History YMMV / TheRockfordFiles

* HilariousInHindsight: "Claire" featured two actors who later played Perry White in Franchise/{{Superman}} adaptations: Jackie Cooper, who played him in ''Film/SupermanTheMovie'' and its three sequels, and Lane Smith, who played him in ''Series/LoisAndClark''.

* ValuesDissonance: In "The Hammer of C Block", it's revealed at the end that Gandy's girlfriend Lila, whose death Gandy had been framed for, [[spoiler: actually had committed suicide, after having been beaten regularly by Gandy, then fleeing and returning to him several times. After this is revealed, Jim tries to comfort Gandy, saying that he somehow wasn't to blame for what he did because she kept "[coming] back". ''Yikes''. WhatTheHellHero indeed.]] Contrast with FairForItsDay above and ValuesResonance below.

** "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers" is HarsherInHindsight and relevant to a modern audience. Mr. Flowers is InHarmonyWithNature expressing it poetically, but he makes it clear [[BusmansVocabulary it's all rooted in his extensive knowledge]] of bees, animals, plants and the environment. The pesticides he yells about are a factor in today's [[https://www.npr.org/transcripts/825305756 worldwide pollinator die-off]], and now illegal in the U.S. Declaring people legally incompetent and placing them under legal conservatorship to get control of their assets is better understood today given Music/BritneySpears. The SWAT team standoff looks familiar. Mr. Flowers might have ended up portrayed in the media as a RightWingMilitiaFanatic (he [[GunNut had a gun]]!) and ShellShockedVeteran [[CrazySurvivalist practicing self-sufficiency]] on his mini-farm (called "Freedom", which could cause misunderstandings today) and holed up in a dilapidated shack (after the developer and his goons hacked his cute little house to pieces) after escaping from [[BleakAbyssRetirementHome a nice retirement home]] where he'd been incarcerated [[ForYourOwnGood for his own good]].

** "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers" is HarsherInHindsight and extremely relevant to a modern audience. Mr. Flowers is portrayed as being InHarmonyWithNature with a poetic way of expressing it, but his speeches make it clear [[BusmansVocabulary it's all rooted in his extensive knowledge]] of bees, animals, plants and the environment. The pesticides he yells about are indeed one of the factors in today's [[https://www.npr.org/transcripts/825305756 worldwide pollinator die-off]], and are now illegal in the U.S. (although still sold and used elsewhere). Declaring people legally incompetent and placing them under legal conservatorship to get control of their assets is probably better known and understood today given the massive publicity over what was done to Music/BritneySpears. The standoff with the massive SWAT team presence looks all too familiar. Mr. Flowers might have ended up portrayed in the media as a RightWingMilitiaFanatic (Well, he had a gun, didn't he?) and ShellShockedVeteran [[CrazySurvivalist practicing self-sufficiency]] on his mini-farm (called "Freedom", which would set off all sorts of misunderstandings today) and holed up in a dilapidated shack (sure, after the developer and his goons hacked his cute little house to pieces) after escaping from [[BleakAbyssRetirementHome a nice retirement home]] where he'd been incarcerated [[ForYourOwnGood for his own good]].

** "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers" is HarsherInHindsight and extremely relevant to a modern audience. Mr. Flowers is portrayed as being InHarmonyWithNature with a poetic way of expressing it, but his speeches make it clear it's all rooted in his extensive knowledge of bees, animals, plants and the environment. The pesticides he yells about are indeed one of the factors in today's [[https://www.npr.org/transcripts/825305756 worldwide bee die-off]], and are now illegal in the U.S. (although still sold and used elsewhere). Declaring people legally incompetent and placing them under legal conservatorship to get control of their assets is probably better known and understood today given the massive publicity over what was done to Music/BritneySpears. The standoff with the massive SWAT team presence looks all too familiar. Mr. Flowers might have ended up portrayed in the media as a RightWingMilitiaFanatic (Well, he had a gun, didn't he?) and ShellShockedVeteran [[CrazySurvivalist practicing self-sufficiency]] on his mini-farm (called "Freedom", which would set off all sorts of misunderstandings today) and holed up in a dilapidated shack (sure, after the developer and his goons hacked his cute little house to pieces) after escaping from [[BleakAbyssRetirementHome a nice retirement home]] where he'd been incarcerated [[ForYourOwnGood for his own good]].

** "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers" is HarsherInHindsight and extremely relevant to a modern audience. Mr. Flowers is portrayed as being InHarmonyWithNature with a poetic way of expressing it, but his speeches make it clear it's all rooted in his extensive knowledge of bees, animals, plants and the environment. The pesticides he yells about are indeed one of the factors in today's worldwide bee die-off, and are now illegal in the U.S. (although still sold and used elsewhere). Declaring people legally incompetent and placing them under legal conservatorship to get control of their assets is probably better known and understood today given what was done to Music/BritneySpears. The standoff with the massive SWAT team presence looks all too familiar. Mr. Flowers might have ended up portrayed in the media as a RightWingMilitiaFanatic (Well, he had a gun, didn't he?) and ShellShockedVeteran [[CrazySurvivalist practicing self-sufficiency]] on his mini-farm (called "Freedom", which would set off all sorts of misunderstandings today) and holed up in a dilapidated shack (sure, after the developer and his goons hacked his cute little house to pieces) after escaping from [[BleakAbyssRetirementHome a nice retirement home]] where he'd been incarcerated [[ForYourOwnGood for his own good]].

** "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers" is HarsherInHindsight and extremely relevant to a modern audience. Mr. Flowers is portrayed as being InHarmonyWithNature with a poetic way of expressing it, but his speeches make it clear it's all rooted in his extensive knowledge of bees, animals, plants and the environment. The pesticides he yells about are indeed one of the factors in today's worldwide bee die-off, and are now illegal in the U.S. (although still sold and used elsewhere). Declaring people legally incompetent and placing them under legal conservatorship to get control of their assets is probably better known and understood today given what was done to Music/BritneySpears. The standoff with the massive SWAT team presence looks all too familiar. Mr. Flowers might have ended up portrayed in the media as a RightWingMilitiaFanatic (Well, he had a gun, didn't he?) and ShellShockedVeteran practicing self-sufficiency on his mini-farm (called "Freedom", which would set off all sorts of misunderstandings today) and holed up in a dilapidated shack (sure, after the developer and his goons hacked his cute little house to pieces) after escaping from [[BleakAbyssRetirementHome a nice retirement home]] where he'd been incarcerated [[ForYourOwnGood for his own good]].

** "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers" is HarsherInHindsight and extremely relevant to a modern audience. Mr. Flowers is portrayed as being InHarmonyWithNature with a poetic way of expressing it, but his speeches make it clear it's all rooted in his extensive knowledge of bees, animals, plants and the environment. The pesticides he yells about are indeed one of the factors in today's worldwide bee die-off, and are now illegal in the U.S. (although still sold and used elsewhere). Declaring people legally incompetent and placing them under legal conservatorship to get control of their assets is probably better known and understood today given Creator/BritneySpears. The standoff with the massive SWAT team presence looks all too familiar. Mr. Flowers might have ended up portrayed in the media as a RightWingMilitiaFanatic (Well, he had a gun, didn't he?) and ShellShockedVeteran practicing self-sufficiency on his mini-farm (called "Freedom", which would set off all sorts of misunderstandings today) and holed up in a dilapidated shack (sure, after the developer and his goons hacked his cute little house to pieces) after escaping from [[BleakAbyssRetirementHome a nice retirement home]] where he'd been incarcerated [[ForYourOwnGood for his own good]].

** "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers" is HarsherInHindsight and extremely relevant to a modern audience. Mr. Flowers is portrayed as being InHarmonyWithNature with a poetic way of expressing it, but his speeches make it clear it's all rooted in his extensive knowledge of bees, animals, plants and the environment. The pesticides he yells about are indeed one of the factors in today's worldwide bee die-off, and are now illegal in the U.S. (although still sold and used elsewhere). Declaring people legally incompetent and placing them under legal conservatorship to get control of their assets is probably better known and understood today given Creator/BritneySpears. The standoff with the massive SWAT team presence looks all too familiar. Mr. Flowers might have ended up portrayed in the media as a RightWingMilitiaFanatic and ShellShockedVeteran practicing self-sufficiency on his mini-farm (called "Freedom", which would set off all sorts of misunderstandings today) and holed up with a gun in a dilapidated shack (sure, after the developer and his goons hacked his cute little house to pieces) after escaping from [[BleakAbyssRetirementHome a nice retirement home]] where he'd been incarcerated [[ForYourOwnGood for his own good]].

* FairForItsDay: In "The Return of the Black Shadow", Jim, Cooper, and his sister are attacked by a violent motorcycle gang, who also [[spoiler: rape Coop's sister.]] While she is portrayed as a rather matronly SchoolMarm type and the rest of the episode focuses instead on Jim and Cooper's revenge on the gang, she is never blamed or shamed for what happened to her, and the crime is treated with the seriousness it deserves.

* EarWorm: The title theme.[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg1Cx26-928 Mike Post and Pete Carpenter's harmonica and guitar solos make it stick to your brain to the end of your days]]

* FutureFoil: In 1974-1980, Rockford being a struggling P.I. living in a beachside trailer and driving a new Firebird is cool. However, in the TV movies, seeing him about 20 years later still living in the trailer and driving a 15-20-year old Firebird (that was not even the legendary Trans Am as seen in Film/SmokeyAndTheBandit but rather a lower tier Esprit model) can be a bit sad as if he had made no progress in his life during all those years.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: One scene in "The Big Ripoff" has Jim asking a guy for change to use ''a pay toilet''.

** Now compare it to, for example, Google's constant tracking, and the 2013 NSA scandal.

** Also in "The House on Willis Avenue", Rockford and Richie Brockelman uncover a secret corporate data center being built. At the end of the episode, a public service message appears:

* ValuesResonance: In "Three Day Affair with a Thirty Day Escrow", the married daughter of an Arab sheik is condemned to death by her father, for having an affair with a gigolo who was part of a real estate scheme ([[InLoveWithTheMark but who had fallen in love with her anyway]]). [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse]] when her husband turns up murdered and the gigolo is a suspect. Surrounded by all the people involved (including [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain the woman's sympathetic brother]]), Rockford makes a point of the obvious DoubleStandard enforced by the father and his men (as the husband had been partying and carrying on affairs himself without punishment), and figures out the murderer [[spoiler: (the gigolo's boss and head of the scheme)]], before causing an explosion on the landed plane they're all on and saving the woman from her fate. This aired in ''1978''. And only a few years after the ValuesDissonance example above. The relevance of the issues discussed has only increased since then.

* ReplacementScrappy and ShooOutTheNewGuy: John "Coop" Cooper, Beth's replacement in Season 5. He ended up appearing only in three episodes total (plus one episode where he left Jim a message on the answering machine, but didn't appear in the episode). After "The Return of the Black Shadow", he was never seen or referred to again.

* ReplacementScrappy and ShooOutTheNewGuy: John "Coop" Cooper, Beth's replacement in Season 5. He only appeared in three episodes total (plus one episode where he left Jim a message on the answering machine, but didn't appear in the episode).

* FairForItsDay: In "The Return of the Black Shadow", Jim, Cooper, and his sister are attacked by a violent motorcycle gang, who also [[spoiler: rape Coop's sister.]] While she is portrayed as a rather matronly SchoolMarm type and the rest of the episode focuses instead on Jim and Cooper's revenge on the gang, she is never blamed or shamed for what happened to her.

* FairForItsDay: In "The Return of the Black Shadow", Jim, Cooper and his sister are attacked by a violent motorcycle gang, who also [[spoiler: rape Coop's sister.]] While she is portrayed as a rather matronly SchoolMarm type and the rest of the episode focuses instead on Jim and Cooper's revenge on the gang, she is never blamed or shamed for what happened to her.

* ValuesResonance: In "Three Day Affair with a Thirty Day Escrow", the married daughter of an Arab sheik is condemned to death by her father, for having an affair with a gigolo who was part of a real estate scheme ([[InLoveWithTheMark but who had fallen in love with her anyway]]). [[FromBadToWorse Things get worse]] when her husband turns up murdered and the gigolo is a suspect. Surrounded by all the people involved (including [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain the woman's sympathetic brother]]), Rockford makes a point of the obvious DoubleStandard enforced by the father and his men (as the husband had been partying and carrying on affairs himself without punishment), and figures out the murderer [[spoiler: (the gigolo's boss and head of the scheme)]], before causing an explosion on the landed plane they're all on and saving the woman from her fate. This aired in 1978. And only a few years after the ValuesDissonance example above.

* FairForItsDay: In "The Return of the Black Shadow", Jim, Cooper and his sister are attacked by a violent motorcycle gang, who also [[spoiler: rape Coop's sister.]] While she is portrayed as a rather matronly Schoolmarm type and the rest of the episode focuses instead on Jim and Cooper's revenge on the gang, she is never blamed or shamed for what happened to her.

* ValuesDissonance: In "The Hammer of C Block", it's revealed at the end that Gandy's girlfriend Lila, whose death Gandy had been framed for, [[spoiler: actually had committed suicide, after having been beaten regularly by Gandy, then fleeing and returning to him several times. After this is revealed, Jim tries to comfort Gandy, saying that he somehow wasn't to blame for what he did because she kept "[coming] back". ''Yikes''. WhatTheHellHero indeed.]]