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Quincy, M.E.
Created by	Glen A. Larson
Starring	Jack Klugman Robert Ito Garry Walberg Val Bisoglio Joseph Roman
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	8
No. of episodes	148
Production
Running time	60 to 90 minutes 60 minutes (syndication)
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	October 3, 1976 – September 4, 1983

Quincy, M.E. (or simply Quincy) is the name of a United States television series from Universal Studios that aired from October 3, 1976, to September 5, 1983, on NBC (and can be seen in the UK on ITV3 and intermittently on the ITV Network, as well as in syndication on MeTV in Chicago, Illinois, on KDOC-TV in Orange County, California, on the Retro Television Network, and in Australia on cable channel TV1). It starred Jack Klugman as Dr. Quincy, a strong-willed Medical Examiner (forensic coroner) in Los Angeles County working to ascertain facts about suspicious deaths. In the process, he frequently comes into conflict with his boss and the police, each of whom have their own (often flawed) ideas about what's going on.

Many of the episodes follow this formula:

• Somebody dies, seemingly by natural causes.
• Quincy notices something that causes him to suspect foul play.
• He then changes roles from medical examiner to detective.
• Quincy's boss gets upset, believing that Quincy is seeing evidence that doesn't exist and that Quincy should work on routine cases. The police get their feathers ruffled as he "shoulders-in" on their territory as well.
• He argues quite loudly with some bureaucratic individual impeding the case.
• Quincy solves the murder.

A quote from one episode gives a snapshot of a typical conflict. When Quincy is hospitalized, Sam Fujiyama (Robert Ito), Quincy's faithful co-worker, takes the reins and finds something fishy about Quincy's condition when everyone else sees no need for suspicion. Hearing this, homicide detective Lt. Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg) says, "You're pullin' a Quincy on me, and you ain't Quincy!"

Early seasons' episodes focused on criminal investigation; a typical episode would find Quincy determining the real murderer in a crime or the real cause of an unusual poisoning case. Later seasons' episodes began to introduce themes of social responsibility; Quincy would find himself involved with a police investigation that reveals situations such as a disreputable plastic surgeon and the reasons his poor surgeries are not stopped, flaws in drunk driving laws, problems caused by punk music, airline safety issues, dumping of hazardous waste, the proliferation of handguns, Tourette syndrome,orphan drugs and anorexia among others. Quincy, M.E. was one of the earlier dramatic series to use a format like this to further a social agenda. The actor Jack Klugman himself even came to testify before the US Congress about some of these issues, (such as orphan drugs in 1982) describing what he had learned about a difficult or complex social concern as a result of its use in one of the show's episodes.

Unlike the sometimes gruesome C.S.I., which often shows decomposing or mutilated bodies in all their gory detail, the bodies being examined on Quincy are never actually shown; the audience must imagine them.

Although Quincy studies bodies in-depth at his laboratory, he also does plenty of police investigation work technically outside the role of a coroner for the purposes of the show. He could be considered a workaholic. In every episode where he goes on vacation, it is always interrupted by an intrigue that requires his skills. He then provides copious hours of free work to solve the case. He insists on being intensely thorough in all his work.

A well-liked man, Quincy lived on a houseboat, frequents "Danny's" pub, and was popular with the ladies. He was married once before but lost his wife Helen to cancer. Near the end of the seventh season Quincy remarried (Dr. Emily Hanover) and sold the houseboat (Quincy's Wedding).

The show was based on a Canadian television series, Wojeck, broadcast by CBC Television in the 1960s, but had more immediate local inspiration in the person of Thomas Noguchi, Los Angeles's "coroner to the stars". [1]

The first half of the first season of Quincy was broadcast as 90-minute telefilms as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie rotation in the fall of 1976 alongside Columbo, McCloud and McMillan (formerly McMillan and Wife). The series proved popular enough that midway through the 1976–77 season, Quincy was spun-off into its own weekly one-hour series. The Mystery Movie format was discontinued in the spring of 1977; Quincy was the only one of the rotating series to continue. In 1978, writers Tony Lawrence and Lou Shaw received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the second-season episode "...The Thighbone's Connected to the Knee Bone..." (originally aired February 11, 1977).

In 2008, Klugman sued NBC, asserting that the network had concealed profits from the show which were owed to Klugman.

Influences, parodies and tributes

• Comedian Jim Norton parodies Dr. Quincy on the morning radio show Opie and Anthony. Norton's alter-ego is known as "Jimcy", and often interrupts news stories involving deaths or accidents to point out some overlooked clue and proclaim "It was MUR-DER, Sam!" Norton (along with Opie and Anthony) also pokes fun at the episode "Next Stop, Nowhere", where Quincy tried to solve a murder at a punk rock club.
• Canadian band The Arrogant Worms paid tribute to the show in the song, "Sam, The Guy from Quincy".
• Spoon recorded the song "Quincy Punk Episode" (a reference to the episode "Next Stop, Nowhere") on their album A Series of Sneaks. "Quincy punk" is a derogatory term for young people who identify superficially with the punk ethos, a reference to the unconvincing depiction of a punk club in the episode.
• A character in the British TV show Peep Show notes that "Columbo... shits all over Quincy".
• Second City Television parodied the show as "Quincy, Cartoon Coroner" (played by Joe Flaherty). In this spoof, Quincy was examining the cause of death of Sylvester the cat, and at one point was interviewing Tweety Bird.
• Mad magazine parodied the show in its January 1981 issue as "Queezy," in which he went overboard investigating a series of deaths from botulism. At the end, his superior alerted him to a series of deaths of various people connected with recently-cancelled NBC shows (including A Man Called Sloane and Skag).
• A Cracked magazine parody of famous TV shows has Quincy dead on his own examination table, he died of exhaustion while trying to be the entire LAPD.

Trivia

• Quincy's first name was never verbally mentioned during the entire Quincy, M.E. TV show run. The only clue to what it was appeared in Episode #33, "Accomplice To Murder", where his business card is seen with his name written as "Doctor R. Quincy". Jack Klugman says that the question he's most often asked by fans is, "What is Quincy's first name?". He answers, "Doctor!".
• Quincy had a highly successful surgical practice of his own before joining the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office after the death of his first wife from a brain tumour.
• Quincy was a captain in the United States Navy Reserve.
• The pilot episode of The A-Team contains a car chase around the Universal Studios backlot. During this chase one of the cars crashes into a set which is supposed to be part of Quincy's house, the scene is repeated in the show's title sequence.
• Anita Gillette, the actress who plays Quincy's wife in the final season of the series, also played Quincy's first wife in an earlier episode where we see her for the only time.

DVD Release

On June 7, 2005, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD for the very first time in a 6-disc box set. It is unknown if the remaining seasons will be released at some point.

DVD Name	Ep#	Region 1	Region 2
Seasons 1 & 2	16	June 7, 2005	December 5, 2005

External links

• Quincy, M.E. at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• The Quincy Examiner - Online Home to Fans of QME
• Jack Klugman - Quincy - German Infosite
• Jack Klugman - Jack Klugman Informationscenter Europe
• Mystery.net - Quincy, M.E.
• Quincy ME at Stage 1