D. B. Cooper in Popular Culture - Film, TV, and Radio

Film, TV, and Radio

• The short story "Hijack" (1972) by Robert Lloyd Fish was in part inspired by the D.B. Cooper hijacking. In 1981 this story was the basis of an episode of Tales of the Unexpected
• A 1973 Television Movie "Deliver Us From Evil" starring George Kennedy and a very young Jan-Michael Vincent deals with a group of campers who encounter a hijacker who had parachuted out of a commercial airplane very similar to the D.B. Cooper case. However, the story is more related to how they begin to fight over the money on their way back to civilization.
• A 1973 episode of the detective series Barnaby Jones starring Buddy Ebsen concerned a mystery about unrecovered ransom money from an airliner hijacking similar to the D.B. Cooper case.
• A 1977 episode of Charlie's Angels (Season 2, Episode 6: Angel in Love) starring Kate Jackson (Sabrina) featured a love interest of Sabrina's who was "B.J. Smith", a hijacker inspired by D.B. Cooper.
• A 1979 episode of the series In Search Of... (TV series) focused on D.B Cooper
• The 1979 episode The Money Plague of Quincy M.E. featured the character of R.J. Collins who had used a phial of anthrax in his successful attempt at hijacking a plane.
• In 1981 an adventure movie titled The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper was released starring Treat Williams as Cooper and Robert Duvall as an insurance investigator pursuing him. Based on J.D. Reed's 1980 novel Free Fall, it was directed by Roger Spottiswoode.
• A 1982 episode of The Fall Guy (Season 1, Episode 17) starring Lee Majors featured a town terrorized by a mysterious quadriplegic named Gordon - a hijacker inspired by D.B. Cooper.
• In 1988 an episode of Unsolved Mysteries focused on the skyjacker.
• In the 1990 television series Twin Peaks, the main character is named Dale Bartholomew Cooper, after D.B. Cooper.
• A 1995 episode of the television show Renegade titled "The Ballad of D.B Cooper" (Season 4, Episode 3) details how D.B. Cooper hijacks a plane, steals $200,000 and lands in a small town where he uses the money to reopen an old factory.
• The television series NewsRadio featured a story arc (Season 5, Episodes 6-8 "Jail", "The Lam", and "Clash of the Titans", first broadcast in 1998) in which station owner Jimmy James is believed to be Cooper. James was arrested after a green duffel bag believed to have been Cooper's was found. At the trial, Adam West confesses he is Cooper and that James had covered up for him.
• A March 2000 segment of the comedy talk radio program The Phil Hendrie Show featured an interview with a former commercial airline pilot, Art Griego, who claimed to be a good friend of D.B. Cooper. In a January 2008 segment, Phil Hendrie and his guest, Dr. Jim Sadler, postulated that presidential candidate Ron Paul is actually D.B. Cooper.
• Without a Paddle (2004): A group of three old friends (Matthew Lillard, Seth Green and Dax Shepard), go on a camping trip to search for the treasure of D. B. Cooper to honor their recently deceased friend. They eventually find it, along with the skeleton of Cooper, in an abandoned mine shaft. Half of the loot had been burned by Cooper himself to keep him warm, and Shepard's character took the remaining half to pay gambling debts.
• In 2004 a special feature length The FBI Files episode called Flight from Justice - The Real Story Of D.B Cooper focused on the possibility that Richard McCoy, Jr. was D.B Cooper.
• The television show Prison Break (2005-2009) featured a character who, after initially denying accusations, eventually admitted that he was D. B. Cooper. The character, played by Muse Watson, went by the name of Charles Westmoreland. According to the show, the amount of money he buried underneath a silo totaled approximately $5,000,000.
• In Journeyman, the main character Dan Vasser travels back in time in the episode "The Legend of Dylan McCleen" which aired on October 22, 2007. The episode is about an U.S. Army Ranger who stole money very much in the style of D.B. Cooper.

• In the 2008 TV series Breaking Bad, attorney Saul Goodman jokes that he found D.B. Cooper when Walter White shows up in disguise.
• In 2009 a Documentary created by National Geographic Channel called The Skyjacker That Got Away focused on the skyjacker
• In 2009, the sixth season of Numb3rs, the tenth episode's central plot was a solution to the D.B. Cooper mystery, including the reasons for the hijacking plot and the final disposition of the money (alleged to be five times the reported amount by the episode) with Michael Hogan starring as the fictionalized Cooper.
• The 12 July, 2010 episode "Treasure" (#2.13) of the television series Zeke and Luther contains a reference to a D.B. Cooper-type lost treasure.
• The January 6th, 2011 episode of Brad Meltzer's Decoded focused on D.B. Cooper.
• In the May 3, 2011 episode of Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza, Ryan mentions that Drew had to parachute out of a plane and then says, "It's nice to meet you Mr. Cooper".
• Cooper's parachute is mentioned in an episode of Warehouse 13 to be a "strange and wonderful" artifact contained in the Warehouse.
• In the March 1st, 2012 episode of 30 Rock (Season 6, Episode 10), character Kenneth Parcell remarks that "All suits are late father's", then opens his suit jacket to reveal a sewed-in patch label, marked with the name "D.B. Cooper".
• The August 26th, 2012 episode of Leverage (Season 5, Episode 6) titled "The D.B. Cooper Job" centers around the Leverage team working to help Agent McSweeten, who has come to them to look into the case that obsesses his dying father -- the 1971 plane hijacking by D. B. Cooper.
• Coincidentally, the very next day, the August 27th, 2012 episode of Pawn Stars (Season 5, Episode 55) titled "Some Like It Not" features a piece of one of the $20 bills stolen by D. B. Cooper. It was sold for $1,600.
• In the September 24th, 2012 episode of Warehouse 13 (Season 4, Episode 9) titled "The Ones you Love", a fictional "artifact" version of D. B. Cooper's ripcord was used by Brent Spiner's character Brother Adrian to infiltrate The Warehouse.
• In the January 24th, 2013 episode of Archer (Season 4, Episode 2) titled "The Wind cries Mary", a spy is hypothesized to have faked his own death in the manner of "Dr Cooper, Dr D. B. Cooper".