Title: The Vandal
Directed by: Noam Pitlik
Written by: Dennis Koenig and Tony Sheehan
Air Date: November 9, 1978
Previous: Loan Shark
Next: The Harris Incident
Guest Starring: Christopher Lloyd, Jay Gerber, Howard Honig
"The Vandal" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of Barney Miller.
Barney comes into the squad room to find it wrecked: chairs smashed, desks overturned, files scattered all over the place, an obscene insult towards him, personally, spray painted on the wall. Someone has vandalized the squad room. Harris starts to focus on hate mail directed towards Captain Miller but then wonders about another possible suspect: someone who feels unappreciated, who is frustrated about his lack of promotion, who hides his resentments behind a mask of friendliness, who wouldn't have had to sneak his way past the cops because he was a cop in the building. In other words, Levitt.
Meanwhile, there's just one wacky case. Lawrence Snepp and Lloyd Emerson are hauled in for creating a public disturbance after getting into a fight at a coffee shop. It turns out the former is a network television executive, and the latter is a disgruntled viewer, sickened unto death by all the garbage on TV.
Jack Soo's last episode. It ran two months and two days before Soo died of esophageal cancer on January 11, 1979.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch: Nick reports back that the paint on the walls, which they need to paint over the graffiti, isn't available because it was banned two years ago. An irritated Barney says "Does he [Desk Sgt. Kogan] have any suggestions?", and Nick answers "Yeah. Don't lick the walls."
- Create Your Own Villain: It turns out the vandal, Arnold Scully (Christopher Lloyd—yes, him) has carried a grudge against Capt. Miller for 17 years. Way back in 1961, Patrolman Barney Miller wrote Scully a ticket for littering after Scully tossed a half-eaten hot dog on the sidewalk. That caused Scully to miss a job interview, he didn't get the job, he went on unemployment, his wife left him, and he spent the last 17 years doing drugs and going in and out of prison.
- Curse Cut Short: The graffiti spray painted on the wall extends out the back corridor, and the visible part reads "MILLER IS A DIRTY M—".
- The Dandy: Among the damaged items in the squad room is a sweater, which Harris kept in his desk "in case he wanted to informalize his look." When he sees this a horrified Harris says "You can't repair alpaca!".
- Jiggle Show: Discussed Trope. Mr. Emerson blames Mr. Snepp for blanketing the airwaves with, among other things, "boobs and behinds, bouncing and jiggling!".
- Large Ham: Harris puts on quite a hammy show after he finds out Snepp is a TV executive in an attempt to impress him into picking up Harris' unpublished (as of yet) memoirs about his time at the 12th as a TV series. This includes dramatically suggesting that Levitt is the vandal as a way of showing he knows the ins and outs of dramaturgy.
- I Should Write a Book About This: As above, Harris pitches Mr. Snepp on a TV series about his experiences, with "fascinating characters..situations that are gripping and tense and at the same time heartwarming and <laughs> funny", although he sees it as more of a drama.
- Red Herring: Levitt becomes one for the 12th, as Harris puts the bee in Barney's ear that there is one person who had quite a few grievances with Barney, feels underappreciated and simmers with passive-aggressive anger, someone whose seething could explode in a destructive manner like the vandalism. At that moment, Levitt comes in, simmering with passive-aggressive anger about being passed over for Detective again. Barney puts two and two together. It's not Levitt. It's someone a rookie Miller had given a citation to back in 1961, a citation that ended up as the start of a Humiliation Conga Line.
- Shout-Out: Mr. Snepp, overcome with guilt over filling the airwaves with crap, climbs the bars of the cell and yells "I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!". When Dietrich mentions Newton Minnow's famous quote about TV being a "vast wasteland", Emerson asks who Minnow is, guessing a Muppet on Sesame Street
- Silent Snarker: Nick, to Barney at the end, after Barney asks him to clean up the scattered files:Barney: You might as well get started reorganizing the files.
Nick [pointing at the vandal]: Why me? He did it.
Barney: Just get on it, will you?
Nick [sullenly]: Yes, sir.
Barney: Is there anything else you'd like to say?
Nick [glances down the corridor at the graffiti that reads "Miller is a dirty m..."] I have nothing to add.note - Take That!: When Mr. Snepp says the networks give the public what the public asks for, Mr. Emerson shoots back with "I didn't ask for Mork & Mindy!". Emerson, in his tirade also mentions My Mother the Car, The Chicago Teddy Bears, Me and the Chimp, On The Rocks, and The San Pedro Beach Bums, all notorious TV flops of the era.
- Unreveal Angle: The obscene message sprayed on the wall extends down into the rear corridor, so whatever obscenity is there is hidden.
- The Un Twist: In-Universe and lampshaded. It turns out that Harris's flight of fancy about Levitt being the vandal was wrong, and his original instinct, that the culprit could be found among the people sending hate mail to the squad room, was right. Barney, annoyed at Harris for leading him down that path, stares pointedly at Harris as he calls the solution "a double twist, dramaturgically speaking."
