B.J. and the Bear is an American comedy series

Television comedy

Television comedy had a presence from the earliest days of broadcasting. Among the earliest BBC television programmes in the 1930s was Starlight, which offered a series of guests from the music hall era — singers and comedians amongst them...

 which aired on NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 from 1979 to 1981. Created by Christopher Crowe and Glen A. Larson

Glen A. Larson

Glen Albert Larson is an American television producer and writer best known as the creator of Battlestar Galactica, The Fall Guy, Magnum, P.I. and Knight Rider.-Career:...

, the series stars Greg Evigan

Greg Evigan

Gregory Ralph "Greg" Evigan is an American actor best known for the TV series B.J. and the Bear, My Two Dads, P.S. I Luv U and TekWar.-Personal life:...

 and Claude Akins

Claude Akins

Claude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...

.
Greg Evigan stars as B.J. (Billie Joe) McKay, a professional freelance itinerant trucker who traveled the country's highways in a red and white Kenworth

Kenworth

Kenworth is an American manufacturer of medium and heavy-duty Class 8 trucks based in Kirkland, Washington, United States, a suburb of Seattle. It is a subsidiary of PACCAR, and is also a former manufacturer of transit buses and school buses.-History:...

 K-100 cab over

Cab over

Cab-over, also known as COE , cab forward, or forward control, is a body style of truck or van that has a vertical front or "flat face", with the cab of the truck sitting above the front axle...

 semi truck with his pet chimpanzee

Chimpanzee

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...

, Bear (named after Bear Bryant

Bear Bryant

Paul William "Bear" Bryant was an American college football player and coach. He was best known as the longtime head coach of the University of Alabama football team. During his 25-year tenure as Alabama's head coach, he amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships...

, the famed football coach for Alabama, explaining the chimp's choice of headwear).