''21 Jump Street'' is an American
police procedural
The police procedural, police show, or police crime drama is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasises the investigative procedure of police officers, police detectives, or law enforcement agency, law enforcement agencies ...
drama television series created by
Patrick Hasburgh and
Stephen J. Cannell for the
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, LLC (commonly known as Fox; stylized in all caps) is an Television in the United States, American commercial broadcasting, commercial broadcast television broadcaster, television network serving as the flagship proper ...
. It aired from April 12, 1987 to April 27, 1991, spanning 103 episodes over five seasons; the final season aired in
first-run syndication
Broadcast syndication is the practice of content owners leasing the right to broadcast their content to other television stations or radio stations, without having an official broadcast network to air it on. It is common in the United States whe ...
. The series focuses on a squad of youthful-looking undercover police officers investigating crimes in schools, gangs, and other teenage venues. It was originally going to be titled ''Jump Street Chapel'', after the
deconsecrated church building in which the unit has its headquarters, but was changed at Fox's request so as not to mislead viewers into thinking it was a religious program.
The series was produced by the two creators' production companies; Cannell retains all intellectual property rights of the series. Executive producers included Hasburgh, Cannell, Steve Beers, and
Bill Nuss. The show was an early hit for the fledgling Fox network and was created to attract a younger audience. The final season aired in first-run
syndication mainly on local Fox affiliates. It was later rerun on the
FX cable network from 1996 to 1998.
The series provided a spark to
Johnny Depp
John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Johnny Depp, multiple accolades, including a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for ...
's acting career, garnering him national recognition as a teen idol. Depp found this status irritating,
but he continued on the series under his contract and was paid $45,000 per episode. Eventually, he was released from his contract after the fourth season.
A
spin-off series, ''
Booker'', was produced for the character of Dennis Booker (
Richard Grieco); it ran for only one season, from September 24, 1989, to May 6, 1990. A
film adaptation
A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...
directed by
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller was released on March 16, 2012. The film is set in the same continuity as the series, with Johnny Depp,
Holly Robinson, and
Peter DeLuise reprising their characters in
cameo appearance
A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...
s. Richard Grieco and
Dustin Nguyen also have cameos in the 2014 film sequel ''
22 Jump Street
''22 Jump Street'' is a 2014 American adult buddy cop action comedy film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Jonah Hill, Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel and Rodney Rothman and produced by and starring Hill and Channing T ...
''.
Premise
The series focuses on a group of rookie
police officers headquartered at the eponymous address. These young officers all have especially youthful appearances, allowing them to pass for teenagers. Their assignments frequently consist of undercover work in high schools or, less commonly, colleges, where they generally investigate drug trafficking and other criminal activities. The show's plots cover issues such as alcoholism, hate crimes, gang violence, drug abuse,
homophobia
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or ant ...
, AIDS,
child abuse
Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical abuse, physical, child sexual abuse, sexual, emotional and/or psychological abuse, psychological maltreatment or Child neglect, neglect of a child, especially by a p ...
, and sexual promiscuity. Similarly, each problem is often solved by the end of the hour-long episode, giving an implicit
moral
A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...
about a particular activity's impact. When the show originally aired, some episodes were followed immediately by
public service announcement
A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. Oftentimes these messages feature unsettling imagery, ideas or behaviors that are des ...
s (PSAs) featuring cast members.
Episodes
Cast
Jeff Yagher was originally cast as Officer Tom Hanson in the pilot. He was replaced after the original pilot episode was filmed, and his scenes were reshot with Johnny Depp. Midway through the first season, Frederic Forrest was replaced by Steven Williams. On the show, Forrest's character Richard Jenko is killed by a drunk driver.
Johnny Depp
John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor and musician. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Johnny Depp, multiple accolades, including a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for ...
left the series at the end of the fourth season, but was credited in the first two episodes of the fifth season, despite not having appeared.
David Barry Gray's character was introduced at the end of the fourth season and starred in two episodes of season five with
Alexandra Powers. Both episodes were filmed before the fourth season had ended but were not shown until the start of season five. Neither actor was approached in regards to portraying their character in the show's fifth and final season.
Michael DeLuise joined the cast in the middle of the fifth season and stayed on until late in the season.
Guest stars
Some notable guest stars on the series include:
Dom DeLuise (Peter's father),
Josh Brolin
Josh James Brolin (; born February 12, 1968) is an American actor. A son of actor James Brolin, he gained fame in his youth for his role in the adventure film ''The Goonies'' (1985). After years of decline, Brolin had a resurgence with his starr ...
,
Mindy Cohn,
Bridget Fonda,
Bobby Rodriguez,
Jada Pinkett,
Brad Pitt,
Vince Vaughn,
Barney Martin,
Dann Florek,
Blair Underwood,
Shannen Doherty
Shannen Maria Doherty (; April 12, 1971 – July 13, 2024) was an American actress. During her career Shannen Doherty filmography, in film and television, Doherty played a number of notable characters, including Jenny Wilder in ''Little House o ...
,
John Waters,
Rosie Perez,
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ( ; born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. , April 16, 1947) is an American former basketball player. He played professionally for 20 seasons for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Associatio ...
,
Mario Van Peebles
Mario Van Peebles (born January 15, 1957) is a Mexican-born American director and actor. He is best known for appearing in ''Heartbreak Ridge'' in 1986, and known for directing and starring in ''New Jack City'' in 1991, and ''USS Indianapolis: ...
,
Christina Applegate
Christina Applegate (born November 25, 1971) is an American actress. With a career spanning five decades, her accolades include a Primetime Emmy Award, along with nominations for four Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award.
After appearing in se ...
,
Pauly Shore,
David DeLuise (Peter's brother),
Bradley Gregg,
Jason Priestley,
Christine Elise,
Christopher Titus,
Kurtwood Smith,
Peri Gilpin,
Shannon Tweed,
Sarah Buxton,
David Paymer,
Diedrich Bader,
Russell Wong,
Kelly Hu,
Tim Russ,
Thomas Haden Church,
Sherilyn Fenn,
Rob Estes,
Ray Walston,
R.J. Williams,
Robyn Lively,
Gloria Reuben,
Billy Jayne,
Jason Lively,
Billy Warlock,
Peter Berg
Peter Berg (born March 11, 1964) is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. His directorial film works include the black comedy '' Very Bad Things'' (1998), the action comedy '' The Rundown'' (2003), the sports drama '' Friday Night ...
,
Larenz Tate,
Tracy Griffith, and
Ed O'Neill.
Production
Filming
Set in a fictional city and state (Metropolis, Evergreen State) in the United States, the series was primarily filmed in
Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
. It was one of the first major television series to use Vancouver as a filming location and helped to establish the city as a center for film production.
Reception
''21 Jump Street'', along with ''
Married... with Children'' and ''
The Tracey Ullman Show'', debuted in the spring of 1987. All three shows were hits with audiences and helped to establish the then-newly launched Fox network. ''21 Jump Street'' was the first hit series for the Fox network. In August, ''21 Jump Street'' became the first Fox series to win its timeslot against a
Big Three network series. In the United Kingdom, it was shown on the similarly nascent, and interrelated,
Sky One, which had yet to reach a sizeable audience.
Broadcast history
Season 4 was the last season to air on the Fox network. In the commentary provided with the Season 5 DVD set,
Peter DeLuise said that Fox had decided to cancel the show after Season 4 because the ratings had fallen below a set limit. Following this season, Johnny Depp and Dustin Nguyen left the show. The departure of their characters was never fully explained in the narrative of the TV series, but in
the movie it is explained that Officer Hanson was transferred to the DEA and was later joined by Officer Penhall. The ''Booker'' spin-off crossover episode, "Wheels and Deals – Part One," is included with ''21 Jump Streets syndication package, and is also included on the Season 4 DVD set.
Officer Dean Garrett (David Barry Gray) makes his first appearance in "Everyday is Christmas." As it became more difficult for the original Jump Street cast to pass as high-school students, younger actors were brought in, intended to be "youthful" replacements in order to allow the show to maintain its original premise of young-looking cops posing as high-school students.
Home media
Anchor Bay Entertainment
The revived Anchor Bay Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company owned by Umbrelic Entertainment co-founders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz. Anchor Bay Entertainment markets and releases "new release genre ...
released all five seasons of ''21 Jump Street'' on
DVD in
Region 1 between 2004 and 2006.
On October 14, 2009, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to several
Stephen J. Cannell series, including ''21 Jump Street'', and subsequently re-released the first four seasons. In addition, Mill Creek also released ''21 Jump Street: The Complete Series'', an 18-disc collection featuring all 103 episodes of the series on DVD on July 27, 2010.
On July 29, 2022,
Visual Entertainment released ''21 Jump Street: The Complete Series'' on DVD in Region 1.
In
Region 2, Anchor Bay Entertainment released all 5 seasons on DVD in the UK. They also released a complete series set on March 5, 2012.
In
Region 4,
Madman Entertainment released all five seasons on DVD in Australia. They also released a complete series collection on May 1, 2013.
In
Region 2, Pidax Film released a complete series set box set on September 18, 2020, in Germany with all original music intact. German and English audio tracks.
Film adaptation
On March 16, 2012, a feature film based on the television series from
Sony Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...
and
Metro Goldwyn Mayer was released starring
Jonah Hill and
Channing Tatum
Channing Matthew Tatum (born April 26, 1980) is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut in the drama ''Coach Carter'' (2005), and had his Breakthrough role, breakthrough with the sports comedy film ''She's the Man'' (2006) and t ...
(who are also executive producers) and directed by
Phil Lord and Chris Miller with the screenplay written by
Michael Bacall from a story by both Hill and Bacall. Johnny Depp, Peter DeLuise, and Holly Robinson briefly reprise their roles as Tom Hanson, Doug Penhall, and Judy Hoffs.
Described in concept by Hill as an "R-rated, insane, ''
Bad Boys''-meets-
John Hughes-type movie,"
the film departs from the dramatic style of the series and instead features a comedic tone. The film and series are also set in the same continuity. A sequel titled ''
22 Jump Street
''22 Jump Street'' is a 2014 American adult buddy cop action comedy film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Jonah Hill, Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel and Rodney Rothman and produced by and starring Hill and Channing T ...
'' was released in 2014.
References
External links
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{{Authority control
1987 American television series debuts
1991 American television series endings
1980s American crime drama television series
1990s American crime drama television series
1980s American high school television series
1990s American high school television series
1980s American police procedural television series
1990s American police procedural television series
American English-language television shows
First-run syndicated television programs in the United States
Fox Broadcasting Company crime dramas
Television series by Stephen J. Cannell Productions
American detective television series
Television series created by Stephen J. Cannell
Television shows adapted into films
Television shows filmed in Vancouver
American television series about teenagers