Sledge Hammer!

At age 16, creator Alan Spencer wrote a screenplay based on Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry films, imagining an even more over-the-top, absurd cop, and both the script and character were named Sledge Hammer.

Spencer sold his script around the release of Sudden Impact, and HBO got interested in a satirical cop show after seeing the success of NBC's Dirty Harry-inspired series Hunter.

Leonard B. Stern, former producer of Get Smart, recommended Spencer's Sledge Hammer idea to HBO because Spencer had once helped Don Adams by writing gags for him on the set of The Nude Bomb, and Stern was returning the favor.

HBO executives wanted well-known comedians like Rodney Dangerfield or Joe Piscopo to play the lead, but Spencer found this unacceptable and insisted on a lesser-known actor who could truly become the character; ABC ultimately agreed to cast his first choice, classically trained actor David Rasche.

Although the pilot shows San Francisco landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and City Hall, Spencer stated the city was never officially named because San Francisco wanted nothing to do with the character, and the police station exterior was actually filmed in Los Angeles.

The pilot was completed just as Peter Gabriel's song 'Sledgehammer' became a hit, and ABC capitalized on the coincidence by using it in the show's advertisements; Gabriel was reportedly willing to license and even rewrite the song, but New World Television wouldn't meet his terms, so Danny Elfman composed his first-ever TV theme instead.

In the original title sequence, Hammer was meant to fire his gun directly at the viewer, but ABC executives feared it could be too shocking or even cause heart attacks, so the shot was changed to have him fire at a slight angle.

Hammer's original catchphrase was 'I'm crazy, but I know what I'm doing,' but ABC executives objected to portraying the lead as 'crazy,' leading to the change to 'Trust me, I know what I'm doing.'

Because ABC intended to cancel the series, the first season finale had Hammer accidentally destroy the city while disarming a nuclear warhead; the episode got unexpectedly strong ratings after being moved to a better time slot, prompting ABC to renew the show for a second season.

The second season retroactively claimed to be set five years before the city's destruction, despite Doreau still being Sledge's partner as in the pilot and contemporary references appearing in the episodes.

Budget cuts in the second season caused a downgrade from 35mm film in season one to 16mm film in season two, contributing to the show's cancellation after two seasons.

For the DVD release, Spencer removed the laugh track that ABC had insisted on for the pilot and first 12 episodes, sourcing clean recordings from UK collectors who had taped the episodes without the track.

While recording DVD commentary, Alan Spencer was caught in an actual earthquake, and the recording kept rolling and was included on the release, leaving viewers unsure if it was staged; a similar incident occurred again during commentary for the final episode of season two.

The recurring character Norman Blates, the precinct's medical examiner, was created as an homage to Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

Marvel Comics, then a subsidiary of New World, released a short-lived two-issue comic book based on the series to promote its second season, featuring Sledge facing a Spider-Man impostor and a cover hinting he might be a mutant, referencing the popularity of the X-Men at the time.