The weekly adventures of Frank Cannon, an overweight, balding ex-cop with a deep voice and expensive tastes in culinary pleasures, who becomes a high-priced private investigator. Since Cannon's girth didn't allow for many fist-fights and gun battles, the series substituted car chases and high production values in their place.
Before he was the "Fatman," or
Nero Wolfe, or the narrator on shows like
Tales of the Unexpected and
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (and
Manimal, too!), William Conrad played extra-large detective Frank Cannon. After the death of Frank's wife and son, he left the police force and became a private investigator who charged a high price to solve cases. The 1971 series
Cannon ran on CBS for 5 seasons, and was notable for regularly crossing over with Buddy Epsen's popular series
Barnaby Jones (which is currently missing in action on DVD).
CBS DVD and Paramount Home Entertainment have announced
Cannon - Season 1, Volume 1. The release date is
July 8th, which is the same date CBS/Paramount announced this morning for
Jake and the Fatman on DVD.
Not much more is known about this release, but we can tell you that the first season ran 24 episodes plus the feature-length pilot (so this first release will have about half of those episodes), and the guest stars will include the likes of Tom Skerritt, Wayne Rogers, Mark Hamill, Joan Van Ark, Tim O'Connor, Vic Tayback, Kim Hunter, Dack Rambo and Roy Scheider. Stay tuned for more info, and cover art, just as soon as we can get our fat little hands on it!
