Emergency - General Discussion

[Raja]

Now that I'm rewatching on Hulu and MeTV....

I suspect that they cherry picked a disproportionate number of actual rescues where someone was stuck on top of a crane, though.  I think they bought an old crane and figured they had to get their money's worth!  Seriously, it seems like every other one I'm watching they're climbing up on a crane, or scaffolding, or something else horrifying.  

Also, kids seem to play in abandoned buildings a lot.

And someday it would be fun to see just how many minutes of each episode is "emergency vehicles driving around to get to a location."  These days there would NOT be anywhere close to that much footage of the journey unless it was significant to the plot for some reason!

 

Well since the outdoor model used to stand in for Station 51 was across the street from an oil refinery the crane and industrial  rescue scenes made much more sense then the long real life drives to the mountains the squad often took. It was mostly produced after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake so compared to many eras there were abandoned buildings. And with the current events about police being called in if a kid walks home 2 blocks from a park alone we were all "free range" back then.

[Raja]

Randolph Mantooth was also in one or two episodes of "Sons of Anarchy" - either fourth or fifth season. 

Chief Charlie Horse who made the reservation a safe storage area that was politically less accessible to law enforcement. Fourth season first and third episodes for those not willing to go into the darkness of SAMCRO any further than necessary

[bigskygirl]

Happy birthday Kevin!

[crowswork]

I was watching a really old Hawaii 50 and when a cop was shot they just roared up with a station wagon, folded him up and crammed him into the wagon.... later McG said "He didn't make it." well hedurrr!

[ennui]

Randolph Mantooth on Walker Texas Ranger this a.m.---as a villain!  (episode "Rainbow's End")

Walker T.R. trivia -- good guys had to be around the same height as Chuck Norris, who is relatively average. Bad guys could be bigger, because then Chuck looks good, beating up the bigger bad guy. So, Chuck around 5'9"-ish, Randolph at 6'1", Randolph had to be a villain.

[Raja]

This was one of my favorites as a child. I did a rewatch about 1-2 years ago and was surprised how well it had stood the test of time.

One thing that didn't was just this week I saw an episode where Mariette Hartley was a mother physically beating her child. Far from being mandatory reporters Drs Brackett and Early where there alone setting her up for therapy while the father being in denial of what his wife did. They didn't bring the reoccurring Deputy then Officer Vince into the hospital scenes but did use guest detectives on occasion and I was sitting thinking where were Children and family Services and the cops.

[ennui]

One thing that didn't was just this week I saw an episode where Mariette Hartley was a mother physically beating her child. Far from being mandatory reporters Drs Brackett and Early where there alone setting her up for therapy while the father being in denial of what his wife did. They didn't bring the reoccurring Deputy then Officer Vince into the hospital scenes but did use guest detectives on occasion and I was sitting thinking where were Children and family Services and the cops.

Prior to 1980, someone had to observe the abuse. After 1980, knowledge of it was enough.

[Raja]

And someday it would be fun to see just how many minutes of each episode is "emergency vehicles driving around to get to a location."  These days there would NOT be anywhere close to that much footage of the journey unless it was significant to the plot for some reason!

 

And in today's syndication edits they compress the time by speeding up the feed. You can hear the pitch of the siren get lower when someone starts speaking as they go back to normal speed and then shift higher for the establishing transit shot.

[Crs97]

I think I mentioned on the other site watching an old Emergency! when a car hit a hydrant and took down some power lines.  Roy and Gage used some sort of rod to lift the live wire off the car so that she could get out.  Fast forward thirty years and the pilot of Chicago Fire has a car hit a hydrant and take down some power lines.  The fire fighters used the exact same technique.  I got a big kick out of that!  Hubby is a biomedical engineer specializing in cardiac stuff.  He scoffed once when I pulled up an Emergency! episode, thinking it would be really outdated, but when a victim had a heart attack he was extremely impressed at how well it held up.  I love this show!

[Raja]

They had one of their vacation in the middle of nowhere rescue episodes on today. No cell phones, no cars as far as the horizon can see, the doctor wasn't due for days until his next circuit. No child car seats, shoulder belts..... The funeral home hearse doubles as the local ambulance. Is it any wonder traffic deaths are going down

[Raja]

On 4/24/2014 at 2:21 PM, ElleryAnne said:

I kinda like this show. I've caught it a number of times in re-runs.  It's so earnest.  It's obvious the producer was more interested in showing how things were actually done in an ER,  or on a paramedic or fire call, than in using big tricks to create excitement.

This week ME has been showing the two hour episodes and TV movies. It seems as if someone at the network wasn't fine with the fire department procedural as they all spent twice the time for the same number of rescues/fires and stressed the personal affairs of the victims and/or the new younger paramedic team put in the line up as another shift at Station 51

[bigskygirl]

Kevin Tighe doing a first aid Public Service Announcement First Aid Film in the 1970's.   

[sigmaforce86]

On 4/19/2015 at 7:51 AM, cynicat said:

 

Sharpie66, I have to agree with you on that

 

Agree and like times 1000 - I had a crush on him back in the day, when I look at Emergency now I don't see him as my old crush anymore but then I look at a picture like this and think wow, there he is.

Enjoying watching the show in re-runs now, I'm finding more humor in it then I used to (on purpose humor not camp) and it's fun to watch what the other guys are doing in the background sometimes especially the Captain.

[Raja]

21 hours ago, sigmaforce86 said:

Agree and like times 1000 - I had a crush on him back in the day, when I look at Emergency now I don't see him as my old crush anymore but then I look at a picture like this and think wow, there he is.

Enjoying watching the show in re-runs now, I'm finding more humor in it then I used to (on purpose humor not camp) and it's fun to watch what the other guys are doing in the background sometimes especially the Captain.

I assume you mean Captain Stanley. The first Captain, Captain Hammer was a real life Firefighter/actor like Engineer Stoker was

[DCCFanInKy]

On 11/23/2015 at 8:15 PM, Raja said:

They had one of their vacation in the middle of nowhere rescue episodes on today. No cell phones, no cars as far as the horizon can see, the doctor wasn't due for days until his next circuit. No child car seats, shoulder belts..... The funeral home hearse doubles as the local ambulance. Is it any wonder traffic deaths are going down

Which ep? I've kinda been slacking off on watching E! a little bit due to a recent family illness/death (seems like most of the episodes have at least one heart related rescue which is a touchy subject right now).

Edited July 6, 2016 by DCCFanInKy
slight change in wording

[Raja]

2 hours ago, DCCFanInKy said:

Which ep? I've kinda been slacking off on watching E! a little bit due to a recent family illness/death (seems like most of the episodes have at least one heart related rescue which is a touchy subject right now).

I would have to do some Google Fu later to get the year and episode name But I think I was referencing  the fishing trip episode  where  the local Sheriff was asking all sorts of questions trying to figure out how to protect his far flung rural community and they came upon the ideal of volunteer EMTs linked by CB radios. Since even if he had paramedics it would take a helicopter which he didn't have.

[DCCFanInKy]

10 hours ago, Raja said:

I would have to do some Google Fu later to get the year and episode name But I think I was referencing  the fishing trip episode  where  the local Sheriff was asking all sorts of questions trying to figure out how to protect his far flung rural community and they came upon the ideal of volunteer EMTs linked by CB radios. Since even if he had paramedics it would take a helicopter which he didn't have.

"Welcome to Santa Rosa County"

Edited July 7, 2016 by DCCFanInKy
Editor issues

[sigmaforce86]

I use this for episode info........I try to watch in order but my station shows them just a little out of order, they'll do things like show ep 3 then 5 and 6 then 4 but sometimes the'll throw in a couple from a different season 

Wiki Emergency episodes

[magicdog]

Just saw the episode in which Kelly"s dad (played by James Gregory) was admitted for a blood clot.  It was refreshing  to see he had a good relationship with his dad since medical dramas tend to have fathers and sons bickering often or estranged .

[SayMyName]

I'm watching the episode today on Cozi and it's the episode where the 2 kids drive a car onto a roof and it is teetering on falling off with the front of the car hanging off the roof. The boys are in the front and back seat and Roy has the kid in the back seat get out first. Bad physics Roy, bad physics. Have the kid in the front go to the back and push the center of gravity back. Luckily for that kid Emergency! can defy the laws of physics.

[Raja]

Every time this board shows activity again my first fear is that I am about to open an obituary 

[Waterston Fan]

Hello? Is there anyone here from the IMDB boards? 

[magicdog]

Caught an episode on COZI which made me wonder who was in charge of checking scripts for accuracy.  The episode (I think it was one of the TV movies that aired circa 1978) was seemingly based on "Towering Inferno" (1974).  The fire is in a tall skyscraper and several different engines (everyone other than 51 oddly enough!) with firefighters yet unseen previously are helping Roy and Johnny fight it.  While going door to door to find any trapped persons, Roy & Johnny do what no  one should do when there's an emergency in a tall building:  using the elevator to go from floor to floor!  Not surprisingly, they get stuck between floors and have to find a way out.

I'm no expert as far as I know but firefighters use stairs (gear and all) to go floor to floor - they never ride in elevators of burning buildings.

 

I also can't help but wonder if the TV movies were less about real incidents and more fictional in their storylines.  The writing and acting is also rather clunky - even for the times.

[magicdog]

I used to love watching the show when it was first run, and watching eps on COZI are still enjoyable but considering how much has changed over the past 40+ years, could Emergency! be rebooted into either a new series or as a continuation of the original?

Most might say that Chicago Fire is more or less the descendant of Emergency! but it's all fiction, whereas the original series was based on actual rescue logs.  Then there's the thought of rebooting it in either the present (again, sticking to actual rescue logs) or for a change of pace - revive it in the early 70s just as the original series was.  Like the pilot, it could take place in LA with the passing of the Wentworth - Townsend Act, or perhaps this time focus on a different team in a different city/state that just established their own Paramedic program.  Half the fun could be the retro atmosphere and life before cell phones, the internet and stricter rules on procedures.

If it were set in LA in the present as a continuation, we could bring back as many surviving cast members for a reunion (someone awarded recognition for being one of the first paramedics in the style of the "Original 16" - perhaps a newly released documentary), perhaps Johnny or Roy had progeny who decided to follow in their footsteps (In Roy's case, he had two children under 10 which would make them in their 50s now and possibly department brass), while Johnny could have a son in his late 20s or early 30s  and is a field paramedic like dear ol' dad (Johnny was a bachelor by show's end and it's possible he didn't have any children until the 80s or 90s).  Plus we could pad out the real rescues with a bit of comedy/drama between the cast.

 

Thoughts?

[Raja]

7 hours ago, magicdog said:

Caught an episode on COZI which made me wonder who was in charge of checking scripts for accuracy.  The episode (I think it was one of the TV movies that aired circa 1978) was seemingly based on "Towering Inferno" (1974).  The fire is in a tall skyscraper and several different engines (everyone other than 51 oddly enough!) with firefighters yet unseen previously are helping Roy and Johnny fight it.  While going door to door to find any trapped persons, Roy & Johnny do what no  one should do when there's an emergency in a tall building:  using the elevator to go from floor to floor!  Not surprisingly, they get stuck between floors and have to find a way out.

I'm no expert as far as I know but firefighters use stairs (gear and all) to go floor to floor - they never ride in elevators of burning buildings.

 

I also can't help but wonder if the TV movies were less about real incidents and more fictional in their storylines.  The writing and acting is also rather clunky - even for the times.

It is strange they brought in bigger name actors and tried to up the soap opera element of the TV movies and they all just dragged as they went away from fire and rescue procedural  to a soap with a major disaster as the backdrop. Maybe the  best Emergency TV movie looked like a two hour backdoor pilot for a spinoff in San Francisco  when at the time they had females starting as paramedics while LA County had Firefighter/paramedics and women were not qualifying yet.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Raja

[Waterston Fan]

I don't really think so but then they would have to make it more of a soap opera like Chicago Fire. 

Look at the ER and medical shows, how much of it is now just drama stuff even Chicago Fire is already there. 

[Raja]

I would consider the first years of Third Watch as the true descendents of Emergency but then in the later seasons it became The Shield lite and focused on Sergeant Cruz and one way over the top shoot out featuring the patrol cops every season 

[magicdog]

COZI just showed the final Emergency! TV movie which had Johnny & Roy promoted to Captain and moving on with their professional lives while reminiscing about their past rescues.  

I guess that means we're back to the pilot on Monday.  

The movie seemed to hint that Chet had died in the line of duty - speaking of him in past tense.    It was also a bummer that we didn't see the rest of the cast one final time - as opposed to the clips from past episodes.  Considering the occasion, they deserved better.  A clip show (or movie) are such a cheap way to go out of a popular, long running series.

[magicdog]

When I think back to watching the show as a kid I always remembered Boot.  I actually forgot another dog was brought in as a mascot !

Seeing the Henry eps I've become more partial to him.  Plus he had an additional purpose.  Chet used his  ears to polish the brass! 

[sigmaforce86]

There's a great series of interviews with Randolph Mantooth on You Tube.  It's one of these below but I don't remember which and didn't have time to watch them.  Anyway - he talks about ground rules they layed out when developing the show specifically that they'd be based at the Firehouse or Hospital but never go into the casts homes (although they tried for one or two episodes in the first season).  And when it started the studio tried to add rules of no blood and nobody dies -  which they let go eventually and it seems funny now.  He also mentions how the writers reacted to the requirement that all the rescues be from real rescues that happened somewhere in the country.

I think Emergency worked because we got to know the guys at work, they had their funny moments at the station but it didn't get bogged down with seeing them at home, bloating the cast with everyone's wife, kids, girlfriends, boyfriends.  I wonder if creators and writers would have the restraint and creativity these days to do a reboot with those same rules because I think that was part of the shows success.

 

Interview 1

Interview 2

Edited May 28, 2017 by sigmaforce86

[JuliaJenkins]

I remember Henry but not Boot. I had to look him up. Did they tell why they named him Boot? 

[Raja]

4 hours ago, JuliaJenkins said:

I remember Henry but not Boot. I had to look him up. Did they tell why they named him Boot? 

As with the LAPD a probationary firefighter in LACo FD is a "Boot". Our Boot here was a stray dog which was adopted by Station 51, as such in a probationary status before the crews decided to keep him rather than call Animal Control.

[JuliaJenkins]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

As with the LAPD a probationary firefighter in LACo FD is a "Boot". Our Boot here was a stray dog which was adopted by Station 51, as such in a probationary status before the crews decided to keep him rather than call Animal Control.

Thank you for the explanation. I was feeling sorry for the little guy not having a proper name but I can see now how they got his name. 

[TheMasterReborn]

The 2009 TV show Trauma was basically a modern version of Emergency, even using a couple of  story lines and making in-jokes about the  show.  It ran on NBC, but only lasted one season.  Kevin Tighe made an appearance, not as Roy, in episode 13 called "13". Randolph Mantooth was planning to appear in the same episode, but he had scheduling conflicts.  It was not as good as Emergency, but I was still disappointed when it was cancelled.  I've often felt, if the show lasted, we would have gotten a reunion with Randy & Kevin.

https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/trauma-nbc-series-emergency-tv-show/ 

[Raja]

With coverage all the local wildfires knocking off local talk and judge shows I am reminded of the episode when John and Roy were left behind to cover local emergencies while the engine crew was up working the fire. Of course by the end they were sent to fire camp in reserve and had to save their own station mates.

[magicdog]

It would have been even more awesome if all surviving Emergency actors had made an appearance !  Bonus if it happened in one episode!!

[magicdog]

When I was a kid and the show first run someone had told me Boot got his name due to his chewing up a pair of boots .  However I dont remember hearing it in the series proper or a shot of a guilty looking Boot gnawing on Johnny’s shoes (because you know it would be Johnny’s boots!!).

[dgpolo]

I just watched the episode 'Gossip' on Cozi and they cut out all the gossip parts! It was very strange, I remember the nurse played by Catherine Burns gossiping to various people about Dr. Morton and even though she got an opening credit they cut out all of her scenes except for when Dixie finally chews her out. Strange!

[The Ringo Kidd]

I loved Julie London with the heat of a thousand suns!!!!!

That White nurses uniform with the little Hat!

Yowza!

She was so hot she even gave that monumental stiff Jack Webb a hardon!

[Waterston Fan]

I did record the show on COZI but I guess the network doesn't like closed caption so I can't really hear everything. 

Has anyone watched the Steel Inferno? I wished they showed the guys from Station 51 but its fitting that station 110 was shown more. 

[peacheslatour]

Has anybody mentioned how gorgeous Randall Mantooth was? And still is?

[BW Manilowe]

I watch the show on Cozi through YouTube TV. It makes me crazy when they run the TV movies because I think (& am basically positive) the 2 movies set in San Francisco with the 2 female paramedics are shown out of production order (like showing Part 2 of an Ep before showing Part 1). Does anybody else think that?

[BW Manilowe]

22 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Has anybody mentioned how gorgeous Randall Mantooth was? And still is?

His first name is Randolph.

[BW Manilowe]

OK... Cozi TV has cycled back to the pilot, “The Wedworth Townsend Act”. I’m assuming the part at the very beginning, where Johnny’s hair was longer & he says something to Roy about does Roy remember having roped Johnny into being a paramedic, & he & Roy are sitting at 51’s kitchen table, was added later, for some reason, when the show went into syndication? I know I saw the pilot when it was originally on, which I also know was a zillion years ago, but I don’t think that part was on the original version. Especially since Randolph Mantooth’s hair was shorter at the beginning of the series than at the end.

Another thing about the pilot... doesn’t Johnny tell/remind Roy he was working at Station 8’s when they met, in that preliminary part I’d swear they added when the show went into syndication? If so, why is he seen working outta Station 10’s in the actual pilot?

I think I’m glad Dixie & Kelly’s apparent romantic relationship from the pilot was ditched/downplayed in the series.

Edited October 12, 2020 by BW Manilowe
To add comments.

[peacheslatour]

13 minutes ago, BW Manilowe said:

His first name is Randolph.

Right you are.

[Raja]

12 minutes ago, BW Manilowe said:

OK... Cozi TV has cycled back to the pilot, “The Wedworth Townsend Act”. I’m assuming the part at the very beginning, where Johnny’s hair was longer & he says something to Roy about does Roy remember having roped Johnny into being a paramedic, & he & Roy are sitting at 51’s kitchen table, was added later, for some reason, when the show went into syndication? I know I saw the pilot when it was originally on, which I also know was a zillion years ago, but I don’t think that part was on the original version. Especially since Randolph Mantooth’s hair was shorter at the beginning of the series than at the end.

Sounds like a good theory. That scene sounds like one that I think came from a clip show when Gage and DeSoto met up upon their mutual promotions to Engineer.

[BW Manilowe]

1 minute ago, Raja said:

Sounds like a good theory. That scene sounds like one that I think came from a clip show when Gage and DeSoto met up upon their mutual promotions to Engineer.

They were actually promoted to Captain (& so unable to work together anymore). Except for the graduation ceremony where they got their new Captain’s badges, all of Kevin & Randolph’s scenes together took place with them sitting at an outside table, having coffee. That movie was just on Cozi last Friday, so it’s still fresh in my mind.

[Sigmagirl]

So we’re watching Emergency and my husband says "You know, Dr. Morton just exists to be wrong."

[peacheslatour]

I'm so excited! I'm watching Most Deadly Passage, Part I. It's set in my town, Seattle. The boys are there to learn some new techniques and so far they've had to deal with a skydiver off the Space Needle, a man trapped on top of the Kingdome (anybody remember that monstrosity?) and a fire on a ferry in Elliot Bay. So cool.

[BW Manilowe]

The last episode/clip show TV movie was on COZI-TV last night, where Johnny, Roy & others (including the PITA Craig Bryce being played by an African-American actor—I wonder if James G. Richardson had died by the time they filmed this movie?) were promoted to Captain. I know the promotion ceremony being strictly for the firefighters was a function of the storyline, which was mainly about Johnny & Roy reminiscing afterwards about how they met & a lot of the serious, average & weird things they got into during their time as partnered paramedics, but now it’s starting to bug me that Roy’s wife, Joanne, & their kids weren’t at the ceremony, like most families would be, even though nobody else’s families were there.

I also hope things might’ve changed, even though it wasn’t mentioned, so that Johnny & Roy could still at least keep up their paramedic certifications offscreen once they became captains. Though I guess they could since 1 ep had Johnny doing extra duty at a station where the captain (“Stoney”) had been a paramedic before becoming a captain. Johnny asked him if he still kept the certification up, he said he did & had the patch on his uniform sleeve to prove it. This ep, in my opinion, may contradict the 1 where Roy ranks highly enough on a test to be promoted to engineer (driver of the fire engine) within a year, but if he takes the promotion, it’s said he can’t be a paramedic any longer. Maybe Roy can’t be a working paramedic anymore, but why not at least be able to keep his paramedic certification valid like Johnny’s friend the captain who was able to be a captain & keep his paramedic certification valid?

Last comment: The show’s title had an exclamation point at the end which is missing from the thread title. Can it be added please?