Hardcastle and McCormick is an American action/drama television series from Stephen J. Cannell Productions, shown on ABC from 1983 through 1986. The series stars Brian Keith as Judge Milton C. Hardcastle and Daniel Hugh Kelly as ex-con and race car driver Mark "Skid" McCormick. The series premise was somewhat recycled from a previous Cannell series, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe.
As the series begins, ex-race car driver Mark McCormick accepts a job driving the Coyote X, an experimental car designed by a friend of his named Flip Johnson. Mark loses his job, however, after Flip is killed in a car accident and ownership of the car is granted to industrialist Martin Cody. Eventually, Mark is brought before Hardcastle, who is presiding over his last case, Mark is given a choice: help the judge round-up two hundred men who walked out of the judge's courtroom on technicalities or go back to prison.
Hardcastle is quite upset when he is criticized in “Without Sin,” the autobiography of retired mobster Joseph Cadillac. Figuring that the mob, also the subject of Cadillac's criticism, will be angered as well, Hardcastle has Mark follow the author. Later, Hardcastle is surprised when Cadillac comes to him for help.
Teddy, McCormick's cellmate in prison, is out on parole. He has been staying with Mark in the guesthouse, without Hardcastle's knowledge or permission. Now, his parole officer, Quinlan, informs him that due to a minor infraction, he has the power to send him back to prison, unless he pays him a thousand dollars a week.
A convict who has been having an affair with the warden's wife, escapes with her help. He then calls Hardcastle, which agitates him. He and McCormick go out to find him. Eventually, it's revealed that before Hardcastle chose McCormick, he gave this guy a try—and he proved Hardcastle wrong.
Hardcastle wants to investigate a woman named Tina Grey. When Hardcastle goes to the police for info, a Captain Filapiano, who doesn't like Hardcastle, asks him to leave. Hardcastle then tells McCormick to get close to her. As they get closer, a gangster named Joe Beiber, whom she has been seeing, and who is insanely jealous abducts them.
Boxer Kid Calico is told to throw a fight in order to keep his kidnapped father alive.
Hardcastle & McCormick set out to assist a lawyer, who is an old friend of Hardcastle's, convict a mobster who is running stolen property in semi-trucks.
Hardcastle persuades an old friend, played by Buddy Ebsen, to obtain a role in a movie in which the movie producer is using his films to cover up his drug smuggling operation.
A gang member is remanded into the judge's custody only to stay in the guest house with Mark, while the judge and Mark go after a psychiatrist who has been taping private sessions with clients revealing vital damaging information.
Mark is thrilled when he gets a shot at racing in big leagues—only to learn that his sponsor's auto parts business gets their inventory from stolen cars.
Hardcastle & McCormick travel to Rio to track down a drug runner.
Keenan Wynn guest stars as an old bank robber, just released from prison, who attempts to locate the cash stored in an armored car that he robbed in the '40s.
A law student at a local college claims that her brother, who was sent to prison for 20 years by Judge Hardcastle, was framed for murder. He ignores her, but when someone tries to kidnap her, he reviews the case and sends Mark on an undercover investigation to the school as a football player.
Hardcastle is up for a spot on the Supreme Court bench but some people don't want him to be chosen.
Robert Culp guest stars as Arthur Farnel, an ex-con who runs a school leading and teaching their students how to break the law. Mark decides to go undercover in order to gather enough evidence to put him away.
A group of retired judges decide to take the law into their own hands by delivering their own verdicts to criminals who slipped through the system or were given lesser sentences based on technicalities or lack of evidence.
Hardcastle returns to his hometown in Arkansas for a high school reunion, only to learn from an old friend that people are being swindled out of their farms. After the friend is murdered, and his daughter asks the judge for help, Hardcastle enlists McCormick to burglarize the local land office.
Hardcastle hides out with another old friend, recovering from his injuries, while he tries to figure out how to retrieve the evidence against the town officials. Meanwhile, Mark and Christy take refuge in an abandoned cabin.
Hardcastle visits a man he sent to prison for life only to find that the man never made it there.
Hardcastle & McCormick go undercover at a computerized dating service in order to find out why wealthy clients are turning up dead.
Mark and Hardcastle take a group of misfit kids to a local prison in order to scare them straight; but while they are there, they are taken hostages by prisoners who are frustrated because of the repeated abuse from the guards and the warden.
Brian Keith
Milton Hardcastle
Daniel Hugh Kelly
Mark "Skid" McCormick
Joe Santos
Frank Harper
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