The Mod Squad was a television police drama from executive producer Danny Thomas in the United States that ran from 1968-1973. It was a police show that featured "hip" young crime fighters: one African-American, one street kid, and one blonde woman. The demographic indexing involved in the casting was intended to appeal to the newly recognized counter-culture in the US. The basic cop-show was updated with young, troubled investigators, who were, in the premise of the show, offered work fighting crime as an alternative to incarceration themselves. The show was moderately popular, running for five years. Tige Andrews (Captain Greer), Michael Cole (Pete Cochran), Peggy Lipton (Julie Barnes), and Clarence Williams III (Linc Hayes) starred. During its run, the show attempted to deal with issues of racial politics and portray a multicultural society.
There is a rumor that the name proposed for the series by ABC executives, who didn't like the name, was the decidedly non-hip "The Young Policemen."
There was a film by the same title in 1999 that attempted to update the show's premise, making the young detectives more "edgy."