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Ironside
Raymond Burr as Ironside
Format	Drama
Created by	Collier Young
Starring	Raymond Burr as Robert Ironside Don Galloway as Det. Sgt. Ed Brown Don Mitchell as Mark Sanger
Theme music composer	Quincy Jones
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	195
Production
Running time	60 to 90 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	March 28, 1967 – February 6, 1975

Ironside (originally broadcast under the name A Man Called Ironside in the United Kingdom) was a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to February 6, 1975. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967.

The show revolved around former San Francisco Police Department Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside (Raymond Burr), a twenty-five year police veteran who was forced to retire from the department after a sniper's bullet paralyzed him from the waist down and confined him to a wheelchair. As appointed a "special department consultant" by his good friend, police commissioner Dennis Randall, Ironside retained an attic floor (for living and office space) at the SFPD headquarters and made use of a specially modified and equipped police van to accommodate his wheelchair. The show became a success as Ironside depended on brains and initiative in handling his cases.

The supporting characters who helped Ironside out through this difficult time included Police Commissioner Dennis Randall (Gene Lyons), rookie detective Sgt. Ed Brown (Don Galloway) and young socialite-turned-plainclothes officer Eve Whitfield (Barbara Anderson), who cracked some amazing and serious cases. There was also delinquent-turned-bodyguard/assistant Mark Sanger (Don Mitchell), who subsequently also became a police officer, and graduated from law school to become a lawyer late in the run of the series. By the show's fourth season, Eve Whitfield was replaced by another young policewoman, Fran Belding (Elizabeth Baur), who filled much the same role for four more years.

Diecast model of Ironside's first van early in the series.

One of the longer-running police dramas of the day, the series featured appearances by a number of actors such as Harrison Ford, Ingrid Pitt Susan Saint James, David Carradine, Joseph Campanella, Susan Sullivan, Bill Bixby, David Cassidy, Greg Mullavy, Steve Forrest, David Hartman, Kent McCord, John Rubinstein, Jack Lord, Norman Fell, Gavin MacLeod, Gary Collins, William Shatner, Martin Sheen and Bruce Lee among many others. Future Knots Landing stars, Joan Van Ark and William Devane also made cameo appearances, too. In addition, music legend Quincy Jones, who wrote the Ironside theme song, made a guest appearance as well.

The crime drama came to an end in early 1975, after low ratings. Before and after the show's cancellation, the show was extremely popular in reruns in syndication.

Burr and the main cast reunited for a made-for-TV movie in 1993 which aired not long before Burr's death. Burr was starring in an ongoing series of Perry Mason TV movies at the time, so in order to make himself look less like the other character, he dyed his hair and modified his full beard to a goatee for the Ironside movie. Unlike the original series, which took place in San Francisco, California, the reunion took place in Denver, Colorado (under the auspices of Ed Brown being appointed the city's deputy chief of police and being a leading candidate to be appointed chief), which was also where the last few of Burr's Perry Mason films were produced.

• Raymond Burr, Don Galloway & Don Mitchell are the only actors to appear in every episode of the series.

• Tiny Tim (musician) had a small part in the pilot episode, which aired on March 28, 1967.

• The theme from the show (scored by Quincy Jones) was sampled in the movie Kill Bill and the song Junior Kickstart by The Go! Team.

Shout! Factory released Season 1 of Ironside on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time on April 24, 2007. Season 2 was released on October 16, 2007. Each set contains 26 episodes.

• Ironside at the Internet Movie Database
• Ironside's French Page