Wow.
I’m pretty sure I watched that show at the time. What struck me in watching that opening:
- A fire pole? Station 51 was a one-story building!

- The “+4” vehicle looked an awful lot like a 1970s Hot Wheels Ambulance.
Wow.
I’m pretty sure I watched that show at the time. What struck me in watching that opening:
One more story, which I’d forgotten about until now…
My wife and several of her friends were in Los Angeles a few years ago, for a fan-fic convention (not Emergency!, but many of them were fans of the show). They went to visit the actual LA County fire station which was used for the exterior shots of Station 51 in the show. The firemen there were very gracious (they’re accustomed to having the occasional visitor), and they even had special T-shirts for sale (proceeds benefited a fireman’s benevolent fund).
I can vaguely remember watching both Adam-12 and Emergency! as a kid, but I only remember one specific scene from Emergency!, mainly because of my mother’s comment on the scene.
The crew was called out because a mother had been preparing to bake her teenage son’s favorite bread (some kind of sweet bread, I guess) for his birthday. The son couldn’t wait for her to bake it, and ate the batter.
Which then proceeded to rise in his stomach, creating some obviously very painful bloating.
So as the crew scrambled to solve the problem, my mom (who did a lot of baking herself) asked, “Why don’t they just punch it?” 
Where is the fire station? I thought I read somewhere that it was a county fire station adjacent to the Universal lot.
2049 E. 223rd St., Carson.
Same here. We always bought the school lunch so I had no need for lunchboxes but I had the board game. Speaking of games, I don’t recall how it worked but a few of us guys would get together for pretend “Emergecy!” during recess.
I remember that one too! Kind of grossed me out as a kid, seeing him laying on the hospital gurney with this huge lump on his stomach!
Something I never understood all the years I watched it: That station was two-bays wide and it clearly had front & back garage-type doors (i.e. it was ‘drive-thru’). So why the hell did they *always *show the paramedics backing back in?!
The rear doors were blocked by the BBQ and the hot tub.
It’s in a very industrial area (which the exterior shots reflected).
Remember the famous Dragnet episode about the young couple whose negligent pot-smoking leads to their toddler drowning in the bathtub? Tim Donnelly was the dad.
Oh yeah! A long alarm was going to be something good, often with other fire companies to add to the drama; a short one, not so much.
And the defibrillator! As soon as that counter hit 400, all of us watching the TV would shout, “Clear!”
I had the Adam 12 lunchbox.
Which depicted the episode where the kid gets his head stuck in a metal gate and Malloy tries to ease it out by applying large dollops of yellow grease to the kid’s ears.
You don’t know what you are talking about
Thanks. It’s cool how they named it the Robert A. Cinader Memorial Fire Station.
they renamed the fire station on the studio grounds to Station 51 in 1994 in honor of the show.
Okay. So, please enlighten us.
I had a Station 51 fireman’s hat. My older sister was a big fan too, I was around to see it in reruns, which were shown on weekend afternoons if I remember right.
With the mustache, Donnelly did have a sort of Rob Reiner-esque hippy quality to him. And I remember an episode where everyone was trying to open some kind of chinese puzzle ball and getting so frustrated that they were throwing it on the floor to break it open. At the end, Johnny showed them how various parts slid aside to open it.
I had the helmet as well. I also remember seeing in the Sear’s Christmas Catalog the fire helmet and an oxygen tank and face mask. Getting that thing would’ve been sweet.