Production
The Streets of San Francisco premiered on ABC on Saturday, September 16, 1972, at 9 pm Eastern, competing against the popular CBS sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show. After Streets gained attention on Saturday nights during the first season, the show was moved to Thursday, where it stayed for the remainder of its run, beginning with the second season, competing against other successful 1970s crime dramas, in different timeslots.
By all accounts, Malden and Douglas developed a strong professional and personal relationship from their time on the series. Twenty years after last working together on an episode, they were both onstage at the 1996 People's Choice Awards. Malden referred to Douglas as "the son I never had" and mentioned that he had wanted producer Quinn Martin to cast Douglas on the series. Douglas responded to the compliment by calling Malden "my mentor", and both expressed that they enjoyed working together on the show.
After the second episode of the fifth and final season, Douglas left the show after successfully producing the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which won the Academy Award for Best Film for 1975. He, in turn, also established a film career. His character's absence was explained by having him take a teaching position at the University of California, located across the Bay in Berkeley, while Lt. Stone was partnered with another inspector, Inspector Dan Robbins (Richard Hatch).
Richard Hatch had started his career on the ABC soap All My Children and, after this show stopped production, went on to Battlestar Galactica. The change from Douglas to Hatch was not popular with audiences, and the show ended in 1977 due to declining ratings and increased production costs.
Additionally in 1977, writer James J. Sweeney won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for his teleplay for the season-four episode "Requiem for Murder".
The series was sponsored by Ford Motor Company, and half of the vehicles shown were new Ford cars. In the early episodes, Keller and Stone drove a brown 1971 Ford Galaxie four-door sedan and the entire SFPD cruiser fleet consisted of Ford Galaxies.
On January 27, 1992, a reunion TV movie entitled Back to the Streets of San Francisco was aired, but Douglas did not appear in it. However, Darleen Carr did return as Mike Stone's daughter Jeannie.
