Title: Burial
Directed by: Danny Arnold
Written by: Michael Russnow
Air Date: October 20, 1977
Previous: Corporation
Next: Copycat
Guest Starring: Abe Vigoda (uncredited), Jack Kruschen, Sy Kramer
"Burial" is the fifth episode of the fourth season of Barney Miller.
Fish is back! Fish is back! Just three episodes after he retired from the NYPD, Fish (Abe Vigoda) returns to the precinct to sign some papers regarding his pension. While there he shoots the breeze with the other detectives, but is reluctant to go back to Yemana's coffee.
Naturally there's a wacky crime. A Nelson Hubbard, mortician, is sporting a bandage on his head and a serious attitude. It seems that his customer, Mr. Wittenour, disputed the size of the bill that Hubbard presented him for the burial of Wittenour's roommate Mr. Lewis. Eventually Wittenour struck Hubbard over the head and stole the body. Eventually the cops arrest Mr. Wittenour, but despite facing charges of theft, health code violations, and assault, Wittenour won't reveal where he buried his friend.
Tropes:
- Bad to the Last Drop: Fish accepts a cup of Yemana's notoriously bad coffee but hesitates to drink it.Fish: I've been clean for a while, you know.
- The Big Rotten Apple: The Running Gag about New York City's parlous financial state in the 1970s. Mr. Wittenour buried his friend himself because he couldn't afford the mortuary bill. When Barney promises that the city will give Mr. Lewis a decent burial, Mr. Wittenour says "They can't afford it either!"
- Black Comedy: The main story is about a man stealing back his friend's body after a confrontation with a funeral director. And Mr. Hubbard spends much of the episode ranting about the hassles of the mortuary game. He's worried about how advances in medical science will help everyone live to 100 and thus hurt his business.
- The Bus Came Back: Phil Fish stops by the squad room to say hi. Fish would return to the precinct one more time, in Season 7 episode "Lady and the Bomb".
- Call-Back: Fish says that, now retired and with time on his hands, he visited the Natural History Museum, and how it was nothing but bones. ("If it's dead, they've got one."). At the end of the episode Fish gets Mr. Wittenour to reveal that he buried Mr. Lewis in Central Park...right across from the Natural History Museum.Fish: It figures.
- Due to the Dead: Discussed Trope. An extremely agitated Mr. Hubbard goes on a rant about how other funeral homes undercut his prices by burying the dead in shoddy coffins that disintegrate. Wojo for his part wonders about what the point is of funeral rites, with people blowing their life savings on the dead, who can't appreciate it.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: At times it seems like Wittenour and the late Mr. Lewis were a gay couple, as Wittenour muses about Lewis's sense of humor and how he buried Mr. Lewis "with love". But he also specifically says that they moved in together after their wives died, so apparently they were just heterosexual life partners. Or in - universe, Whittenour may've been lying about that out of caution, not knowing how gay - friendly the squad is or isn't. Remember, it's 1977 and he hasn't had the reassurances of Marty or any other of the precinct's gay regulars that he'll be treated fairly; not judged just for being gay.
- Please Wake Up: Wojo has a fear of funeral parlors because he remembers his parents telling him that his grandmother was only sleeping, and he tried to wake her up at her funeral.
- Undertaker: Mr. Hubbard, who complains about the funeral business and how people think undertakers are weird and creepy. He says he's a regular guy, that he likes to dance and go bowling. Why do people think he's creepy? "Those damn Boris Karloff movies!"
