John Munch

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Sgt. John Munch
Sgt. John Munch
First appearance	"Gone for Goode"
Created by	Tom Fontana
Portrayed by	Richard Belzer
Episode count	119 (Homicide: Life on the Street) 173 (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) 4 (Law & Order) 1 (The X-Files) 1 (The Beat) 1 (Law & Order: Trial by Jury) 2 (Arrested Development) 1 (Paris enquêtes criminelles) 1 (The Wire)[1] 1 (Sesame Street)
Information
Gender	Male
Age	55
Date of birth	1952
Family	Bernard (brother) Andrew (uncle) Lee (cousin)
Spouse(s)	Divorced 4 Wives

John Munch is a fictional police sergeant played by actor Richard Belzer. First appearing in Homicide: Life on the Street, when that show ended the character was transplanted into Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the first spin-off of the Law & Order franchise. He made his 300th appearance on SVU: "Unorthodox".

[edit] Character progression

Munch first appears as a central character in the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street, as a homicide detective in the Baltimore Police Department's fictionalized homicide unit, which debuted January 30, 1993. The character was based on Jay Landsman, a central figure in David Simon's true crime book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, a documentary account of the homicide unit's operation over one year.^[2] Munch appeared as a regular character in every season, and in almost every episode, of Homicide. Munch's storyline also touched on the relationship between real-life detectives Donald Worden and David Brown, in which Worden was relentless in his tutelage/hazing of the younger detective but also genuinely wanted him to succeed and was impressed when the younger cop did excellent work. A storyline in the book involving Brown cracking a very difficult hit-and-run homicide was included almost verbatim in the show's pilot.

After Homicide: Life on the Street concluded its seventh season in May 1999, the character was transferred into the Law & Order universe as a regular character on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Both Homicide and the original Law & Order had crossed-over numerous times before, and Munch had featured centrally in each crossover). In the fictional universe, it is explained that Munch had retired from the Baltimore Police Department, took his pension, and moved to New York to join a sex crimes investigation unit.

Munch had worked for the Baltimore Police Department at least since 1989 (X-Files: "The Unusual Suspects") . In Season 9 (SVU: "Alternate") Munch finds out he passed the sergeant's exam having taken it on a bar bet. In Homicide: Life on the Street, he had attempted to take the sergeant's exam, but a 'comedy of errors' prevents him from being promoted. He is temporarily promoted to commanding officer of the Unit following Cragen's temporary reassignment but is depicted as happily relinquishing control back to Cragen. However he has kept his rank, as he is still referred to as Sergeant in a future episode (SVU: "Savant").

Munch was seen sitting at Kavanaugh's Bar in (The Wire: "Took"), which is set in Baltimore, MD.

[edit] Biography

Though his age is never directly stated on Homicide, a few clues are presented pointing to it. In the season five episode (Homicide: "Kaddish"), Munch talks about his high school years and looks at a yearbook from 1961. In "Full Court Press", Munch says "Going to high school was no day at the beach for a teenage Jew in the '50s". Because first grade began at age six and high school ended in eleventh grade in Maryland during this time, it is likely Munch was born in 1944, the same year as Belzer. Munch is described, however, as being 48 years old in the SVU episode "Chat Room". In order to be 48 at the time which this episode took place, Munch would have been born within a year of 1952, depending on when his birthday falls. Also noteworthy is a seventh season episode of Homicide in which the ongoing conflict between Munch and Det. Stuart Gharty (Peter Gerety) culminates. After a confrontation inside the Waterfront bar, Gharty asks Munch how old he was during that period of the war (1968), to which Munch responds "eighteen", putting the year of his birth circa 1950.

Munch in SVU

SVU and Homicide also have Munch growing up in different places. He is a native of Maryland on Homicide and attended high school in Pikesville, which has a large Jewish community. Also, Munch said that he took many field trips to Ft. McHenry as a kid, which would likely only happen were he to live in the area (Homicide: "A Many Splendored Thing"). Munch tells Det. Olivia Benson that he grew up on the "lower east side"(SVU: "Legacy"). Munch said to Det. Fin Tutuola in that same season that he "came back from Baltimore" after his marriage broke up, suggesting that he is originally from New York. One possible scenario has Munch being born and raised in New York (SVU: "Legacy", "Manhunt") and moving to Baltimore where he attended Pikesville High School for four years. (Homicide: "Kaddish")

According to the season five episode (SVU: "Painless"), Munch's father committed suicide, and Munch still regrets that he told his father he "hated his guts" just before the tragedy occurred; for years afterward, he believes that it was his fault. (Coincidentally, Belzer's father also killed himself.) In (SVU: "Uncle"), it's revealed that Munch also has an uncle, Andrew , who had been diagnosed with Depressive pseudodementia. The elder Munch is found by Elliot Stabler living as a transient in Manhattan, and is subsequently reunited with his nephew. Andrew, however, reacts badly to his antidepressant medication, which triggers a mania that results in him taking a personal vendetta against a suspected rapist/murderer SVU is investigating, eventually killing the man by pushing him in front of a subway train. Andrew refuses to plead insanity and take further medication, and says goodbye to his nephew one last time before being sent to prison. Munch is also affected by the death of a young girl who lived near him when he was younger — he blames himself, at least partially, for not noticing that she was being abused by her mother, despite seeing her every day when he came home from school.

Although Munch never admitted to using drugs prior to becoming a cop, many of his colleagues (Bolander, Lewis and Tutuola) disagree and Munch has said that he disagrees with drug prohibition.

In the first episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, Munch becomes frustrated while attempting to interview a suspect and mentions that he has been a 'murder police' for ten years. His partner at the start of the series is Stanley Bolander (Ned Beatty), an experienced police detective with more than 20 years under his belt. The two are partners through the show's first three seasons until Bolander is first suspended and then retires. Despite the tremendous amount of grief the two give each other, Munch respects him and counts him as a dear friend.

In SVU, he is first partnered with Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters), whom he thinks of as a kind of younger brother, alternately poking fun at him and imparting (often questionable) advice on life and women. When Cassidy leaves the precinct in 2000, Munch is briefly partnered with Monique Jeffries (Michelle Hurd), and then with Odafin Tutuola. He and the gruff, uncompromising Tutuola get off to a rough start, but gradually came to like and respect each other.

In Homicide, along with Tim Bayliss (Kyle Secor) and Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson), Munch is co-owner of "The Waterfront", a bar located across the street from their Baltimore police station.

In the SVU episode "Raw", Munch is shot by a white supremacist during a trial, but lives.

[edit] Characteristics

Munch is Jewish, but once commented that the only thing he and Judaism had in common was that he "didn't like to work on Saturdays." He is sensitive to anti-semitic jokes. In the Homicide episode "Kaddish," he indicates that he is familiar with Jewish prayers, and eventually says the titular one at the show's end in memory of a Jewish murder victim. He is also familiar with common Yiddish words and phrases. In the SVU episode "Hysteria," Munch interacts with an Orthodox Jewish witness, using one yiddish word, verstehen ("understand"), and referring to the twelve Israelite tribes from the Bible. The man remarks that Munch must be Jewish and, consequently, agrees to help him out of fraternal connection. After the interaction, Munch reciprocates by offering the man a ride back to the Riverdale neighborhood in the Bronx.

He has a younger brother named Bernie who owns a funeral parlor; he at one point jokes that he occasionally "throws him some business". He mentioned another brother that is in the dry wall business in the Homicide episode "Gone For Goode" His cousin, Lee, acts as his accountant - and the accountant for The Waterfront - when he lives in Baltimore.

Munch has been described as a stubborn man who can "smell a conspiracy at a five-year-old's lemonade stand." Munch can often be seen lecturing his co-workers on a variety of conspiracy theories which he views as obvious truths. In the very first episode of SVU, he rants about the government cover-up in the Kennedy Assassination. His views on conspiracy theories seem more accurate, from his point of view, than might have otherwise been the case. (The X-Files: "The Unusual Suspects")

At the onset of Homicide, he had been divorced twice, but by the seventh season he had had a grand total of three wives, until marrying his fourth, Billie Lou, during the series' final episode; each one of the previous three is "beautiful, spoiled, and none of them matched John Munch intellectually". We learn during the early seasons of SVU that Munch has divorced his fourth wife as well, and never shies away from cracking sarcastic divorce jokes. Dr. Aubrey Jackson (Law & Order Season 2), has noted however that despite his romantic troubles, Munch still believes in true love, and is crushed by the fact he has not found it.

He once stated that he and his first wife, Gwen, had sex once after their divorce. He arranges for the funeral of Gwen's mother despite the fact that his ex-mother-in-law loathed him and did everything in her power to disrupt her daughter's marriage to him. While working with Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) in the Homicide: Life on the Street episode "For God and For Country", Munch loses badly to Briscoe in a pool game, partly because he couldn't get over the fact that Briscoe had briefly dated (and slept with) Gwen. He goes on to get quite drunk and proclaims that he forgives Gwen and still loves her. Despite this, it appears that he and Briscoe become quite good friends - their interaction in the two following crossovers between Homicide and Law & Order is generally friendly.

While Munch could never be accused of being sentimental, his cynical façade has occasionally slipped, revealing a deep compassion — especially for children — borne from his unhappy childhood. When Munch emerged unscathed from an ambush shooting on Homicide that left three of his colleagues in the hospital, he tried to maintain his cynical demeanor by complaining to his commanding officer (Al Giardello) that "they got blood on my shoes, G" but he breaks down in tears anyway.

Munch is a staunch believer in individual rights and occasionally finds that something he has to do in the line of duty goes against his sense of morality. His dedication to his job usually wins out, however.

[edit] Appearances and crossovers

The character has spanned over 15 years and 16 seasons. Along with 122 episodes & 1 TV movie of Homicide and 200+ episodes of SVU, Munch has also appeared as a character in episodes of other series:

• Law & Order - four episodes: "Charm City", "Baby, It's You", "Sideshow (Part 1)", and "Entitled (Part 2)"
• The X-Files - one episode: "Unusual Suspects"
• The Beat - one episode: "They Say It's Your Birthday"
• Law & Order: Trial by Jury - one episode: "Skeleton (Part 2)"
• Arrested Development - two episodes: "Exit Strategy" and "S.O.B.'s" (cameo)
• The Wire - one episode: "Took"
• The character is also slated to appear in an episode of Paris enquêtes criminelles, the French version of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Munch has been the only fictional character played by a single actor to appear on eight different television shows. These shows were on four different networks: NBC (Homicide: Life on the Street, and Law & Order franchise), FOX (The X-Files, Arrested Development), UPN (The Beat), and HBO (The Wire). Munch has also been one of the only television characters to cross genres, appearing not only in crime drama series, but also the genres of sitcom (Arrested Development) and science fiction (The X-Files).

A muppet representation of Detective Munch appeared in the Sesame Street sketch "Law and Order: Special Letters Unit".

It has been reported in various places that Munch also appeared on an episode of The Simpsons, but this is incorrect. The confusion likely stems from the fact that on Belzer's biography page on IMDB, a list of shows that have featured appearances by Munch is directly followed by a list of six shows (including The Simpsons) that have featured Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson, the characters originally from the program Cheers played by John Ratzenberger and George Wendt.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Fictional crossover

[edit] External links

• Detective John Munch at the Internet Movie Database.