in the pre 80's category, Team Abe Vigoda is proud to select:
Barney Miller
Loved this show when I was a kid. I even remember how sad I was when Jack Soo died. Here's a summary stolen from wiki:
Captain Miller tries to remain sane while leading the 12th Precinct's detectives: crochety, nearing-retirement
Jewish-American Philip K. Fish, naive but goodhearted
Polish-American Stanley "Wojo" Wojciehowicz, ambitious, arrogant
African-American Ronald Nathan Harris, philosophical, wisecracking
Japanese-American Nick Yemana, and Puerto Rican Chano Amanguale. He also has to deal with his unapologetically old-school superior, Chief Inspector Frank Luger, and diminutive (and obsequious) Officer Carl Levitt, who passive-aggressively badgers Miller constantly about being promoted to detective. Amanguale was replaced by
intellectual Arthur P. Dietrich from the third season on.
The show's focus was split between the detectives' interactions with each other and with the suspects and witnesses they detained, processed, and interviewed. Some typical conflicts and long running plotlines included Miller's frustration with red tape and paperwork, his constant efforts to maintain peace, order, and discipline, and his numerous failed attempts to get a promotion; Harris's preoccupation with outside interests, mainly his novel, and his inability to remain focused on his police work; Fish's incontinence and reluctance to retire; Wojciehowicz's impulsive behavior and love life; Luger's nostalgia for the old days with partners Foster, Kleiner and Brown; Levitt's (eventually successful) quest to become a detective; the rivalry between the precinct's resident intellectuals, Harris and Dietrich and continually - but reliably - bad coffee.