Mannix - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Mike Connors played Mannix in a 1971 episode of Here's Lucy, "Lucy and Mannix Are Held Hostage". He also appeared as Mannix in a 1976 Bob Hope TV special called Joys, which involved the great comedians and television detectives in a parody of Jaws.
• Connors, William Conrad (Cannon) and Barry Newman (Petrocelli) played themselves as actors hired to play crimefighters in an episode of The Fall Guy, titled "Private Eyes" (Season #4, Episode #6; original air date: October 24, 1984).
• In 1997, Mike Connors reprised the character on CBS's Diagnosis: Murder in the episode “Hard-Boiled Murder”. It was a sequel to “Little Girl Lost”, a 1973 Mannix episode from the original series' seventh season, with many of the guest stars (Pernell Roberts, Julie Adams) from that episode reprising their roles.
• Connors last appeared as Mannix in the 2003 film Nobody Knows Anything!.
• Mannix was parodied twice in Mad Magazine: Mannecch (December 1968) and Manic (July 1972); and on radio by comedians Bob and Ray in Blimmix.
• In the February 26, 1992 episode of Seinfeld entitled, "The Limo," Jerry and George are attempting to get out of a moving limousine. George suggests they open the door and roll out, prompting Jerry to say, "We're doing 60 miles an hour. Who are you, Mannix?"
• Mannix became a long- running riff in many Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. Mike Connors also appeared in at least one of the movies riffed by MST3K, Swamp Diamonds (billed as "Touch" Connors)
• The Lee Goldberg novel Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop, based on the television series Monk, has two significant homages to the first season of Mannix:
  • After Adrian Monk's consulting contract with the San Francisco Police Department is voided by Captain Stottlemeyer, Monk and Natalie Teeger are hired by a private investigations agency called Intertect, the same agency that Joe Mannix worked for in the first season of Mannix. It could even be suggested that at some point, Intertect folded operations in Los Angeles and moved to San Francisco.
  • In one scene during the novel, Monk is seen examining a case file regarding the apparent home invasion murder of a man named Lou Wickersham (Monk rules the man's death a suicide), an homage to Joe Mannix's boss at Intertect, Lew Wickersham, during Mannix's first season.