The Mod Squad

The show was loosely based on creator Bud 'Buddy' Ruskin's own experiences in the late 1950s as a squad leader for young undercover narcotics cops, though it took almost 10 years after he wrote a script for ABC to greenlight the idea.

The series aired more than a year before the release of the film Easy Rider, making it one of the earliest attempts on television to deal with the counterculture.

Producer Aaron Spelling intended the show to focus on the characters' relationships and promised that the Squad 'would never arrest kids... or carry a gun or use one.'

A scripted 'friendly kiss' between Linc (Clarence Williams III) and Julie (Peggy Lipton) worried ABC executives, who asked Spelling to cut the interracial kiss for fear of backlash; Spelling insisted on keeping it and, contrary to warnings, received no complaint letters.

The Squad traveled in a green woodie-style 1950 Mercury Eight nicknamed 'Woody,' which became famous and was ultimately destroyed by fire after going over a cliff during a chase scene in the second-season episode 'The Death of Wild Bill Hannachek.'

Harrison Ford appeared in an uncredited role as a guest star on the series, among many other notable guests including Sammy Davis Jr., Richard Pryor, Leslie Nielsen, and Martin Sheen.

The original 1968 television pilot was shot with a 74-minute running time but was never aired in full; it was edited down to 50 minutes for broadcast as the show's first episode, while the uncut version later appeared on DVD under the title 'The Teeth of the Barracuda.'

In 1990, Peggy Lipton and Clarence Williams III shared a brief scene together on Twin Peaks, where Lipton was a regular, in what appeared to be an intentional reunion of the two Mod Squad stars.

The term 'Mod Squad' had actually been introduced a year earlier in a 1967 episode of Dragnet titled 'The Big Kids,' where it described a club of high schoolers who had to shoplift at least $20 to join.