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Every precinct needs a good cop and a bad cop. The good cop is the one who calms you down, gives you a cigarette, and assures you that everything will be just fine as long as you're straight with him.

The bad cop throws chairs, glares at you like an attack dog, and tells you in detail about just what kind of new holes he's going to open up in your person if you Don't. Stop. Wasting. His. Time! Do you think the bad cop has all day? Well, do you?

Gary Basaraba makes a very good good cop. (Dennis Franz, on the other hand, makes a good bad cop. Jim Belushi makes a bad bad cop -- and a bad good cop, for that matter.) Gary Basaraba is the jolly, rotund sergeant who stands behind the desk, signs you in, then asks if you want a warm-up on your java.

Basaraba, who's from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, spent much off his early career playing the kind of roles that jolly, rotund, balding actors usually play: genial Southern neighbours, bartenders, Heywood Broun, or Andrew the Apostle. You know, the usuals.

(Okay, maybe not that last one - though Basaraba actually did play Andrew in The Last Temptation of the Christ. It's a shame that he didn't play Barrabas, the murderer released in place of Christ. That would have made for an excellent poster: "BASARABA IS BARRABAS!" And he did play Heywood Broun, too, in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. "BASARABA IS BROUN!")

More recently, you may have caught Basaraba as Art Wuliger, father to Chris's friend on Everybody Hates Chris. Come to think of it, "Art Wuliger" is pretty much the Platonic ideal of names for characters that Gary Basaraba might play. The only way it would be better is if he was named Officer Art Wuliger.

Because Basaraba truly found his niche in 1997 when he stepped behind the desk as Sgt. Richard Santaro, the affable desk sergeant on the short-lived cop show Brooklyn South. He's since played a police detective in Unfaithful, a police officer in Boomtown, a police officer on Law & Order, and a police detective in the straight-to-video and actual-word-free-titled movie K-9:P.I.

In fact, Basaraba is so well-suited to play cops that he's like the funny friend who's always renting tuxes because he's forever getting asked to be the best man at everyone's wedding. At this point, Basaraba should stop renting the cop uniform, and just invest in one for himself. Keep it in the closet so you have it. Trust us: it will pay for itself in no time.