Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42586 in DVD
• Brand: Cannon
• Released on: 2008-12-02
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.com
The weekly adventures of Frank Cannon, an overweight, balding ex-cop with a deep voice and expensive tastes in culinary pleasures, who becomes a high-priced private investigator. Since Cannon's girth didn't allow for many fist-fights and gun battles (although there were many), the series substituted car chases and high production values in their place.

Amazon.com
With his impressive girth and balding pate, no one will mistake insurance investigator Frank Cannon (William Conrad) for, say, Jim Rockford, or any other of TV’s more conventionally handsome PIs. But with his imposing size and resonant growl of a voice, Cannon could throw his weight around with the best of them as he so ably demonstrates in these 13 episodes that concluded Cannon's impressive first season. The pipe-smoking gourmand has a style all his own. In one episode, he quotes famed critic Alexander Wolcott’s classic bon mot that everything he likes is either "illegal, immoral, or fattening." But underestimate him at your peril; The tough-talking Cannon can dish it out as well. He threatens an uncooperative biker in "Devil’s Playground" with hospitalization, and in "Death is a Double Cross," he nimbly gets the drop on a hit man. Cannon’s salary is as ample as he is, but he doesn’t let that influence his investigation. To an acquaintance who wants Cannon to learn the truth about her husband’s death (which the insurance company has ruled a suicide), he states, "The truth is like rain. It doesn’t care who gets wet." He is also thorough. "When I look at a picture straight on and don't get it, I try looking at it sideways," he tells another client. Cannon boasts solid writing ("Double Cross" is adapted from the Thomas B. Dewey novel, Every Bet’s a Sure Thing) and some great guests before they were stars. Martin Sheen is featured in "Devil’s Playground" as a vengeful disabled ex-cop who wants Cannon to help him prove that the supposedly dead thief who shot him during an armored car robbery actually faked his demise (this episode also costars future Hill Street Blues costars Daniel Travanti and James Sikking). Just as Cannon performs a fireman’s carry on one injured party, so does Conrad bear the weight of this tailor-made series that provided the character actor (who voiced Matt Dillon on the radio incarnation of Gunsmoke) with a long overdue leading role. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Heavyweight in More Ways Than One!
I had been waiting for years for the release of Cannon on dvd. William Conrad is an affable, yet tough connoisseur / detective. In the series, he is always underestimated by the villains. They inevitably learn, too late, that, while, short in stature and stout in figure, he will work through the case and come out on top. By the way, it is great that he got this gig, because, after playing a terrific Matt Dillon on the radio series for many years, he was rejected for the television role (Gunsmoke) because of his appearance. Anyway, great, well crafted detective series that will be worth the price.

Mediocre Film Print Quality For A Great Show
Cannon season one print quality was not remastered by Paramount/CBS, who did a superb job on The Streets Of San Francisco, another early '70's Quinn Martin series, when it was presented on DVD. Cannon itself had progressed, with better stories and acting for volume 2, then was seen in volume 1.

This is a great old show!
This is a great old show. I can't wait for the rest of the seasons to be released. These shows were written at a time when they really wanted to entertain you. They have simple but good plots and William Conrad is a likable character. I hope that they will release the rest of the seasons soon.