When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.

[2][3] "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow," the show's theme music, was composed by Dave Grusin and Morgan Ames[4] and sung by Sammy Davis Jr.,[5] in addition to being a chart hit for two other artists.

Anthony Vincenzo "Tony" Baretta is an unorthodox plainclothes police detective (Badge #609) with the 53rd Precinct in an unnamed, fictional city.

Upon watching Blake in the 1973 film Electra Glide in Blue, then ABC executive Michael Eisner contacted him about doing a police series, which culminated in Baretta.

According to Blake, studio executives did not want Davis's vocals for the theme song for fear that audiences would think Baretta was a black series.

The Baretta theme song by El Chicano was a huge hit in many countries including Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, France and The Philippines.

[11] In a 1996 TV interview with Tom Snyder, Blake stated that he hated being committed to the series and compared it to screwing a gorilla.

In the film Reservoir Dogs, protagonist Mr. Orange steels himself before meeting main antagonist Joe Cabot by saying "You're not gonna get hurt.

In the Party Down episode "Investors Dinner" (2009), the opening scene is an argument about why Tony Baretta is named so, with two characters arguing that it's because he carries a Beretta pistol.