Trivia / Quincy, M.E.

aka: Quincy

• The Danza: Technical advisor Marc Scott Taylor also had a recurring role as Mark the lab technician.^note It was easier to hire a certified forensic lab technician to operate the equipment than to spend time and money training numerous actors and extras, and it helped that Taylor had SAG credentials at the time
  • And Eddie Garrett as Eddie.
    • And Diane Markoff as the waitress Diane.
• Cast the Expert: LA County forensics lab technician Marc Scott Taylor as Mark, as noted above.
• Creative Differences: Jack Klugman and Glen A. Larson didn't see eye to eye very well. Larson wanted a pure crime drama, Klugman wanted to tackle social issues. The network sided with Klugman - ultimately a wise decision as the show lasted through eight seasons under Klugman, while Larson ended up creating and executive producing many TV shows that would often tank in short order, before finally making a comeback with The Fall Guy in 1981, followed by Knight Rider in 1982.^note he shares "created by" credit on Magnum, P.I. with Donald P. Bellisario, but his involvement with both Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider ended with their pilots. (However, years later Larson gave Klugman a cheerful thank-you kiss on encountering him once, due to the healthy royalties coming Larson's way due to the show's long, long life in reruns in the US and internationally.)
• Edited for Syndication: The earliest episodes ran in 90-minute slots as part of The NBC Mystery Movie; these episodes ("Go Fight City Hall... To The Death," "Who's Who in Neverland," "A Star Is Dead" and "Hot Ice, Cold Hearts") were later cut down to 60-minute versions and added to the syndicated package (although they're included in their original versions on the DVD release of season one).
• Missing Episode: Two episodes were never repeated during NBC's network run^note (although both appear in syndication to this day):
  • "Nowhere To Run" dealing with the aftermath of a teenage girl falling to her death - although running from her boyfriend at the time, she committed suicide because she had been impregnated by her own father, with whom she'd been having an incestuous relationship. This episode averted both Always Murder and Trailers Always Spoil - it also resulted in guest star Charles Aidman losing a lucrative commercial gig.
  • "Never A Child," in which a runaway teenage girl is preyed on by a child pornographer, and which some thought was in bad taste although the episode itself is hardly exploitative - unlike the TV movie Fallen Angel the girl never actually does porn; she's rescued before it happens.
• Technology Marches On:
  • A teenager in the Hollywood Tourette's episode was a movie buff who couldn't enjoy movies for fear of making outbursts in a public theater. A few years later watching movies at home using home media would become commonplace.
  • Asten forces Quincy (and much of the staff) to carry beeping pagers at one point. Pagers are, of course, obsolete now, and Quincy would be carrying a cell phone these days.
  • Naturally, a lot of forensic techniques have been developed since the show's era, such that evidence of limited utility then (e.g. the mugger's hair from "An Act Of Violence", which only gave proof of diabetes rather than a DNA match) could offer a slam-dunk identification today.
• Written by Cast Member: Jack Klugman, unsurprisingly (see Author Filibuster), had a hand in the writing of four episodes. (Yes, only four amazingly — though his sister Deborah and brother Maurice contributed in that department as well.)
  • Mark Scott Taylor (Mark) also has co-story credit on the two-part episode "Slow Boat To Madness."