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Lanigan's Rabbi is the pilot for the subsequent TV series based on Harry Kemelman's novels about crimesolving Rabbi David Small. Stuart Margolin plays the Rabbi, while Art Carney is top-billed as the police detective who frequently relies on Small's intuition. This initial episode, adapted from Kemelman's Friday the Rabbi Slept Late concerns the murder of a woman whose body is discovered on the steps of the Rabbi's California synagogue. The mystery is given equal time with Small's concern over his pregnant wife, who is about to give birth at any minute. When Lanigan's Rabbi became as series, Stuart Margolin was committed to Rockford Files, so Bruce Solomon became the new Rabbi Small.