Softly, Softly (TV series) Alexis Kanner as DC Matt Stone. Although popular with audiences, Kanner appears to have alienated cast and crew with erratic behaviour during live recordings, and the character was dropped after only nine episodes. He later played the recalcitrant Number 48 in the final episode of "The Prisoner". The first two series continued the trend set by producer David Rose with "Z-Cars", and transmitted the majority of episodes live. This was one of the last long-running British TV series to do this. From series three onwards all episodes were pre-recorded. The original theme music was, like "Z-Cars", a folk-song arrangement by
Johnny 99 (song) circumstances. Like the rest of the "Nebraska" album, "Johnny 99" was recorded in January 1982 in a no-frills studio set up in Springsteen's home in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Most likely it was recorded on January 3, 1982, when most of the album tracks were recorded. The background of the song is based on a real life incident, the closing in 1980 of a Ford Motor Company plant in Mahwah, which had been open since 1955. The song also has antecedents in two folk songs that appeared on the box set "Anthology of American Folk Music": Julius Daniels' "99 Year