Emergency!

[bmasters1981]

First post here for me in a long time-- just wanted to know: does anyone here remember a 70s NBC medical/action series called Emergency!? It had Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe as John Gage and Roy DeSoto, paramedics who just happened to also be firefighters in Station 51 in Los Angeles County (it also had Robert Fuller, Julie London, Bobby Troup and Ron Pinkard in the roles of the medical staff of Rampart General Hospital [Dr. Kelly Brackett, Nurse Dixie McCall, Dr. Joe Early and Dr. Mike Morton respectively]).

[Bobbi]

Oh yes!!! LOVE that show! Cozi TV is airing it on a regular basis as well as FeTV (Family Entertainment TV). It's amazing!!! Some of the techniques is kind of out of date but that's the nature of medicine.

Cozi also did a 50th special on Emergency! and spoke to people in LAFD, especially those curating their museum where the actual Squad 51 lives.

And if you think I'm crazy, a friend of mine goes bonkers for this show.

[bmasters1981]

Oh yes!!! LOVE that show! Cozi TV is airing it on a regular basis as well as FeTV (Family Entertainment TV). It's amazing!!! Some of the techniques is kind of out of date but that's the nature of medicine.

Cozi also did a 50th special on Emergency! and spoke to people in LAFD, especially those curating their museum where the actual Squad 51 lives.

And if you think I'm crazy, a friend of mine goes bonkers for this show.

I've enjoyed it very much on DVD, and have finished it (a lot of the DVD prints are apparently of a 16MM form [subpar picture quality], but that did not affect how much I enjoyed what, to me, was a well-written, well-shot, well-produced and well-acted series [the play's the thing, IOW]). It's well-worth the money, IMO (series, movies, Adam-12 crossover and all).

BTW, has Mike Quigley ever seen the show?

[Bobbi]

That's a good question, I think he's seen a few episodes but you'll have to ask him.

[bmasters1981]

That's a good question, I think he's seen a few episodes but you'll have to ask him.

I probably will-- I'd like to read his comments on the episodes (that is to say, what he did for Five-O, The Streets of San Francisco and Peter Gunn, among others).

[Mr. Mike]

Uh, who is this mysterious "Mike Quigley" guy? Is he someone who never usually reads the forums?

Sarcasm aside, I have no interest in doing a WWW site for Emergency or just about any other show these days.

Emergency, according to Wikipedia, was 122 shows. (This is only one less than Rockford Files, by the way, also being requested of me.) Assuming I watched one show each day and took another day to write it up, that is about 2/3 of a year.

Nope!

(As far as I can recall, I don't think I have ever seen a single episode of Emergency.)

[Mr. Mike]

There was some discussion here a couple of years ago (which I am resurrecting with this reply) about the show Emergency, suggesting that it might make a good series for me to make a web site about.

The library here just got a couple of season boxes of this show, so I ordered one. I think I am the first guy to get this box, because it is in mint condition. I don't understand how people can treat DVDs from the library (and CDs) so badly that they will get to the point where they won't play. The library has some kind of "grinding" machine which they apply to the playing surface of some of these trashed discs which can make them play, though.

Anyway, I watched S0501 of Emergency, the 1975 episode called "The Stewardess."

Stars of the show DeSoto and Gage are returning on a jet to Los Angeles when some guy on the plane has a heart attack. They are called on to assist. As the show went along, I kept saying, "Where is the drama here?" The two emergency dudes were in touch with the hospital they usually deal with and the doctor there gave them instructions on what to do, after some of their equipment which was in the plane's hold was found.

The show is about 48 minutes long, and as the clock kept ticking, I wondered if the plane was going to have problems landing or something else major would happen. But nothing did. Once it landed and the guy with the heart attack was transferred to an ambulance, he was taken to the hospital, though the ambulance did stop briefly when he started flatlining and they had to use defibrillators. Eventually they arrived at the hospital, and I guess he was taken care of.

Once DeSoto and Gage returned to their home base, they had something else to deal with. A motorcyclist had seemingly passed out and went flying over a curb. When they arrived at the scene, they figured the guy had damaged one of his ribs. Soon after they got him to the hospital, he had an epileptic fit, which was probably what caused him to black out and get injured on the street. One of the doctors explained to him patiently that having epilepsy is really not such a big deal, there are drugs to treat this and people with this condition can "live a normal life." There was some amusement provided by a nosy woman at the scene of the biker's accident who told the emergency guys that he was probably a "doper."

After this, there was yet another "emergency," a fire in a building which contained flammable chemicals. Along with the other firemen, one who was like a chief was dealing with this, when suddenly there was a huge explosion, and he went flying across the room, ending up in the chemical foam which being sprayed all over the place. He wasn't badly injured.

The title of the show related to the fact that on the plane coming back to LA, Gage was trying to hustle one of the stewardesses, played by Gretchen Corbett. She had practically nothing else to do during the show other than listen to Gage bragging about his exploits, and helping him when dealing with the heart attack victim. Later, Gage was impressed by the fact that Corbett's character phoned him at home, as if this was some kind of a big deal, but at the end, he decided that he didn't want to hang out with her because she was too "bossy." Seriously!

The show was very family-friendly, that's for sure, if you consider people nearly dying to be family-friendly, and I'm sure that the show is very accurate in terms of all the medical-related stuff is concerned. But making a WWW site for this? I don't think so!

[bmasters1981]

The show was very family-friendly, that's for sure, if you consider people nearly dying to be family-friendly, and I'm sure that the show is very accurate in terms of all the medical-related stuff is concerned. But making a WWW site for this? I don't think so!

You know something? I don't blame you (after all, Emergency! had 2, 3 or 4 subplots to deal with every Saturday on NBC, where as Five-O and Streets usually had just one plotline the entire show on CBS and ABC respectively, and so Emergency! would be a bit much for you).

Still, thank you for the sample of what would have been on such a page/site (and for doing it for one of my favorite episodes as well).

[Bobbi]

Mr. Mike - I love this show. They did have multiple incidents throughout each episode and in some cases, people did die.

I think it's more of an everyday, human drama type. Not a lot of hype, just firefighters doing their jobs and living their lives. There are several humorous moments too.

This is part of the Jack Webb family of shows that include Adam-12 and Dragnet. He was all about the realism. This show was also done when paramedics were brand new. Ronald Reagan was the governor who signed the bill into law creating paramedics in California. This show also influenced several cities and municipalities to create their own paramedic programs. It's part of the reason we see EMTs with the fire departments now. It was about improving first responders and thus helping the general public.

The nice thing about Emergency! is like Five-O, it's rewatchable. May not be everyone's cup of tea - but that's okay too.

[ringfire211]

Yeah watching first responders deal with “emergencies” (multiple ones per episode - I think I remember one with a cat stuck in a tree lol) is not my cup of tea. Sounds like they took the medical show concept which was popular at the time (Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby) and wanted to spice it up by adding fire trucks and the like to appeal to the younger generation and the kiddos. Add in an occasional explosion and the kids get their action quotient. Of course all this is really tame by today’s standards but I guess it was all that was available at the time for the kiddos. On the other hand I know that something like S.W.A.T. certainly was more action-heavy and must have appealed greatly to the kiddos at the time. So I imagine they would be more excited by something like that. But then again you can never underestimate the excitement of a rolling fire truck with its sirens blazing so maybe that was enough to keep the kids glued to the set watching EMERGENCY! You’re certainly not gonna see many kids tuning into Marcus Welby. So I guess EMERGENCY! was a more exciting version of that. But again the word “exciting” is all relevant here. I never found it exciting. But then I never watched it as a 9 or 10 year old. At that age I was obsessed with KNIGHT RIDER!! Now there’s a show that will definitely appeal to every kid!!!! Performing CPR or getting a cat out of a tree? Not so much. LOL!