Modern viewers will probably be shocked to find out that Sidney Poitier wasn't even nominated for an Academy Award for his iconic portrayal of Mister Tibbs. The fact that co-lead Rod Steiger won Best Actor only makes this more noticeable.
Fight Scene Failure: The fight between Virgil and the first racist mob is choreographed fairly awkwardly, with four men doing nothing but harmlessly whapping on Virgil's pole.
Now, look. I got no wife. I got no kids. Boy, I got a town that don't want me. And I got an air conditioner that I have to oil myself, and a desk with a busted leg. And on top of that, I got this, uh... place. Now, don't you think that'd drive a man to takin' a few drinks? I'll tell you a secret. Nobody comes here. Never.
Norman Jewison wanted the song on the diner jukebox to be "Li'l Red Riding Hood" by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, but they couldn't get the rights (licensing pop songs for movies being almost unheard of in 1967), so Quincy Jones and lyricists Alan & Marilyn Bergman wrote the new but very similar "Foul Owl on the Prowl" for the diner scene.
Similarly, "Bow-Legged Polly and Knock-Kneed Paul" (which Officer Wood listens to while patrolling the neighborhood in his car) is a thinly-disguised rewrite of Roger Miller's "You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd".
The old-fashioned soda bottles, as well as the weird folded-out paper cup that Sam pours his Coke into.
Colbert's car receives a 30-second sequence dedicated to its motorized convertible roof, something that was quite novel at the time, but these days just comes across as filler.
Values Resonance: For all of Mr. Purdy's ugly pride about Tibbs "shaming" his sister just by being in the room and listening to her confession, he is justifiably furious about Sam being with Delores (and later Ralph, when Purdy learns he's the one who really got her pregnant), and accurate when he calls it rape regardless of whether or not she "asked for it".
Series
Anvilicious: The show had a lot of Very Special Episodes that covered "racism, police brutality, interracial relationships, hate crimes, drug trafficking, drug addiction, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, rape, AIDS, misogyny, incest, child abuse, sexual harassment, euthanasia, anti-Semitism, political corruption, prostitution, domestic violence, mental disorders, dysfunctional families, suicide, capital punishment, poverty, and drunk driving."
"Obsession": Ashe Crowe is a twisted Puritan who was discharged from the army after he was outed as a Peeping Tom. Becoming obsessed with a Sparta schoolteacher named Jeanette, Crowe begins stalking her, with his harassment of her alternating between affectionate gestures like sending her gifts to manic Slut-Shaming. After he murders one of her lovers, Crowe meets with Jeanette and makes it clear to her that he has no actual affection for her, he merely wants total dominion over a woman who he is sexually attracted to due to being a misogynist Control Freak. Eventually deciding that Jeanette is a lost cause, Crowe tries to kill her by planting a military-grade bomb in her classroom, without any care at all for all of the people that it will maim and kill alongside Jeanette.
"Give Me Your Life" two-parter: Marcantony Appfel is the narcissistic leader of the Church of the Celestial Influence. Appfel has his followers sign all of their possessions over to him, and keeps his congregation compliant with drugs, which he also uses to rape his devotees' children, with his latest sexual abuse victim being a girl named Clarice. After Clarice is saved from him and outs him as a predator, Appfel barricades himself and his disciples in his church, and has two of his subordinates kidnap Clarice. Appfel then has his men execute a captured reporter and engage in a gun battle with the Sparta PD. It is soon revealed that Appfel intends to martyr himself by blowing himself and all of his mostly oblivious followers up with a bomb; while the police are able to defuse the bomb and save most of the church members, several are still killed when a hidden second bomb is detonated by Appfel.
Les Yay: In the episode "The Fairest Of Them All", Lizabeth talks about her best friend Dina the way one would talk about a lover—"There was always something between Dina and me. It was there the minute we met. Some magic thing, as if we'd always been together." Nothing beyond friendship is ever implied, but the dialogue is enough to make one wonder.
The scene in "Fifteen Forever" where a boy, upon being informed by a doctor that his sister is in a coma, responds by yelling, "YOU STINKING LIAR! DON'T YOU TELL US THAT! DAMN YOU!"
The fake Simon Ware's voice in "The Pig Woman of Sparta."
Jennifer Hale's second ever role (and one of her few live-action ones) was as Missy in "The Pig Woman of Sparta."
One of Wayne Brady's first acting gigs was as a mentally handicapped youth in "Hatton's Turn."
Squick: Even a few of his fellow officers are grossed out when Tibbs shoves a pencil into a corpse's bullet wound (to calculate things like the height of the killer) in "Don't Look Back." The same episode also has a cut out heart being mailed to Gillespie.
Tearjerker: After attempting suicide, a young girl confesses to killing her grandfather after years of him molesting her, with the latest incident occurring even as he was apologizing for his behavior. In the course of her confession, she asks her mother if she'd been a victim too, which her mother tearfully confirms. Later, after angrily sending her own mother—who turned a blind eye to both her daughter and granddaughter's abuse—away, she confides in Gillespie that the only reason she returned home despite despising her father is because "He promised to provide for Mary Lynn and to never ever touch her. Why did I believe him?", anguished at the realization that she's partly responsible for the abuse her daughter endured. Gillespie simply responds "He was your daddy", acknowledging the sad truth that many abuse victims face—that despite what their abusers have done to them, part of them still loves and trusts them and wants to believe that they'll change.
Unintentional Period Piece: The 1991 episode "Obsession" revolves around a woman who comes to the Sparta Police for assistance with a man who has been stalking her, with the police struggling to help because he hasn't done any physical harm to her or otherwise broken the law. This dates the episode to before Mississippi enacted anti-stalking laws in 2006.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Kate Morell in "The Time Of The Stranger", who whines (albeit truthfully) about having been a good mother—-to the girl she kidnapped15 years ago. While it's true that she was suffering from a nervous breakdown due to the near-simultaneous loss of her husband and her own child, it doesn't excuse what she did, as Gillespie put it, "every day for the past fifteen years, you stole that child over and over again." Nor does it excuse her murdering (albeit accidentally) the private investigator who tracked her down, who despite being an Asshole Victim herself (she either ripped off or blackmailed clients), was completely right in confronting her about what she did.
