Produced by Quinn Martin and based in part on concepts from the 1959 Warner Bros. theatrical film The FBI Story, the series was based on actual FBI cases, with fictitious main characters carrying the stories. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. played Inspector Lewis Erskine, a widower whose wife had been killed in an ambush meant for him. Philip Abbott played Arthur Ward, assistant director to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Although Hoover served as series consultant until his death in 1972, he never appeared in the series.
Stephen Brooks played Inspector Erskine's assistant, Special Agent Jim Rhodes, for the first two seasons. Lynn Loring played Inspector Erskine's daughter and Rhodes' love interest, Barbara, in the twelve episodes of the show's first season. Although the couple were soon engaged on the show, that romantic angle was soon dropped.
In 1967, Brooks was replaced by William Reynolds, who played Special Agent Tom Colby until 1973. The series would enjoy its highest ratings during this time, peaking at No. 10 in the 1970–1971 season. For the final season, Shelly Novack played Special Agent Chris Daniels.
Some episodes ended with a "most wanted" segment hosted by Zimbalist, noting the FBI's most wanted criminals of the day, decades before the Fox Network aired America's Most Wanted. The most famous instance was in the April 21, 1968, episode, when Zimbalist asked for information about fugitive James Earl Ray, who was being hunted for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The series aired on ABC at 8 p.m. Sunday from 1965 to 1973, when it was moved up to 7:30 p.m. for the final season. The series was a co-production of Quinn Martin Productions and Warner Bros. Television, as Warner Bros. held the television and theatrical rights to any project based on The FBI Story. It was the longest-running of all of Quinn Martin's television series, airing nine seasons.[citation needed]
Every detail of every episode of the series was carefully vetted by F.B.I. second-in-command Clyde Tolson.[2] Actors playing F.B.I. agents, and other participants, were given background checks to guarantee that no "criminals, subversives, or Communists" were associated with the show.[3] The premiere episode of the first season, "The Monster," about a handsome serial killer who strangled women with their own hair, so shocked Tolson that he recommended the show be cancelled.[4] J. Edgar Hoover attempted to cancel the show on at least seven other occasions.[5] Upon Tolson's direction, the violence in the show was severely curtailed in the final three seasons.[6]
Burt Reynolds S1E11 All the Streets Are Silent, S3E15 Act of Violence
Steve Ihnat S2E2 The Escape, S3E20 Region of Peril, S4E The Maze, S5E13 The Prey, S6E13 Incident in the Desert, S7E6 The Mastermind: Part 1 S7E7 The Mastermind: Part 2
Murray Hamilton S2E12 The Camel's Nose, S3E23 The Ninth Man, S4E17 A Life in the Balance, S6E12 The Witness
Arthur Hill S1E23 Flight to Harbin, S2E6 The Plague Merchant, S3E5 By Force and Violence: Part 1, S3E6 By Force and Violence: Part 2, S4E21 The Attorney
A 1969 "Ten Most Wanted List" segment; these were seen at the close of some episodes.
Warner Bros. (under the Warner Home Video label) has released all nine seasons of The F.B.I. on DVD in region 1 via their Warner Archive Collection. These are Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) releases and are available through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.[7][8][9][10][11][12] The ninth and final season was released on September 23, 2014.[13]
DVD Name
Ep #
Release Date
The First Season, Part 1
16
May 24, 2011
The First Season, Part 2
16
August 2, 2011
The Second Season, Part 1
16
February 14, 2012
The Second Season, Part 2
13
February 14, 2012
The Third Season, Part 1
16
September 11, 2012
The Third Season, Part 2
11
September 11, 2012
The Fourth Season, Part 1
13
February 26, 2013
The Fourth Season, Part 2
13
February 26, 2013
The Fifth Season, Part 1
13
June 4, 2013
The Fifth Season, Part 2
13
June 4, 2013
The Sixth Season
26
October 15, 2013
The Seventh Season
26
February 25, 2014
The Eighth Season
26
June 10, 2014
The Ninth Season
23
September 23, 2014
In December 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery, via Warner Bros, Television Studios (current rights owner of the series) launched a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel dedicated to the series and made all nine seasons of the series available for streaming online on Tubi.[14][15]
Similar series
An updated and revamped version of the series, Today's FBI, executive produced by David Gerber for Columbia Pictures Television, aired on ABC from October 1981 through April 1982 in the same Sunday 8 p.m. time slot as its predecessor.
A remake of the original series, produced by Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment for Fox, was set for air in Fall 2008, but it didn't materialise.
In September 2018, a similar series, titled FBI, debuted on CBS; this series was co-created by Dick Wolf and Craig Turk for Universal Television. Unlike The F.B.I. and Today's FBI, however, the cases presented are largely fictional. Would be followed by two spinoffs: FBI: Most Wanted and FBI: International.
Popular culture
The Lupin the Third Part II episode "Diamonds Shining in the Robot's Eye" parodies The F.B.I..
In 1971, MAD Magazine published a satire titled "The F.I.B."
The series was featured in Quentin Tarantino's ninth film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, wherein Rick Dalton, the film's main character, portrayed the villain in an altered version of "All the Streets Are Silent" (air date November 28, 1965), the eleventh episode of the first season of The F.B.I. Rick Dalton replaced the character played by Burt Reynolds in the original episode.
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