I do, as well. Strange, the things that get stuck in your brain.
In watching some of the old episodes on DVD, it struck me that they’d only have “big” emergencies (lots of other squads showing up, big fires, etc.) a couple of times a season. My suspicion was that the production staff saved up their budgets (pyrotechnics, acting extras, additional engines, etc.) by having several episodes that consisted of “small” (i.e., not expensive to film) emergencies, then blew the budget on the big fires.
Kevin Tighe was also the owner of the titular establishment in Roadhouse.
There really are people in the world who get in the way and make things difficult during an emergency. Since this leads to interesting stories, Webb and his writers used those kinds of characters a lot.
But they often turned the tables, as well. I remember one episode of Adam-12 where they were having problems with criminals who would escape into the hills on dirt bikes, where the patrol car couldn’t follow. Malloy suspected the local dirtbag motorcycle club, and had a talk with their leader which was full of insults from the bikers. The next time the cops chased the dirt bikers into the hills, they watched as the bad guys got chased back toward Adam-12 by the biker gang that had waited for them in order to clear their wounded honor.
She was also in Jack Webb’s movie, “The DI.” She played the crybaby recruit’s widowed mother, who wanted the drill instructor to kick the kid’s butt.
~VOW
Back in the days when Hubster and I were dating (when the buffalo herds still covered the Great Plains), we went to Universal Studios. Audience members were invited to participate in a staged episode from Adam-12. He and I got parts, just a “random couple” sitting at a table in a nightclub. Our scene was then filmed and spliced into the original episode, through the magic of editing.
SOMEWHERE we’ve got the copy of that…what a relic! (and that was before VCRs were invented!)
~VOW
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, this was actually a pilot called 905 WILD, starring a young Mark Harmon. I believe it was the last episode of Emergency. The pilot never got off the ground AFAIK.
You can see it on Hulu–I watched it recently, along with the rest of the run of Emergency (I watch old childhood favorite TV shows while leveling WoW characters.) Don’t watch it if you’re sensitive to animal deaths, though. There was one in particular that really got to me.
she did tons of roles on radio. was a regular on radio Have Gun–Will Travel as Miss Wong (maid and girlfriend of Hey Boy) and a regular on Richard Diamond, Private Detective.
I remember the bathtub episode, and the pull tab episode, too. I remember one about a teenager who ate two loaves of raw cinnamon bread his mom had left rising (for his birthday). Of course, his stomach swelled horribly and he had to be taken to the hospital, moaning in pain. As I recall, one of the paramedics (I think it was Gage) told him that they’d get him back so he could have some cake, causing the young man to groan even louder.
I remember the episode where Johnny got hit by a car and Roy spent the entire story dealing with Brice the OCD paramedic as his partner. The actor who played Brice was another Jack Webb favorite, and was one of the leads in a very short-lived (6 episodes) Webb effort about park rangers called ‘Sierra’.
Hell, even Adam-12 main cast members got recycled on Dragnet. Kent McCord was some nameless uniform a couple of times before he was established as Reed. Once he played an undercover cop accused of robbing a liquor store, resulting in an episode-long grilling from Friday (and wouldn’t ya know it, it turned out to be a guy who looked just like him wearing the same exact clothes!). And I remember William Boyett (Sgt. Mac) playing a crook or a drunk or something.
I used to watch these in reruns. I think my favorite Emergency was the episode when they had restored some old fire engine and were driving it to a parade but then they saw smoke and proceeded to the fire manually ringing the bell.
I think Jack Webb and Aaron Sorkin must be related or have the same mental illness. Both treat dialogue in a very similar fashion.
Jack Webb is really kind of disturbing in Sunset Blvd. He smiles in it.
Some friends of ours host a big Halloween party every year, and each year’s party has a theme for costumes. A few years ago, the theme was “1970s / 1980s TV shows”, and so, my wife and I went as Gage and DeSoto. (My wife is a brunette, so she was Johnny; I’m blonde, so I was Roy.)
I found the actual style of shirts that they wore on the show (a particular Dickies work shirt), found reproductions of the LA County Paramedic patches they wore on their sleeves, had name badges made up, etc. We even got some (costume) fireman’s helmets, which I spray-painted black…we had a graphic-designer friend make graphics to mimic the “plates” they had on the front (saying “LA County 51”). We brought along a picture of Gage and Desoto (so people would know who we were); another friend, who was a huge fan of the show (and had a huge crush on Randolph Mantooth) demanded the picture.
MST fans may remember that Tim Donnelly, who played Chet Kelly on *Emergency!, *was the lead idiot clone in Parts: The Clonus Horror.
I was also amusingly shocked by the even then outdated attitudes towards women on the show. I remember laughing as Johnny described the dating problems with all the nurses at the hospital. Some of them were even in their late 20’s!
Don’t watch it if you’re sensitive to animal deaths, though. There was one in particular that really got to me.