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Comrade Detective
Genre	Crime drama Action/Adventure Mystery Thriller
Created by	Donald P. Bellisario Glen A. Larson
Written by	Donald P. Bellisario Glen A. Larson Chris Abbott Jay Huguely Reuben Leder
Directed by	Ray Austin Michael Vejar Ivan Dixon
Starring	Tom Selleck John Hillerman Roger E. Mosley Larry Manetti
Narrated by	Tom Selleck
Theme music composer	Ian Freebairn-Smith (pilot, early season 1) Mike Post Pete Carpenter
Composers	Ian Freebairn-Smith (pilot, early season 1) Mike Post Pete Carpenter
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producer	Channing Tatum
Producer	Tom Greene
Production locations	Oʻahu, Hawaii Honolulu, Hawaii Waimanalo Beach, Hawaii
Running time	55 min.
Production companies	A24 Glen A. Larson Productions
Original release
Network	Amazon Prime Video
Release	December 11, 1980 (1980-12-11) – May 8, 1988 (1988-05-08)

Comrade Detective (Romanian Title: Tovarasul Militian) is a Romanian police action-dramathat aired on the Televiziune Network. Billed as the “greatest Romanian cop show ever made,” the series was made popular by the Romanian star power of Florin Piersic Jr. as Gregor Anghel and newcomer Corneliu Ulici as Josef Baciu. Considered the pinnacle of Communist Romanian police action entertainment, the show was more than just the greatest buddy cop action-drama from Eastern Europe. Much more. It bravely took aim at American culture, using references to fast hamburger food, western 80s pop music and even the capitalist Ronald Reagan empire machine to reveal Western greed. The series was an immense hit in Romania, but was barred from being televised in the United States due to its anti-Western views and pro-Communist truth-telling.

Comrade Detective was introduced to American audiences on August 4, 2017 when American movie celebrity and actor-star Channing Tatum, executive-produced a re-release of the series on. Rather than using English subtitles as translation for the efficient Romanian dialogue, Tatum gathered top Hollywood talent people (Joseph Gordon-Levitt; Nick Offerman) to redub the dialogue and fulfill a quest he started many years ago in Romania.

Premise

The action-packed and blood-soaked first season finds Detectives Gregor Anghel and Joseph Baciu investigating the murder of fellow officer Nikita Ionesco and, in the process, unraveling a subversive plot to destroy their country that is fueled by what else but the greatest enemy of the people: Capitalism. Though the beloved show was sadly forgotten about after the retirement of the Berlin Wall, it has been rediscovered and digitally re-re-mastered, now with its main heroes voiced by Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Characters

• Gregor Anghel – A rough around the edges cop who loves to kick the ass, bang some chicks and fight to protect and uphold honorable Communism. Gregor is a true comrade with a love for his country, Communism and soup. And vodka. He is multitalented, with the double axel and appreciates a great game of Chess.
• Nikita – Gregor’s longtime partner and comrade. Fueled by a deep love for Romania, he’s willing to break the rules in order to serve justice and catch any subversives. Nikita will go to extremes for what he believes in. He’s the sickle to Gregor’s hammer and with a nice haircut.
• Josef Baciu – A small-town cop who’s new to the city and former member of the National Youth Wrestling Team. He follows the rules because he is a good Communist, but he’s knowing that sometimes you have to bend those rules to solve the crime and save his family from capitalism. Affectionately nicknamed the goat-f****r but not actually known to have f*****d any goats.
• Captain Covaci – He’s the no-nonsense Captain of the Budapest police department. A Romanian rolemodel with a badge, the perfect Romanian leader and strength. He may lack frills and thrills, but he’s got wisdom and he’s seen enough the bad in this world. Tough as nails, he knows that together, his force makes an unbreakable fist, which is better than a weak little baby handslap.
• The US Ambassador – A dangerous, calculating woman with something up her sleeve. That thing is evil and money. She represents America in fashion, smells and bloodthirsty. She should not be trusted but she knows more than she’s letting on despite being stupid American. She operates from the heart of Budapest like a Devil that sleeps on your couch. Her goal is to advance Capitalism and degrade Romania.
• Deputy Ambassador – She’s a young, beautiful temptress from the United States who does what she’s told, but it’s for love of country and money and foolish. She may live in Romania, but her blackheart is in America. Also sexy and loves Romanian man (why not?).

Cast

Main cast

• Florin Piersic Jr. as Gregor Anghel
• Channing Tatum as voice dub for Gregor Anghe
• Corneliu Ulici as Josef Baciu
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt as voice dub for Iosif Baciu
• Adrian Paduraru as Captain Covaci
• Nick Offerman as voice dub for Captain Covaci
• Tache Florescu as Constantin
• Mark Jones as voice dub for Constantin
• Florin Galan as Dragos
• Jason Mantzoukas as voice dub for Dragos
• Gabi Spahiu as Ivan Blaga
• John Dimaggio as voice dub for Ivan Blaga
• Olivia Nita as Jane
• Jenny Slate as voice dub for Jane
• Kim Basinger as Sally Smith
• Cristi Popa as Nikita

Crew

• Scenariul: Mircea Furnicar (and people of Romania)
• Productia: Raru Potrivi, Ana Maimuta
• Maistru lumini: Filip Delphin
• Consultanti: Colonel Lup Mirosi, Captain Rechin Pungas
• Imaginea: Florin Soim
• Editor: Adriana Gandac
• Regia: Bebelus Pisicuta

Setting

Comrade Detective was set in world’s greatest city, Bucharest and the pure, beautiful countryside of Communist Romania. The show captured the bleak world of that time, highlighting the often bare-boned way of life for the majority of the population. At once a celebration of Romanian culture and a condemnation of the excesses and evils of the American ideals of the 80s, it shines the bright red light on the perils of American lifestyle.

Communism vs. Capitalism

The boathouse, or guesthouse in Magnum, P.I., during the mid-2000s.

Comrade Detective highlighted the stark differences between Communism and Capitalism, two world views that butt heads down to the core. The series was critical of Western culture, highlighting its evil lust for money and dirty, gutter-culture, using American references to fast food, pop music and cultural icons to do illustrate its weakness. The show’s aggressive stance on the evils of Capitalism drove many of the plot points and character motivations throughout the series’ existence and made it both loved and hated on the two sides of the iron curtain during the Cold War.

American Reaction

From the view of the Reagan Administration, Comrade Detective was seen as an aggressive piece of Communist propaganda looking to cure Democracy but this did not find its objective. The US Government condemned the show, stating it represents “the dark shadow Communist Romania casts on its civilians.” This is a typical Western devil response. The use of the Reagan mask was seen as slap in the face to the President, although he got a good laugh at the portrayal, it was American intelligence services formed a special task force to analyze the footage frame by frame for coded messages or subliminal content. The records of their findings remain sealed and buried the government archives in part due to improved Romanian-American relations and American inability to complete.

Production

Writing

As with the best activities utilizing Communism manifesto, the writing of the show was a collective activity with many writers contributing towards the final result. A single finger can only type so many words a minute but by taking the approach of a strong unified fist made of many fingers, the writers wrote the best Romanian police story of all.

Filming

During the filming in Communist Romania, production was often halted by Romanian police who confused the filming for American grandstanding, claiming that only Capitalists would make TV shows to line their pockets. Once the scripts were shown to the police however, production was allowed to continue for the glorification of Romania.

Reception

Comrade Detective was extremely popular with Romanian audiences running on both of the county’s TV stations whenever a chess match was not being shown. It was one of only three major competing shows in the country at that time, which included “Cine Prea Supa Mea” (“Who Took My Soup?”) and “Culoarea Brown” (“The Color Brown”). With the star power behind its American debut on Amazon Prime Video, it is sure to be a major hit in the West and finally bring the respect to Romanian production abilities masterful.

Theme

The original theme song was written by (the best) Romanian synth-artist Petr Cemsku. Only 150 vinyl albums of the score were ever pressed and the few remaining copies in existence are highly sought after collector’s items, with one fetching as many as $66,760 RON at auction. This fact of western greed exploitation of his work still saddens Cemsku to this day and he has fought to have the remaining copies distributed equally according to merit.

Trivia

• The cabbage used in episode 5 is actually world famous and locally produced on a farm outside Sibiu where some of the escape scenes were filmed.
• The American pop music used in the show was added in after filming. Romanian musical songs were played on set during filming to avoid danger of corruption to Romanian people during the show.
• To stay authentic to the era when Comrade Detective was filmed, the craft services for the voice recording session consisted of only soup and white bread.
• The cowboy outfits used in episodes Season 1 were originally created by the Romanian secret police for use in a planned covert operation to trap subversives like flies to vodka. The costumes were burned after usage to avoid falling into the wrong hands.
• Gregor and Josef action figures were released in Romania after Season 1 and quickly become the country’s #1 selling plastic toy of all time.
• The Western capitalist jeans featured in episode 2 were government loans to the production, confiscated in actual raid on subversives just months prior.

External links

• Comrade Detective at IMDb
• Comrade Detective on Twitter