The Sweeney - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

• The repeat of the episode "Selected Target" on 21 December 1978 had the highest viewing figure of the series with 19.05 million people watching. This coincided with a 24-hour strike at the BBC.

• In series 1 to 3, the main characters' cars were a Ford Consul GT 3.0 litre V6 (often mistaken for a Granada Mk1), Granada GXL Mk1, Ford Granada S Mk1 and a Cortina Mk3. In series 4, a late Mk1 Ford Granada Ghia is used as well as the updated Granada Mk2 and Cortina Mk4.

• Dennis Waterman was cast after his performance in the Special Branch episode 'Stand and Deliver'. In the same episode, Stephanie Turner (who played his wife in The Sweeney) played his sister. She went on to have her own police series, Juliet Bravo.

• The Sweeney is mentioned in the songs Wow! by Kate Bush and Cool for Cats by Squeeze.

• In the orange-tinted photographs that are shown in the closing credits for Series 1–3, an enlarged set of fingerprints is displayed on a board behind Detective Chief Inspector Haskins. These belong to actress and model Pamela Green, whose boyfriend Doug Webb took the stills photographs used in the titles and credits.

• A red Fiat 850 Coupé makes a cameo appearance in a lot of episodes: typically, it's parked at the side of the road as the action takes place around it. One theory is that the car belonged to a crew member who tried to include it as an in-joke in as many episodes as possible.

• Heavy reference is made to The Sweeney in the Black Books episode "The Blackout".

• Regan and Carter appear briefly as part of a stakeout operation in one of the novelizations of the TV series "The Professionals".

• Scotland Yard's real Flying Squad lost an important surveillance technique when The Sweeney exposed their use of the roadside tents erected by telephone engineers, who would place them over open manholes in the street to protect them from the weather. These tents are frequently shown in the series as hideaways for keeping a covert eye on suspects.

• A two-part 1998 instalment of Diagnosis: Murder, "Obsession", features lead villains named Carter Sweeney and Regan Sweeney.

• The creators of the hit show Life on Mars have often stated that The Sweeney was a big influence on the show.