Episode: Season 4, Episode 4
Title: Corporation
Directed by: Hal Linden
Written by: Lee H. Grant (story), Danny Arnold, Lee H. Grant, and Tony Sheehan (teleplay)
Air Date: October 6, 1977
Previous: Bugs
Next: Burial
Guest Starring: David Dukes, Fran Ryan, Vernon Weddie
Title: Corporation
Directed by: Hal Linden
Written by: Lee H. Grant (story), Danny Arnold, Lee H. Grant, and Tony Sheehan (teleplay)
Air Date: October 6, 1977
Previous: Bugs
Next: Burial
Guest Starring: David Dukes, Fran Ryan, Vernon Weddie
"Corporation" is the fourth episode of the fourth season of Barney Miller.
Brad Laneer, a lawyer, strolls into the 12th Precinct squad room. Mr. Laneer is a representative of a paper company, and he reports that a vandal has been breaking into the paper company's headquarters. The vandal, an environmentalist who calls himself "The Hawk", has been defacing company property, and has just released a stink bomb in the office.
Meanwhile, Wojo has brought in an old bag lady who was robbed. The old bag lady won't talk, which makes it hard for Wojo to get information out of her.
First of three episodes directed by Hal Linden, and (along with "Hash") his personal favorite of the series.
Tropes:
- Accidental Pun: Harris apparently has a fixation about how rolls of toilet paper don't unroll smoothly, and he confronts Mr. Laneer. Mr. Laneer says "I don't know anything about that end of the business," which Harris takes as a pun. ("Oh, crudity, man, crudity.")
- Bad to the Last Drop:
- Mr. Laneer reports that the corporation's office smells like an "open sewer" after the stink bomb. This is followed by Barney saying "Uh Nick, I think your coffee's ready." Nick answers "Very funny," then realizes the coffee actually is ready and says "Oh, you're right!"
- The bag lady is completely silent until she takes a sip of Nick's coffee and says "Geez, you call this coffee?"
Nick: Who asked you? - Blowing a Raspberry: The bag lady seems like she might be completely unable to communicate, until a frustrated Wojo says "I'm trying to help you!", and she blows him a raspberry.
- Homeless Pigeon Person: The homeless bag lady who is eventually revealed to be named Mrs. Hirsch. Wojo thinks she might be a deaf-mute but Nick says he's seen her outside Cotterman's liquor store, talking about politics and current events.Wojo: With who?
Yemana: The pigeons. - I Coulda Been a Contender!: Mr. Laneer had a shot at being a Major League Baseball player but his mom made him go into the law. He comforts himself by saying that as a lawyer, he can still rise all the way to the Supreme Court.Mr. Laneer: But Warren Burger
will never be on a baseball card. - Screaming Birth: Wojo expresses guilt for being 11 pounds at birth and keeping his mom in labor for 13 hours.
- Skyscraper Messages: It turns out that "The Hawk" is a window washer, as the detectives learn when they get a report that he's writing messages on the windows of the paper company's building. Barney asks "It's not a jumper?" Wojo replies "Unless it's a suicide note."
- Suicide as Comedy: "The Hawk" at the climax of the episode grabs a test tube of a red liquid and threatens to drink it, claiming it to be a deadly chemical. Nobody knows what it is, and Barney is desperately trying to talk him out of drinking it. In the end, he spitefully swallows it, whereupon Barney demands to know what it was. The Hawk says triumphantly "It doesn't matter — I'm dead already!" Again Barney yells at him to tell them what it was he drank. He finally reveals that it was food coloring, Red Dye #2, and that in 30 years, he'll possibly be dead of cancer. And that it'll all be on Laneer's head.
