I've been watching reruns of "Car 54, Where Are You?" over the weekends on MeTV. For those not hip to cult TV history, it was a sitcom that aired from 1961 to 1963 on NBC. The main characters were a couple of New York City cops: tall, college-educated bachelor Muldoon (Fred Gwynne) and short, none-too-bright married man Toody (Joe E. Ross). There were a couple of episodes where the cops were trying to catch up with a gang of thieves. There was one guy who appeared as the muscle of the gangs in both episodes. I was surprised to read the credits at the end of the episode to find out the guy was real-life boxer Jake LaMotta. As of this writing, LaMotta is 90 years old, and still very much alive. His life story was chronicled in the movie Raging Bull (1980), with Robert DeNiro playing the boxer.
The writers and producers of "Car 54" must have really liked boxers, because just this past weekend, I saw another episode featuring two of the greatest boxers of all time. The episode, "Puncher and Judy", had one of the cops, Kissel, (Bruce Kirby) bragging about how he was going to take on an opponent. Toody informs Kissel that he took the liberty of signing him up for the Golden Gloves. He even has the name of the opponent, some guy named Tony. Suddenly, Kissel's not so brave anymore, and decides he's going to back out, but not before snapping on Toody for putting his name in the competition. A woman (played by the late Shari Lewis, who was also a popular voice over actress) shows up at the station and begs Toody and Muldoon to convince her boyfriend Tony, a gentle hairdresser who has customers who are crazy about him, not to fight in the gloves. The cops take Tony to a boxing gym, and arrange with a trainer to have one of the pros at the gym pop Tony one good time in order to make him lose his confidence. To the surprise of Toody and Muldoon, Tony wipes the canvas with his opponent, and has to be pulled off of him. The part of Tony was played by boxer Rocky Graziano. His real-life story was also done on the big screen: Paul Newman played him in the movie, Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956).
The cops get the bright idea to get an even more experienced pro to beat Tony in order to keep him out of the Gloves. They manage to convince the pro to disguise himself as an old man as to not bruise Tony's feelings too bad. Tony doesn't want to get into the ring with a "70 year old man" but Toody and Muldoon convince Tony to give him a few rounds. What Tony doesn't know is that the "old man" is actually Sugar Ray Robinson in disguise. Tony is knocked to the canvas, and decides that boxing is not for him.
However, when Tony returns to his hairdressing job, he's mean to his customers. Tony threatens to cut off all the hair of one customer, and he sends another woman running out of the beauty shop crying. His girlfriend realizes that boxing was the way Tony let out pent-up emotions, so she begs Toody and Muldoon to convince him to go back to boxing. The cops and Robinson let Tony know how they tricked him at first, and all ends well with Tony beating down three guys at one time at the gym as his girlfriend cheers him on.
It was an amusing episode. Graziano exaggerated his boxing moves, beating guys after they had already fallen onto the canvas by pouncing on top of them (something that is not in the boxing rulebook). Robinson was getting fitted for a suit by a tailor when Toody and Muldoon approached him to take on Tony. "I don't know fellas. . .I have to train for a fight," Robinson said, then he casually flung a backhand fist at a nearby speed bag as the tailor measured him for the suit. Robinson's manager handed him a contract for his next fight. The boxer asked if all his demands had been met, which were all outrageous, including 92% of the box office receipts. The manager assured him the demands were in place, and Robinson signed the contract. The manager walked away, then a thought occurred to Sugar Ray. "Wait! Who am I fighting?" he asked.
Graziano did meet Robinson in the ring for real, in 1952. Robinson knocked Graziano out in three rounds. It would be Graziano's last attempt at a middleweight title. Graziano was entered into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991. Robinson was entered there in 1990, as was Jake LaMotta.
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