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Cop and a Half

1993 film by Henry Winkler

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ1961779 ↗
Source-derived summary

Cop and a Half is a 1993 American family buddy cop-comedy film directed by Henry Winkler, and stars Burt Reynolds, Norman D. Golden II and Ray Sharkey in his final role. Reynolds plays veteran cop Nick McKenna who reluctantly takes eight-year-old boy Devon Butler (Golden) as his partner to solve a murder investigation.

Cop and a Half opened at #1 in the U.S. and grossed $40.7 million worldwide against a $14 million budget. The film was followed by a lower budgeted, direct-to-DVD sequel, Cop and a Half: New Recruit (2017).

Plot

Devon Butler is an eight-year-old boy who lives in Tampa, Florida with his grandmother Rachel in a small apartment. Devon dreams of being a cop. He watches police TV shows, knows police procedures and plays cops and robbers with his friend Raymond Sanchez. One day, while snooping around in a warehouse, he witnesses a murder. He goes to the police station to report the crime where he meets Captain Rubio and Detective Nick McKenna, who dislikes children. The police try and get information out of Devon, but he refuses to give the information unless they make him a cop.

Editorial summary

“Cop and a Half” enters the record as 1993 film by Henry Winkler. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Half, film and Henry can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1993, 2017—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1993-01-01, 1993-07-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Half, film and Henry.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Cop and a Half” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Half, film and Henry provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1961779. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993 and 2017.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cop and a Half”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cop and a Half primary sources, Cop and a Half archive and Half research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cop and a Half”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Cop and a Half” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.