''Eurocops'' is a European television crime TV-series produced between 1988 and 1992. It is a co-production between seven European TV stations in which each station produced a number of episodes which were then pooled, dubbed and otherwise adapted when needed and broadcast by all participating stations, a format used earlier in the German crime series

Tatort ("Crime Scene") is a German-language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with 30 feature-length episodes per year, making it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by the German public-se ...

. The participating networks were

ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...

from Germany, ORF from Austria, SRG from Switzerland,

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

from Italy,

Televisión Española (acronym TVE, branded tve, "Spanish Television") is Spain's national state-owned public television broadcaster and the oldest regular television service in the country. It was also the first regular television service in Equatorial Guinea. T ...

from Spain, Antenne 2 from France and

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

from the United Kingdom. A direct consequence of the 'pooled production' format was that all episodes by one particular network had a strong local or national feel and were distinctly different from the episodes produced by other networks. Not only were they filmed in the network's own country with local actors, but they were also written by local screenwriters, thus reflecting that nation's specific taste for crime dramas. With national networks at that time still relying on self-produced programs, a big part of ''Eurocops allure was that it offered viewers in one country a first-hand look at what crime series in other countries looked like. Despite being a pan-European TV series, the three German speaking networks did more than half of the filming with Germany and Austria filming 15 episodes on their own and one more joint production. Switzerland contributed another 12. Of the four non-German speaking countries, Italy made 13 episodes and France made 8, whereas Spain and the UK made only 4 and 3 episodes respectively. All in all, in a span of five and a half years, seventy-one episodes were produced. Typically they were broadcast once a month. In Germany, ZDF broadcast the series on every fourth Friday as part of its Friday night crime lineup. (The three other Fridays it would broadcast episodes from other homemade crime series). Its first broadcast was on November 6, 1988 with a Swiss production called "Tote reisen nicht" (English: The dead don't travel).

Introduction and title music

A little sensation for its time was the title sequence. Not only was the title music a haunting electronic theme composed by

Jan Hammer Jan Hammer () (born 17 April 1948) is a Czech-American musician, composer, and record producer. He rose to prominence while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra during the early 1970s, as well as with his film scores for television an ...

, it was accompanied by a wild camera ride in which a camera circles over a map of Europe, shows the different cities in which the episodes play and for each city shows a picture of the local detective with his name and title. Finally the camera zooms out into a picture of the police badge of the country in which the episode in question plays. Still a novelty for this time, the title was completely computer generated.

Cast and crew

Germany

*''Produced by:'' Monaco Film, Munich for

*''Directors:'' Georg Althammer, Werner Kließ *''cast:'' ** Heiner Lauterbach as Thomas Dorn ** Eva Kryll as Karin * ''City:''

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Austria

*''Produced by:'' ORF *''Directors:'' Rud'i Nemeth, Peter Müller *''cast:'' ** Bernd Jeschek as Peter 'Bernd' Brucker ** Bigi Fischer as Bigi Herzog **Hermann Schmid as Oberinspektor Nurmeier * ''City:''

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Switzerland

*''Produced by:'' SRG *''cast:'' ** Alexander Radszun as Christian Merian ** Wolfram Berger as Peter Brodbeck * ''City:''

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

Italy

*''Produced by:'' RAI2 *''Music by:'' Stefano Mainetti (9 episodes) *''cast:'' **

Diego Abatantuono Diego Abatantuono (born 20 May 1955) is an Italian cinema and theatre actor, comedian and screenwriter, three-time winner of the Nastro d'Argento. Biography and career Abatantuono was born in Milan to a father of Apulian origin and a mother f ...

as Commissario Bruno Corso ** Bruno Pagni as Marco

France

*''Produced by:''

France 2 France 2 () is a French free-to-air public television channel. The flagship channel of France Télévisions, it broadcasts generalist programming including news, entertainment (such as dramas, films, and game shows), factual programmes, and sp ...

*''cast:'' ** Patrick Raynal as Commissaire Nicolas Villars ** Bertrand Lacy as Commissaire Luc Rousseau **

Étienne Chicot Étienne Chicot (5 May 1949 – 7 August 2018) was a French actor and composer.François Perrot François Perrot (26 February 1924 – 20 January 2019)Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

Spain

*''Produced by:'' Velarde Films for

*''cast:'' **

Álvaro de Luna Álvaro de Luna y Fernández de Jarava (between 1388 and 13902 June 1453), was a Castilian statesman, favourite of John II of Castile. He served as Constable of Castile and as Grand Master of the Order of Santiago. He earned great influence in ...

as Subcomisario Andrés Crespo

United Kingdom

*''Produced by:'' Picture Palace Productions for

*''Director:'' Malcom Craddock *''cast:'' ** John Benfield as Detective Constable George Jackson ** Linda Henry as Linda Jackson ** Jonathan Phillips as Stonehead ** David Bradley as Roper

References

External links

*
EUROCOPS
BFI * http://krimiserien.heimat.eu/e/eurocops.htm * https://web.archive.org/web/20120530132040/http://www.tvsi.de/krimiserien/eurocops.php
odeonfilm.de
Folgen der Monaco Film (heute Odeon-Film) {{Authority control 1988 German television series debuts 1993 German television series endings Fictional police officers ZDF original programming German crime television series 1980s German police procedural television series 1990s German police procedural television series