Fish (TV series)

This article is about the US TV series. For the BBC TV series, see Fish (BBC TV series).

Fish
Genre	Comedy
Created by	Danny Arnold
Starring	Abe Vigoda Florence Stanley Barry Gordon Len Bari Todd Bridges
Country of origin	USA
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	35
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	The Mimus Corporation
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	5 February 1977 – 8 June 1978
Chronology
Related shows	Barney Miller

Fish is a spin-off television series of the sitcom Barney Miller. It starred Abe Vigoda as New York Police Department Detective Phil Fish and Florence Stanley as his wife Bernice.

Overview

Phil and Bernice.

The series Fish focused on the domestic side of his life. Fish and Bernice became foster parents to five racially-mixed children known as "Persons in Need of Supervision", or PINS. The kids were played by Todd Bridges, Denise Miller, Len Bari, John Cassisi and Sarah Natoli.

Vigoda's character of Phil Fish continued to appear sporadically in the second half of Season 3 of Barney Miller while also leading the cast of Fish. Detective Fish retired from the NYPD in Season 4, Episode 2 of Barney Miller.

Development

Creator Danny Arnold was originally against the idea of giving the character of Fish his own spin-off, believing that Fish was a character that was better suited in the precinct. Originally, Arnold agreed to the spin-off on the condition that Vigoda continued to play his Fish character on the show in half of the episodes of the third season, as well as future seasons. However, Vigoda persisted on quitting Barney Miller and staying on just Fish, wanting to be the star of his own series. "I found myself with a very unhappy actor on my hands. Abe would walk around the set like a man in shock. Who was I to deprive an actor of this once-in-a-lifetime break? Finally I said, 'Okay, just stay through the third year of Barney Miller, and we'll go with your show, too," recalled Arnold.

Fish was directed by Jeremiah Morris and aired from February 1977 through June 1978 on ABC.

DVD release

Shout! Factory released the entire Barney Miller series in a 25-disc DVD set on October 25th, 2011. A bonus feature of the set is the complete first season of Fish, making it the very first time that Fish has ever seen a DVD release.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date
Barney Miller: The Complete Series (First season of Fish included as a special feature)	168	October 25, 2011

External links

• Fish at the Internet Movie Database