Trio TV, for all you super cable TV subscribers, is one of my favorite channels. They advertise themselves as "Pop, Culture, TV," and boy, are they.

Trio often features guest program directors, pop culture icons who schedule movies and TV shows they enjoy. Joel Stein programmed showings of Battle of the Network Stars and a show he had Trio create just for him. His new show, Good Clean Porn, featured classic 70's porn with all the actual porn stripped out. You could see the 20 minute clean versions of The Devil in Miss Jones or Debbie Does Dallas. You know, for the curious but pure of heart. Quentin Tarantino played Deadlier Than the Male a 1960's She Spy movie that influenced Charlie's Angels, among other things. Tarantino pointed out that the opening scene of the first Charlie's Angels movie was lifted directly from the opening of Deadlier Than the Male.

Tonight Trio is doing the overdue but unthinkable: bringing back Cop Rock. Cop Rock, created by Stephen Bochco, remains one of the most talked about failures in television history: the musical police drama. It wasn't as funny as The Naked Gun, but wasn't as dramatic as Dragnet. And in the midst of things, during a court proceeding, for example, the characters would inexplicably burst into song.

Cop Rock didn't fit in anywhere. It wasn't good enough to be the next Hill Street Blues, but it wasn't quirky enough to win a devoted following like Twin Peaks. Even songs penned by award-winner Randy Newman weren't enough to save the show. The biggest mystery of all may be what WERE all those people smoking? It had to be created, written, approved by the network, cast, and directed. That's an awful lot of people who had to agree that singing cops and robbers would make for good television. Someone somewhere must have had a file full of naked pictures of some top TV executive. That's my theory. I mean, seriously, Cop Rock?!

Cop Rock didn't last more than a few episodes. But it's enduring legacy remains. Trio is airing it this month as part of their Flops: The Greatest Failures series. Not since My Mother the Car had anyone managed to get such a ridiculous premise made into an actual show that made it on the fall schedule. You may note that though many TV shows have since had characters sing or have even had an entire musical episode, no one since Cop Rock has put an actual musical on a television lineup.

If you're curious, Trio starts airing Cop Rock tonight; check your local listings. And if you're an old fan (as I will now admit to being), you can catch every episode in a marathon this weekend. No, really.

And now I'm going to close by using the name of the show a final time. Because, Cop Rock? Really? Who thought, "Hmmm... singing cops and robbers. Now that's some good TV!" Drugs and naked pictures - it's really the only explanation.