The Rockford Files: Shoot-Out at the Golden Pagoda

Because James Garner's original production company, Cherokee Productions ceased operations after1980, due to Garner's lawsuit with Universal Studios, Garner formed a new production company to produce the 1990's Rockford movies. The name of the new production company was MGB Productions. MGB was a British-made sports coupé, manufactured by MG, fitting in with Mr Garners love of automobiles, and also fit in nicely with the names the initials stand for; "M" for Meta Rosenberg, "G" for James Garner,, and "B" for Juanita Bartlett. Meta Rosenberg was his long-time agent/producer, who also directed a few episodes of the original series. Juanita Bartlett was also a long time writer, producer during production of The Rockford Files (1974), who started writing for Garner shows all the way back during Nichols (1971).

This film - The Rockford Files: Shoot-Out at the Golden Pagoda (1997) is entitled on the DVD collection; "Murder and Misdemeanors".

Even though Pete Carpenter, who co-composed themes and many episode scores for The Rockford Files (1974) and other TV series with Mike Post, passed away in 1987, he is still credited with Post on this and the rest of the Rockford Files TV movies.

While dining at the Sandcastle, Harvey is seen reading the novel "King Con" by Stephen J. Cannell; co-creator and series ' producer of The Rockford Files (1974).

The character John Amos plays, named 'Booker Hutch', is, in fact, Gandolph Fitch, played by Isaac Hayes in 3 episodes of the series. Though the name is never said, an article (which can clearly be seen) about the friendship between Rockford and Gandolph/Booker clearly says this, but, it displays the name 'Gandolph' in hyphens - as if it were a nickname. Usually, a characters name (when it appears in 2 or more related shows) is changed to avoid paying royalties, but in this case, many actors and the character(s) they played (esp. those paying a lead role) during the series' run have been brought back in these Rockford movies to rekindle memories (in fact, a character who's name was also used in the same episode's title - Aura Lee, from the episode, The Rockford Files: Aura Lee, Farewell (1975) - is used in the last film as the name of the crisis centre Rita volunteers at). Also, since it's a different actor, entirely, it makes the reason this was done odder. Odder still, is the fact that Denise Nicholas, who plays Leddy Hutch - Gandolph/Booker's wife (here) is supposed to be - sigh - the character Dionne Warwick played, (Theda Moran/Best), in the episode, The Rockford Files: Second Chance (1977).