Thank goodness we'll always have reruns of Bull Shannon to put the lie to runaway '80s nostalgia.

Bull, of course, was the physically menacing bailiff with a heart of gold at the center of Night Court, the sly parody of the Reagan-Meese judicial system that aired on NBC from 1984 to 1992. At a time when Reaganites were trying to push an agenda of law-and-order, Night Court was offering a rebuttal argument of law and dis-order, with Judge Harry T. Stone's madcap antics standing in stark contrast to Ed Meese's stone-faced bumbling. Whether it was the corrupt prosecutor Dan Fielding (John Larroquette) or the zany situations Stone (Harry Anderson) and his cohorts fell into week after week, the message of Night Court was simple -- you cannot trust the Reagan Justice Department.

But you could trust Bull Shannon.

Physically impressive and vertically imposing, Shannon seemed at first glance to be a poster child for the Reagan-Meese vision of a police state. But beneath that hard exterior lurked a manchild -- Bull Shannon was a sweet, innocent character, more likely to help children and the downtrodden than bust the heads of the so-called criminals appearing before Judge Stone.

Credit for that multi-faceted character falls squarely on the shoulders of Richard Moll. It was Moll, after all, whose soft facial features and inspired line readings brought out Bull's softer side. And Moll also capably handled the more physical requirements of his Night Court role by being really, really tall.

Then again, being tall was something that Moll brought to many of his acting jobs. Whether as the Abominable Snowman in 1981's Ringo Starr comedy Caveman or as the cyclopean thug Hurak in Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn, Moll brought a height to his parts that lesser actors of lesser sizes just couldn't match. In fact, it was Moll's height that first brought him to prominence, in a guest-starring role as Eugene on the original Happy Days.

"It was the two-part episode 'Fonzie's Funeral,'" recalls Donnie Most, who played Ralph Malph. "You know, the one where Fonzie fakes his own death to crack a counterfeiting ring. Anyhow, we needed a guy to play one of the thugs who menaced Fonzie, and we needed someone who could be imposing but funny as well.

"So they cast Richard," Most continues. "And the first time we saw him, we all thought, 'Well, they certainly got the imposing part right.' But Richard was very funny in the part -- he really stole the episode, if you want my opinion. So right there, five years before Night Court, you saw a glimpse of what he could bring to the table."

Sadly, after Night Court left the airwaves, few producers asked Moll to bring anything to the table at all. Whether he had become too closely associated with the part of Bull Shannon or Hollywood's conservative establishment was blackballing him because of Night Court's subversive themes, you're less and less likely to see Moll, except in smaller roles. Happily, you're still able to hear Moll; he regularly works as a vocal performer on animated shows from Justice League to Freakazoid.

"Richard supplies the voices of Two-Face in the Batman cartoon series," Night Court creator Reinhold Weege says. "Can you imagine if they had cast Richard as Two-Face instead of Tommy Lee Jones in the live-action movie? Maybe Batman Forever would have sucked less."

Here's hoping that other producers striving to make their TV shows and movies less sucky will give Richard Moll a second look. And here's hoping that at a time when another over-zealous attorney general is running amok, America will stumble across Night Court reruns and see in Moll's Bull Shannon a gentle giant capable of crushing a repressive Republican judiciary once and for all.

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