Sledge Hammer!

Sledge Hammer! centers on Inspector Sledge Hammer, a wildly exaggerated San Francisco detective who treats police work like an excuse for nonstop action. He's loud, trigger-happy and hilariously oblivious to procedure, while his patient partner Dori Doreau often cleans up his messes and points out his excesses. Captain Trunk and other straight-faced colleagues heighten the mismatch between Hammer's cartoonish methods and routine police work. Each episode sets up a crime or standoff that Hammer answers with overblown tactics, sight gags and deadpan one-liners, flipping familiar cop-show beats into broad satire without leaning into serious melodrama.

Created by Alan Spencer, Sledge Hammer! ran on ABC for two seasons from 1986 to 1988 and was produced by New World Television. The show blended sitcom timing with action-movie beats, and writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss served as story editors early in their careers before becoming more widely known for The Simpsons.

It wasn't a major awards contender, drawing little attention from Emmys or Golden Globes during its original run. Still, reviewers and comedy writers have continued to note its unusual tone and willingness to lampoon television policing, which explains why it keeps coming up in discussions of offbeat 1980s sitcoms.

Though short-lived, the series built a devoted cult following by skewering macho cop archetypes with absurd gags, exaggerated violence and self-aware parody. Its off-kilter energy and repeatable visual jokes made it a favorite for cable reruns and home-video collectors, and its approach influenced later television comedies that mocked action and law-enforcement tropes.

Contemporary critics were mixed, often praising the show's comic premise while sometimes faulting uneven scripts, but modern viewers rate it solidly, about 7.9/10 from 164 votes. David Rasche's all-in performance as the title inspector and Anne-Marie Martin's straight-faced foil are frequently singled out, and recurring themes include satire of authority, critiques of toxic masculinity and a preference for joke-driven, physical comedy over gritty realism.