J.D. Cannon

J.D. Cannon plays Chief Peter B. Clifford on McCloud (NBC, 1970–1977), the 1970s Mystery Movie hour that drops Dennis Weaver’s New Mexico marshal — boots, hat, western myth — onto New York asphalt. Fish-out-of-water crime, post-Gunsmoke reinvention with a drawl.

Clifford is the Manhattan procedure the cowboy patience has to collide with. Cannon sells the chief as a job, not a scowl in a doorway. Charm wins the hour; the chief makes it look like a department.

J.D. Cannon does this work on McCloud, NBC's 1970–1977 stretch. J.D. Cannon’s Chief Peter B. Clifford parked McCloud’s New York while a New Mexico marshal brought boots onto asphalt — Mystery Movie wheel, post-Gunsmoke reinvention, cowboy patience colliding with Manhattan procedure. 1970s fish-out-of-water crime. The desk files Chief Peter B. Clifford as position.

J.D. Cannon's brief on McCloud starts at s01e01: Portrait of a Dead Girl (or Who Killed Miss U.S.A.?) opens the boots-on-asphalt brief. Weaver's New Mexico marshal already a western myth in New York; fish-out-of-water on the Mystery Movie wheel. s03e01 is where the pairing (or the solo) proves it is structure: The New Mexican Connection is the title restating the joke. Post-Gunsmoke reinvention with a drawl: cowboy patience colliding with Manhattan procedure, winning the hour on charm. s04e01 is later weather, not a spoiler map — Butch Cassidy Rides Again is western folklore crashing the NYC brief. McCloud as a hat in a precinct: the wheel still spinning fish-out-of-water crime as comfort.

On TV Flash he is the asphalt. Watch the collision as the form. We file Cannon as 1970s procedural craft: the Clifford who made a western-in-the-city photograph as a precinct, still the reason McCloud has a boss as well as a horse-metaphor.