R.I.P.F.B.I.

Celebrating a Deathday™:  F.B.I. Inspector Lewis "Efrem" Erskine, Jr. died on this day, May 2, 2014. ‘Tis always sad when law enforcement loses one of its own, but the passing of this proceduralist gave Yours Truly Dooley® particular pause. Inspector Erskine was a police official nonpareil — which is to say, "without equal," not to be confused with “nonpareils,” which moviegoers know as tiny, sugary white balls atop Sno-Caps® candy. Erskine’s service to the citizenry, under the auspices of F.B.I documentarian Quinn Martin™, was the stuff of legends on either side of the pond. Indeed, Erskine’s work was admired by law officers, law breakers and abiders alike, and television proved the perfect venue for celebrating that work. "The F.B.I." was “must see TV," as the sloganeering nitwits would have it, and Inspector Erskine's brown-eyed, wavy-haired resolve — as sponsored by the Ford Motorcar Company or possibly Gore "Vidal" Sassoon — made for riveting viewing. By comparison, today’s television policemen have shamed the uniform with their tawdry tele-dramas, where buzz-headed, police-academy lesser-thans match dimwits with Dago-T-shirted boozers, their gun-toting spouses and tattooed offspring in backwater U.S. towns like Albuquerque or Minneapolis. Perhaps the elder statesman Erskine’s death — of natural causes at age 95 — will spur the current crop of COPS® to polish their badges, adjust their codpieces and up their game. The station house sends sympathetic well wishes to Erskine’s team, including Special Agent Remington Steele and Erskine’s daughter Stephanie Zimbalist, the apple of Steele's eye until the goodly Inspector put his foot down, or rather up Steele's arse, ending that funny business in short order. They surely "broke the mold" when they made Lewis "Efrem" Erskine, Jr. — which begs the question: Why can’t the bloody mold makers come up with a resistant material not so prone to breakage?