.

4. Big Screen Caper

S.W.A.T. (2003) film trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

After a long period of dormancy, S.W.A.T. breached the big screen. Sony had the notion to resurrect the property in the 1990s and went through many attempts to attach various big name action directors to the project. They found their helmer in the form of veteran director and actor Clark Johnson; Johnson is best known as for portraying detective Meldrick Lewis on Homicide: Life on the Street, and has directed episodes of acclaimed series like Homicide, The West Wing, The Wire, NYPD Blue, The Shield, and more. Johnson got the film on track for a 2003 opening with stars Samuel L. Jackson as Hondo, Colin Farrell as Street, and a pre-The Hurt Locker Jeremy Renner as Gamble. Though the film performed well, opening at #1 in its first week, its two sequels were both direct-to-video and featured no cast members from the first film.

5. Third Time’s the Charm

The season one S.W.A.T. (2017) trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Scregi-Screen Gig)

Shawn Ryan (creator of The Shield, The Unit, and The Night Agent, among others) and Aaron Rahsaan Thomas (known for Friday Night Lights) developed a new version of S.W.A.T. for CBS. The pilot was directed by one of the show’s executive producers, Justin Lin, best-known for directing five installments of the Fast & Furious film series. Taking on the Hondo role was Shemar Moore, the charismatic actor who had just departed Criminal Minds after eleven seasons as Derek Morgan. S.W.A.T. is currently in its eighth season and was firmly entrenched in the top 30 for broadcast ratings for its last two seasons.

Interestingly, for a series that originally began as a spin-off, making it part of a tiny shared universe with The Rookies, the current S.W.A.T. appears to occupy a place in the same shared TV universe of Ryan’s The Shield. That turned out to be the case when Detective Steve Billings (played by David Marciano) from The Shield started making appearances on S.W.A.T. Billings connects S.W.A.T. to the interconnected group of shows created by Ryan and Kurt Sutter: The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, and Mayans MC.