fernsehkrimiserie (11. 919)

Hugely popular and enjoying cult-status outside of West Germany, the crime drama featuring Horst Tappert as Kriminaloberinspekktor Stephan Derrick focussed on solving murder cases in the München area. Airing until 1998 when the principal actor attained the age-limit he’d set for himself announced his retirement, all episodes of the twenty-five season run had the same cast (with prominent guest stars) and were all written and produced by the team of Herbert Reinecker and Helmut Ringelmann. There were fan clubs internationally and as one of the first television programmes from the West broadcast in China, Derrick was reportedly used as part of police training curriculum. Like “Beam me up Scotty,” the tag line associated with show the show, “Harry, hol schon mal den Wagen,” (to his assistant, “Harry, bring the car around,”—to imply we’re done here”) the phrase is never actually said on screen though there are close occasions of it. The title melody for the establishing sequence (see also) is from English-German pop singer Les Humphries.