I Think About Stupid Things Too

Sometime back I was obsessing here about the floor plan of the WKRP studios on the old sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. That was prompted by watching the first season episodes while I did my exercises every morning. Well, I exhausted those discs and moved on to Barney Miller, and there's something that got under my skin about that show too. If you'll recall the primary set, there was a chalkboard in the background at stage left on which all the detectives names were listed. When they came in to the precinct, they would move a little peg next to their names to indicate they were on duty. Here's what I think I noticed in a few episodes: the board occasionally included the names of Inspector Luger's oft-lamented old gang of cops who were all dead or institutionalized. He runs down the list fairly regularly on his visits, feeling nostalgic for the good old days-- his pals then were Brownie, Foster, Kleiner. Am I imagining that those names pop up now and then on the roster board? Or do their ghosts haunt the precinct, in forms tangible enough to justify their listing? I wonder... (which I find somehow more satisfying than going back and freeze-framing the episodes/shots in question).