Stars: Telly Savalas, Dan Frazer, Kevin Dobson, George Savalas

Director: Richard Donner

Summary: Telly Savalas stars as the bald-headed, lollipop-licking, tough-guy title character in KOJAK. Kojak is a detective for the NYPD, and solves crimes in the Big Apple during the 1970s, which was one of the roughest decades the city has seen. Location shooting in the city itself enhances the series' gritty, realistic feel. KOJAK: SEASON ONE introduces the investigator in a movie-length pilot and 22 standard episodes, with guest stars like Harvey Keitel, James Woods, and John Ritter, and one episode directed by filmmaker Richard Donner (SUPERMAN, LETHAL WEAPON). Savalas won two Golden Globes for his performance as Kojak, and was nominated a further two times for this role. KOJAK depicted the mean streets of New York City with realism that few other television series have since matched.

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On the timeline of successful TV cop dramas, Kojak offered bold authenticity and paved the way for NYPD Blue. As immortalised by Telly Savalas, veteran detective Theo Kojak was introduced in the 1973 TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders, a ratings hit that encouraged CBS and writer-producer Abby Mann to create a trend-setting series (based on a book by Selwyn Raab) that premiered on October 24 of that year. The Greek, bald-headed, snappily attired Kojak brought no-nonsense bravado to homicide cases in South Manhattan--a setting that lent a gritty, urban edge to intelligent plots that won the respect of real cops with an emphasis on diligent police work instead of overblown action and phony glamour. While working cases with his captain Frank McNeil (Dan Frazer) and closest colleagues Crocker (Kevin Dobson) and Stavros (played by Savalas's brother George, credited as "Demosthenes" for the first two seasons), Kojak had a knack for bending the rules (but never breaking them) if he knew it would solve a crime.

Kojak came at a perfect time for Savalas and cop dramas in general. The actor's career was slumping in the early '70s (he'd just appeared in the Italian horror film Lisa and the Devil), and he quickly put his personal stamp on the role with street-wise sarcasm and trademark lollipops (a perfect prop that Savalas adopted to quit smoking). Consistently well-written, the series was realistically rooted in a broad spectrum of New York City crime. These qualities attracted plenty of fresh and established talent, and these 22 well-preserved episodes include guest appearances by Harvey Keitel, James Woods, Richard Jordan, Hector Elizondo, John Ritter (in one of his first TV roles), Paul Michael Glaser, Dabney Coleman, Tina Louise, and a host of familiar TV veterans. For this debut season, Savalas won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and Kojak ran for five well-rated seasons, followed by several TV-movie revivals in 1985, 1989, and 1990. The enduring popularity of Kojak was further proven when the show was revived yet again in March of 2005, with Ving Rhames in the title role. --Jeff Shannon

Aspect Ratio:	4:3
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Release Date:	July 18, 2005
Runtime:	999 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	823 437 1
Keywords:	Action, Six, Box, General, Series, Set, Kojak, Tv, Adventure, Discs, Rescheduled
Genre:	Action/Adventure