First the sad news: Stephen J. Cannell has died. As the Los Angeles Times reports, the longtime Hollywood producer passed away last week at the age of 69 due to complications from melanoma.

You might not recognize the name but you’ll recognize his work: The Rockford Files (where Cannell employed a young writer named David Chase), 21 Jump Street (where we first discovered Johnny Depp), The A-Team (where I first glimpsed a sawed-off AK-47, which must’ve been filled with blanks since no one ever seemed to die on the show—instead people were simply thrown into the air), and the underrated Greatest American Hero. As Cannell once told Success magazine (and as noted by the Times), “One of my work ethic traits comes from the fact that I absolutely love what I do. I’ve never felt that writing was work…. I get up every morning, and I’m not going to work, I’m going to play. I get to play cops and robbers.” We should all be so lucky. (You may have seen Cannell over the years without realizing it: His logo, which featured Cannell at the typewriter, ended all of his shows. In this montage, we not only see Cannell age but his office become more refined and filled with Emmys.)