User reviews

This show is a great parody of 70's and 80's police movies and TV shows. They manage to include all the staples of the genre. The out of control detective with a gun that's way too big and a silly catch phrase(Trust me, I know what I'm doing), a hot female partner for him and the angry black captain who is always screaming. Plus, most episodes are actually direct parodies of old movies and TV shows.Watch it.

Brilliant! I loved this show as a kid.One of the few shows that i taped almost every episode. Watching it now i see just how satirical it was. Made fun of everything and the moonlighting jokes were awesome.Classic line " Just remember you're suspect numero uno,Every breath you take, Every move you make, I'll be watching you....That's police talk, now get out of here".

Highly recommended

I was but a kid when "Sledge Hammer!" came out, but I remember two things:

1.) It was funny

2.) Sledge Hammer's big ol' gun

I laughed my ass off watching this show.!!! David Rasche had a ball spoofing Dirty Harry. This show sort of reminded me of Police Squad. They cancelled it because it was ahead of its time and people were too slow to catch all of the gags in it. Anne Marie Martin was wonderful as Sledge's partner and the chemistry between the two was irresistable. I have so many fond memories of this show and I only wish they would put it back in syndication.

What a hilarious spoof of Dirty Harry this was. David Rasche played a tough as nails (but completely clueless) man who loves his gun so much it's kind of sick. He shoots first and thinks later. Very funny spoof, it's hard to find but definitely worth watching.

Yeah, this was really more of a comedy. And it was a comedy that mocked all of the detective and tough cop shows and movies that were popular in the 70s and 80s.

In fact, it did such a great job spoofing all of them, hitting all the tropes with exaggeratedly hysterical accuracy that I kind of think that maybe Sledge Hammer! is the reason that we don't see that many shows like that any longer.

Anyway, the word "hilarious" comes up a lot in the reviews and for good reason. It was brilliant and too short lived.

Here we go again. Again a TV show from 80s that is hilarious in almost every line, again the actors are grandiose and deliver the script in perfection and AGAIN this show got cancelled after 2 seasons... WHY?! This was sort of like Al Bundy as a Cop. Sledge Hammer also only received a single award. That's also ludicrous. Imagine a world where the actors and directors and writers produce so much high quality great and extremely funny stuff that a bunch of great shows never get past a pilot or get cancelled after one or two seasons. That world existed once, we call it the 80s and with every passing day we miss that time more and more. The actress playing Dori is very foxy, sexy, feminine, something like that never shows up on our screens anymore, the actor playing Capt Trunk is hilarious in playing the irritated Capt and Sledge Hammer delivers his lines with perfection. Sucks BIG time that this was only allowed to live for two years, and too bad the episodes are only around 22min long, but thank God we at least have that. One of the greatest shows of all time, courtesy of the 80s. You want an intelligently written script with intricate jokes alluding to the society of the time and that still hold true today, this is it!

They would not make a show like this anymore cause the under 40 gen would start crying. Very funny and anna marie was super hot in her day.

After a seemingly endless run of abysmal slasher flicks, the popularity of Clint and Ahnold helped make shoot-'em-up action movies the dominant genre of the 80s and this show hit the airwaves in 1986 to send them up along with every other silly thing from the Reagan era.

Inspector Sledge Hammer was a right-wing, gun-happy, anything-for-the- sake-of-justice lawman / thug and his nutty rants were the source for much sharp satire on Reaganist politics, in amongst the movie parody silliness.

Note that the show originally featured a laugh track, at the network's insistence, but that was removed for the DVD release. Series creator Alan Spencer hated it, and felt it was unnecessary. He was right of course. No audience watching this show for ten minutes remained unaware that it was a comedy.

The fun then continued for a second season, as nihilistic Neanderthal action hero Sledge returned for more gun crazy mayhem replete with movie parodies ("Wild About Hammer" is a dead on send-up of Play Misty For Me) and great guest stars (famed Bogart impersonator Robert Sacchi appears in the 1940s detective spoof "Play It Again, Sledge"). Indeed, the second season showed little letup in story ambition or quality compared to the first. Clearly the show's creators had a lot left for the remainder of the show's run.

No review could possibly do justice to this show. It's fantastic!(emphasis on present tense). Up to this day, there is nothing like it. It's so smart, daring, ahead of its time, that I can't believe it was made over two decades ago. Timeless comedy for intelligent people, that's what "Sledge Hammer" is.

David Rasche plays his role to perfection and he's the definition of comedy, also thanks to a brilliant script.Sledge Hammer is a better man than Dirty Harry, trust me- I know what I'm saying!

The DVD is finally out and it looks great! The image is crisp, the presentation is great, and there are plenty of interviews and special features. And yes, laugh tracks are incredibly stupid and insulting, so thanks, Alan Spencer, for not putting it on the DVD. Well done!

...the year was 1986.

My dad introduced me, then 8 years old, to a little show he found about a guy who loved violence and had a propensity for talking to and sleeping with his gun. (My dad also introduced me to MONTY PYTHON around this time, too.)

When other kids at school were talking about the latest episode of Mr. Belvedere, ALF and the Cosby Show, I would always bring up "last night on SLEDGE HAMMER!"... Every kid would cower in fear, stating "oh my mom doesn't let me watch that. He talks to his gun!"

Beyond being a cool dad, i believe my father must have had the greatest sense of humour known to man.

The gags in SLEDGE HAMMER! were beyond anything i had ever seen before. I picked it up on DVD all these many years later, and there's stuff NOW that cracks me up like nothing else currently on TV. A true classic that should get more credit then it does for being on the cutting edge of comedy.

"Every breath you take. Every move you make. I'll be watching you....That's police talk."

The jokes just aren't funny. Really. Not funny. Weak. Very weak. Lame. In fact, most of the jokes are SO bad that the laugh track seems out-of-place. (It never is - it's just that the jokes are really that bad.)

This *must* be one of those TV shows with a "cult following". That is: a small percentage of vocal fans and a large majority of people who can't stand the show.

This just isn't worth the time spent. Gets an occasional half-hearted laugh from me and no more. Most of the jokes just make me shake my head in disappointment.

This has got to be the most hilarious show to ever pollute the airwaves. Sledge Hammer (David Rasche) is a man's man, a parodical sexist pig who talks to the .44 magnum he carries in his shoulder-holster and drives around with a rocket-launcher in his trunk, and who presumes all suspects to be scum until proven otherwise. There is not a single constitutional right that he has not flagrantly violated during the unfortunately short life-span of this series. Any cops out there will envy Sledge for doing all the things they would have liked to have done but couldn't. But despite Sledge's propensity for wanton and gratuitous violence and his callous use of weapons of mass destruction, he's more of an Inspector Cluseau than a Dirty Harry. His slapstick bumbling and his misogynist remarks are both counter-balanced by his partner, the intelligent and beautiful Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin), who constantly compensates for Sledge's ineptitude and general lack of diplomacy. Rounding out the comedy trio is Captain Trunk (Harrison Page), Hammer's superior, who is constantly swilling Pepto Bismol to counter the ulcer and high-blood pressure that Hammer's antics are causing him to suffer; a futile gesture, as he is usually driven to screaming "Hammer!" at the top of his lungs in a fit of rage at least several times per episode. Our whole residence used to watch this show all the time back in university, and it had us all in side-splitting stitches (okay, maybe not all of us; the feminists didn't pick up on the fact that his sexist antics were a parody, and would frequently leave the room in disgust, but not before hurling verbal abuse, and sometimes beer bottles, at us ...). This is a classic among cult classics. I've scoured the Internet trying to find episodes of Sledge Hammer! on DVD, but all I've been able to find so far are a few bad-quality, copyright-infringing VHS tapes on e-Bay. Shame, I'd buy the whole series if I could find it in reasonable-quality digital form.

Bought the 2 seasons on dvd as soon as it came out.

They go all the way with the nutty star. .David Rasche was made for this role.

Utterly ridiculous, but hilarious anyway. Over the top in fact. The character is often regarded as the ultimate nihilist, but it doesn't apply. Nuts? Sure!

Loves violence? Absolutely!! Heck, Sledge regards a illegal parking the same as murder 1!!!

A guy so Gung-Ho, he could not last a day as a cop. But, that doesn't mean it's not a great idea for a TV comedy. After all, how many cops blow away vending machines that don't work correctly, or shoot warning shots at jaywalkers?

Look, it's cornball! Slapstick violence (if you can imagine.).

Bonus: Sledge's partner, Anne Marie Martin, (Dori Doreau), is the counterbalance to Sledge, the only person that can (however occasionally) MAKE Sledge look at himself. (It doesn't hurt that's she's smokin' hot either.) And actor Harrison Page (Captain Trunk), does a great job losing his mind on a daily basis, just trying to manage Sledge.

It's fun; and funny! And my favorite episode is in the 2nd season, where Sledge & Dori, while surveilling a criminal at a swanky hotel, get drugged by the bad guys. They had to take the honeymoon suite and the scene (with the two of them all loopy); on the vibrating heart shaped bed is truly soooo funny. My wife can't stop laughing at that one either. That's not a spoiler. Instead, it's more of an enticement.

Enjoy.

Bob.

I used to love watching this show, it was genuinely funny and so entertaining and David Rasche was phenomenal.

I'm currently trying to find where I could watch it again.

Fantastic.

One of the Funniest, most Original and underrated TV comedy series! One of my all time favorites! The combination of Alan Spencer (Creator), David Rasshe (Det. Sledge Hammer), Anne-Marie Martin (Det. Dori Doreau) and Harrison Page (Captain Trunk) creates the perfect team and creates the most Wacky, Insane but Thoughtful Comedy! This show more than deserved a much longer run than it was given! The pilot Episode is most certainly one of the most bizzar, funny and explosive Pilots that has ever graced celluloid! A true work of art! I would love nothing more than to see that same team come back together one last time and make Sledge Hammer! The Movie! The Show, and the many loyal fans, deserves that and it would also give the opportunity to close it off properly! Trust Me! I know what I'm Saying!

Another in the 'don't take us seriously' sweepstakes.

Funny cop story dealing with a trigger happy cop who doesn't feel the punishment was fit until all violence possible was used. Or more if possible.

The show was well written too. Great lines all over the place. Every show got re-quoted at my house back then.

But I sometimes wonder if your NRA types didn't realize it was a comedy. Or hated the fact they were the target of the jokes.

Good work to Mr. Rasche for his brilliant portrayal. And Harry Page and Anne-Marie Martin did great support too.

AND...it's on video in Japan.

The unique humour in this terrific series is evident throughout. How the dozy American makers could have canned it after just two series was itself a heinous criminal act. Sledge Hammer, Captain Trunk, and Dori Dureau, bounced off each other hilariously. Our kids, now in their 40s, loved this series and still did...and so do we! Thoroughly recommended.

This is a dumb cop who believe everything he does and say is right, and every episode is more and more crazy. Theres alot of jokes, is one of the best shows ever made, we need a sequel.

I read the reviews and decided to give it a try. Boy, do I dislike this show. I THINK it's a guy thing. Every guy I ever met LOVES the Three Stooges, while I HATE them. And this show, though quite different from the Three Stooges, has the same type of comedy, using the absurd and ridiculous to get laughs. I don't find that sort of thing funny at all. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy good comedy. I though Airplane was a riot, but this misses my funny bone by light years!

Sledge Hammer was a comedy series that was a spoof of Dirty Harry. David Rasche (Sledge Hammer) was a overly violent, over-the-top detective who frequently talked and did everything with his gun. The charm of the show stems from his bone-headed clashes with Captain Trunk and partner Detective Doreau. Also his every attempt to solve problems with guns makes the show absolutely hilarious.

He doesn't like criminals, small children or babies. This NOT for the overly sensitive or politically correct types. This series was no where near the aforementioned attributes. The premise of the show was to show how silly violence could be in solving every problem that could possibly arise. Yes, it trivialized death. Yes, it dealt with guns in light-hearted way. Yes, there were random incidences of unnecessary violence. But that is where the humor is at. If you don't understand that statement, you'll never get this series so just walk away.

Though this series lasted two seasons, I am very pleased that Anchor Bay went ahead and obtain the rights to releasing both seasons on DVD. I've purchased the first one and am very pleased with the results.

There haven't been too many TV shows that have come across in my time that I really enjoyed, but I did enjoy this one. It was different from all of the other stuff that is put on television. There has not been a comedy with this premise and format since Sledge Hammer. I think that says a lot.

10 out of 10

Was and is my favorite series 1986-1988 !!! I could watch all the episodes every day again and again !!!! Sledge Hammer tv series legeng tv series for me when I watch this series it is like seeing myself ....always this tv series sledge hammer 1986-1988 my favorite tv series!!!!!

Best cop parody ever! Hilarious! All you need to know about this if you haven't watched is this: Dirty Harry FUN FUN FUN! Even better than a "Police Squad!"(was hard to done that). USA counterpart of UK's "Only fools and horses" in comedy! Main thing is that script and funny lines are so simple but unmistakably spot on! You could not made it better. David Rasche (aka Sledge Hammer aka Dirty Harry-main character for those who don't know) has destroyed himself with that role-in a BIG positive way! I mean what ever I watched with him after that I was crying of laughter! He was cut and killed in blood in 1986 movie "Cobra" and it was funny! Guy is a genius! Also rest of the crew was near him... Loud cap. Trunk, nice Dori...even a coroner was weird (why not?). To sum it up: show so ahead of it's time (maybe misunderstood in that time and for that so had only two seasons) so modern and way better than something similar even today!

I just received my "season two - the final season" set, and am almost afraid to crack the box, since there are at least five episodes I never got a chance to see.... I don't know if I will survive!!!

This show was one of my - nope, forget that, was my ONE AND ONLY ALL TIME FAVORITE sitcom EVER, and (as usual with my favorites), it didn't last. I guess I like stuff that is just too smart for most people.

Sledge Hammer was a smart show. It got a lot smarter after they flushed the laugh tracks (which were left out for the DVDs - THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!), but the humor was always there.

The very first episode involved a serial killer taking out Elvis impersonators, and Sledge had to go undercover at the Famous School of Elvis. When asked "do you even know how to do Elvis?" He replies "Of course I can do Elvis - you just move your lips...and shake your hips...and look bloated." Later he impresses the teacher only after he karate kicks him across the room... Just like Elvis woulda done.

My favorite line of all, though, is in the episode Wild About Hammer (a Fatal Attraction type homage), where Doreau (Sledge's much savvier female partner) is looking at a file on a cop who's been murdered and says "He refused to be partnered with a woman. Like you, Sledge, he was a misogynist." And Sledge replies "HEY! Just 'cause I gave a guy a backrub once doesn't make me a massagenist." (READ IT OUT LOUD, IT WILL MAKE SENSE)

I am soooo glad they finally came out with the second season, since it includes some of my favorite episodes, like the one where Sledge gets put on suspension and decides to become a private eye, and starts hallucinating conversations with Bogart, or the one where they investigate a string of dead used-car salesmen and Sledge does a full-on Crocodile Dundee impersonation.

Boo-yah!

This is one of my favorite TV series of all time second only to the original Get Smart TV series. Actually they both are equally funny but Get Smart has many more episodes. I watch Sledgehammer when I need a guaranteed laugh and it's a series worth it's weight in gold for any home library. Not sure if they could give it a reboot but smart services like Amazon ought to seriously consider it. Perfect cast and while they are much older I would choose them again for the reboot. It's a one of a kind show superbly funny, yes, even as funny as the greats like Seinfeld. If you ever have the opportunity to buy the series or binge watch it, you'll thank me later.