Peter Gunn

Peter Gunn was an American private eye television series which aired on NBC, and later on ABC, from 1958 to 1961. The show's creator (and also writer and director on occasion) was Blake Edwards. A total of 114 thirty-minute episodes were produced.

The title character (played by Craig Stevens) is a private investigator in the classic film noir tradition, which was a popular genre on American TV in the late 1950s. However, a few traits differentiate him from the standard hard-boiled detectives, such as Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Gunn was a sophisticated "hipster", a dapper dresser who loved cool jazz; where other gumshoes were often coarse, Peter Gunn was portrayed as the epitome of "cool". He operated in a nameless waterfront city, and was a regular patron of Mother's, a wharfside club; his girlfriend, Edie Hart (Lola Albright), was a sultry singer employed there. Herschel Bernardi played Lieutenant Jacoby, a police detective.

Edwards developed the character from an earlier fictional detective he created. Richard Diamond, Private Detective starred Dick Powell and aired as a radio series from 1949 to 1953. David Janssen later starred in the television adaptation from 1957 to 1960. It was this character's success that prompted his creator to revisit the concept as Peter Gunn. Edwards had earlier written and directed a Mike Hammer television pilot for Brian Keith.
From: Wikipedia.org

Peter Gunn opening

Peter Gunn closing

Linked from nostalgia and retrospection posts:

• CLASSIC TV — P
• 1959 TV Guide Covers