Emergency!

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'Emergency!'
1975 NBC promo slide for Emergency!
Also known as	Emergency One! (in original syndication to distinguish re-runs from first-run episodes)
Format	Crime / Drama
Created by	Jack Webb Robert A. Cinader Harold Jack Bloom
Starring	Robert Fuller Julie London Bobby Troup Randolph Mantooth Kevin Tighe Tim Donnelly Mike Stoker Marco Lopez Michael Norell Ron Pinkard
Theme music composer	Nelson Riddle
Composer(s)	Billy May Nelson Riddle
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	134
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jack Webb Robert A. Cinader Hannah Louise Shearer
Producer(s)	Robert A. Cinader Edwin Self William Stark
Editor(s)	Richard Belding supervisor and others
Location	Los Angeles, CA
Running time	60 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	January 15, 1972 – July 3, 1979
Chronology
Related shows	Sierra Adam 12
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Emergency! was a popular crime drama/medical television series that was produced by Mark VII Limited (Jack Webb's company) and distributed by Universal Studios. It debuted as a midseason replacement on January 15, 1972, on NBC, replacing the short-lived series The Good Life, and ran until September 3, 1977. It was produced and created by Jack Webb and Robert Cinader, both of whom were also responsible for the police drama Adam-12. The shows were similar in that they featured dedicated civil servants handling two or three varied and unrelated incidents during a typical shift.

The show returned as a series of six "Movie of the Week" specials between late 1977 and the spring of 1979. Three of the TV movies have the two paramedic characters traveling to San Francisco (twice) and Seattle for EMS conventions. While in both cities they end up assisting the local agencies (San Francisco's Rescue-2 and Seattle's Medic-One) with several rescues. The others were "Steel Inferno" (a high rise blaze), "Survival on Charter #220" (two airplanes crash over a residential neighborhood – at the time it was reportedly the most expensive TV-movie ever made^{[citation needed]}), and a finale in which the firefighter/paramedics are promoted to captain.

Noted composers Nelson Riddle and Billy May are credited with the music for the series.

[edit] About the series

The series followed the early years of the Paramedic program in the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) with the focus on the personnel of Fire Station 51, in particular Firefighter/Paramedics John Gage (Randolph Mantooth) and Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe). The paramedics coordinated with the Emergency Room (ER) staff of Rampart General Hospital: Dr. Kelly Brackett (Robert Fuller), Dr. Joe Early (Bobby Troup), Dr. Mike Morton (Ron Pinkard), and head nurse Dixie McCall (Julie London).

[edit] Other regular characters

The Crew of Engine 51 was portrayed by Chet Kelly (Tim Donnelly), Marco Lopez (Marco Lopez, uses his real name), Mike Stoker (LACoFD firefighter Mike Stoker as himself), Captain Dick Hammer (LACoFD Captain Dick Hammer as himself, later John Smith, first season), Captain Hank Stanley (Michael Norell, remaining seasons). LACoFD Dispatcher Sam Lanier portrayed himself in an uncredited voice role (over the radio) throughout the series.

Marco Lopez spoke Spanish, and occasionally translated for the crew when a victim or onlooker spoke Spanish but no English. Lopez had done this occasionally on Dragnet as well. Interestingly, in the episode "Fools," Lopez and an onlooker speak Spanish using words and constructions not proper in real-life Spanish.

Other occasional regulars included Battalion Chiefs Conrad (Art Balinger) and McConike (William Boyett), Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Vince (Vince Howard), and recurring ambulance driver Albert "Al" and his assistant George.

[edit] Troup, London, and Webb love triangle

While Troup and London were married in real life, the character of McCall was written to be a love interest for Brackett. The love interest between Brackett and McCall was more evident in the pilot movie for Emergency! where they share a kiss together at McCall's apartment. As time went on, the love interest was phased out with more emphasis on the rescues and happenings at the hospital than the personal lives of Brackett and McCall, although they remained very good friends. Further muddying the picture, before marrying Troup in 1959, she had been married to producer Webb from 1947 to 1953. The divorce must have been amicable, as Webb had repeatedly hired Troup for roles on Dragnet and Adam-12 before casting London and Troup for Emergency!.

[edit] Highlights

The show highlighted the adventures of the then-fledgling paramedic program, and its popularity coincided with (and may have encouraged) the widespread establishment and improvement of emergency medical services paramedic programs across North America in the middle and late 1970s. Los Angeles County was one of the first communities - along with Seattle, Miami, and Pittsburgh - to start a paramedic program in connection with the fire department between 1969 and 1971. The show was also credited for demonstrating first aid techniques that enabled some viewers to save lives in real medical emergencies. When the medical community saw that the general public were using First Aid and CPR in response to this show, they started the teaching programs for CPR in every state. However, the show later had to add a disclaimer stating that the first aid techniques demonstrated should only be performed by trained persons.

Actual local disasters were worked into some story lines, such as the 1971 Sylmar earthquake which destroyed the newly-completed Olive View Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley; and a 1973 brush fire on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

[edit] Spin-offs and crossovers

Emergency! spun-off an animated version called Emergency +4 which ran from 1973 to 1976, and featured four teenagers who participated in adventures with the firefighter/paramedics. Emergency! itself was considered a spin-off of an earlier Jack Webb series, Adam-12.

Characters from Emergency! and Adam-12 crossover on two occasions. The police officers appeared in the pilot episode of Emergency!, and the firefighter/paramedics appeared in the Adam-12 episode titled "Lost and Found". Strangely, in a different episode of Emergency!, there was a subplot in which the crew of Station 51 watched Adam-12 as a television show. Further complicating things, is the fact that the Los Angeles County Fire Department does not serve the City of Los Angeles. This makes the crossover somewhat factually dubious, which is not typical of the ultra-realistic Jack Webb productions.

Johnny and Roy also appeared in the tenth episode of Sierra, another Webb/Cinadar production centered around a pair of National Park Service rangers, which appeared for only one season in 1974. In that episode, The Urban Ranger, the two paramedics participate in mountain rescue training and get involved in many of the episode's subplots. Following recurring themes from Emergency!, Johnny continues to fail in his attempts to get a date, while Roy briefly considers changing careers to become a park ranger ^[1].

[edit] TV movies and comic books

In 1978 and 1979 the show returned as a series of "Movies of the week". The movies were "Emergency: Survival on Charter #220 ", "Most Deadly Passage", "The Steel Inferno", "The Convention", and "Greatest Rescues Of Emergency". "Emergency: Survival on Charter #220" which was the 1st TV movie after the show was cancelled in 1977 and first aired in January 1978 would be the last time the entire original cast of the show was featured. After this, from "Most Deadly Passage" on, Gage and DeSoto were the sole original cast members in the rest of the TV movies that aired. The last movie aired "Greatest Rescues Of Emergency" aired on New Year's Eve 1978 and featured flashbacks from the original series to the rescues that Gage and DeSoto were in. The paramedics/firefighters were also promoted to captains in the final movie capping off the 7 year run of Emergency with a very happy ending for both Gage and DeSoto.

The TV movies were in syndication on TV Land during 2001 and also were shown in syndication as 2 part episodes starting in the 1980's.

The "Most Deadly Passage" TV movie was actually considered a pilot for a proposed series "Medic 1 Seattle" about Seattle area EMS/Firefighters.

Charlton Comics published several issues of an Emergency! comic book in the mid-1970s.

[edit] Syndications

When the program was first syndicated in reruns, it went by the title Emergency One! starting in 1976 to avoid confusion with the new episodes still airing on Saturday nights on NBC and continued to be called that when the TV movies aired as well. It would revert back to Emergency in syndication in 1979. Renaming programs for syndication was commonplace until the 1980s. It is rarely seen today because the series is now owned by the Jack Webb Estate.

[edit] DVD releases

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has released the first three seasons of Emergency! on DVD in Region 1, and the fourth season is scheduled for an early 2008 release. It is unknown when or if the remaining three seasons will be released.

Name	Ep#	Region 1	Region 2
Season One	12	August 23, 2005	TBA
Season Two	21	February 7, 2006	TBA
Season Three	22	February 13, 2007	TBA
Season Four	23	January 31, 2008	TBA

[edit] Series format

Where Webb's Dragnet typically followed a pair of detectives investigating a single crime or a series of related crimes, Emergency typically followed the firefighters and paramedics of Station 51, and the Emergency Room staff of Rampart Hospital, through a series of incidents, some of which advance one or more overall plot threads that serve to unify the episode, and others of which are completely unrelated. Usually, the very first incident (or occasionally its aftermath) will begin the overall plot. Most episodes included at least one incident included strictly for comic relief (such as a pet rabbit stuck in a tuba, or Dr. Early accidentally lodging a stethoscope earpiece in his ear, or a woman glued to her own toilet seat with fast-drying epoxy paint, or Gage forcibly opening toy handcuffs (but not before giving their owners some good-natured teasing by proposing to use their K12 circular power saw tool), and the episodes nearly always concluded with a spectacular fire or rescue taking up the entire final act (with the overall plot usually concluding either just before, during, or after this final incident).

Where Dragnet and Adam-12 were half-hour shows, Emergency, because of the greater scope of its format, was a full-hour series.

[edit] Fire apparatus, equipment, stations and personnel

The creators of Emergency! made significant efforts to accurately portray the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) by utilizing current apparatus and equipment in the series. Although a few key items were fictionalized, such as the identification of Station 51 and its equipment, many of the locations and apparatus reflected the operating reality of locations used in some filming. The extensive cooperation of the LACoFD is repeatedly apparent in the program.

[edit] Apparatus

[edit] Squad 51

The vehicle which portrayed Squad 51 was produced by Universal crews as an accurate replica of the units built in-house on stock truck chassis by LACoFD at the time. The LACoFD shops were unable to fulfill a request from Universal to build a unit for the show within the short deadline the studio asked, but did provide the blueprints to Universal crews so the studio could build its own unit on a 1972 Dodge D300 chassis (this conversion was subsequently completed on a 1973 and 1974 Dodge D300 chassis as well). The replica's accuracy is evident in that after the filming of the show, the studio donated the unit to LACoFD in 1978, which pressed it into occasional service as a reserve unit before it was eventually retired from service.

In 1999, LACoFD donated the Universal-built squad to the County of Los Angeles Fire Museum Association [1], and it has been restored by the museum.

[edit] Engine 51

The original Engine 51 was a 1965 Crown Firecoach, and was portrayed alternately by LACoFD Engine 127's 1965 Crown for filming on location at the fire station (in reality LACoFD Station 127), and by LACoFD Engine 60's 1965 Crown (the unit assigned to Universal Studios) for filming on the grounds of the studio.

Beginning early in the third season and through the end of the series, Engine 51 was portrayed by a 1973 Ward LaFrance P80 Ambassador. LACoFD was purchasing numerous P80s at the time, and Ward LaFrance donated a P80 unit to Universal Studios specifically for use in the show. The Ward LaFrance Engine 51 was thus not a disguised unit and did not require the use of LACoFD resources for filming.

The County of Los Angeles Fire Museum Association now owns the 1965 Crown which formerly served as Engine 60 [2] at Universal Studios (and appeared most often as the Crown version of Engine 51), while the Ward LaFrance P80 Ambassador that portrayed Engine 51 remains in active service today at Yosemite National Park [3] and, per the original bill of sale agreement, will also be obtained by the Los Angeles Fire Museum Association when placed out of service.

[edit] Locations

[edit] Station 51

Station 51 was portrayed by LACoFD Fire station 127, located at 2049 East 223rd Street (between Wilmington and Alameda Streets) in Carson, California ( 33°49′28″N, 118°14′18″W), and it is still in use today [4]. Universal was permitted to use the station number of "51" for the program because at that time there was no existing Station 51 since the closing of LACoFD Station 51, located near the intersection of Arlington Ave and Atlantic Ave, in the late 1960s due to the area being annexed by the city of Lynwood.

Station 127 was chosen for its natural lighting by series co-creator Robert A. Cinader, and the station was eventually named in his honor. At the time of filming, Station 127 housed Engine 127 and Truck 127.

For filming on location, Truck 127 was moved off-site and replaced with Universal's Squad 51, while Engine 127 was disguised as Engine 51. After Universal obtained the 1972 Ward LaFrance for Engine 51, both of Station 127's companies would be replaced by Universal's Engine 51 and Squad 51 for filming on location. While some filming of scenes set at Station 51 were done on sets at the studio, these sets accurately recreated the interior of Station 127.

Despite being "kicked out" of their own station for filming, Truck 127 still appeared in numerous episodes under its own callsign. The Carson location of Station 127 was directly referenced in one episode where a phone call was traced to a house "in Carson" that Engine 51 and Squad 51 eventually responded to.

"KMG365", which is said by the crewmember acknowledging a call for a unit at Station 51, is a real FCC call sign used by LACoFD, and it appears on the Station Patch for Station 127 [5], which today still houses Engine 127 and Truck 127, and now also Foam 127.

In a nod to the lasting cultural impact of the show, LACoFD officially changed the designation of the fire station located on the grounds of Universal Studios from Station 60 to Station 51 in 1994, over twenty years after the debut of Emergency!. The companies at Station 60 were also changed so that this station is now indeed the home of Engine 51 and Squad 51 as well as Patrol 51 [6].

[edit] Rampart General Hospital

At the time of filming, Rampart General Hospital was portrayed by Harbor General Hospital, located in Torrance, California at 1000 West Carson Street, the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Carson Street at 33°49′49″N, 118°17′30″W. The pairing of Station 127 and Harbor General as "Station 51" and "Rampart" was accurate, since if a squad had actually been quartered at Station 127, it would likely have operated from Harbor General Hospital, since they are only 2.1 miles (3.4 km) apart. Truck 127 appeared in one episode where a rescue event occurred at Rampart (Harbor General), as the hospital really is in Truck 127's "first-due" district.

In 1978, by the approval of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Harbor General Hospital was renamed as Harbor-UCLA Medical Center [7].

[edit] Los Angeles County Fire Dispatch

Footage of a dispatcher used during the show appears to have been filmed at the LACoFD dispatch center in East Los Angeles. The screen he looked at to see the street maps is a rear projection from a Kodak Carousel projector built into the console.

[edit] Personnel

During a portion of the first season, LACoFD Captain Dick Hammer portrayed himself as a Station 51 Captain.

LACoFD Firefighter Mike Stoker portrayed himself throughout the entire run of the series as a driver/engineer of Engine 51. Since Stoker possessed a Screen Actors Guild card, it was helpful to Universal to have an actor who was also fully trained and qualified to actually drive and operate Engine 51. Stoker retired from the LACoFD as a Captain in 1996.

LACoFD Dispatcher Sam Lanier, although never seen on camera, portrayed himself as a dispatcher in almost every episode. Despite being the recognizable voice over the radio sending Station 51 and other LACoFD crews to all sorts of emergencies, he was never listed in the show's credits.

Numerous uncredited LACoFD personnel were used throughout the course of the series when other actual LACoFD units were utilized during filming.

The character "John Gage" was named for James O. Page, a LACoFD battalion chief in charge of development of the paramedic rescue squads who was a technical advisor to Webb and Cinader. Page went on to become a lawyer and publisher of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services.

[edit] Equipment

The tones heard before the station alarm is activated are actual Motorola "Quik Call I" codes, which were used by LACoFD until the 1990s. At the time of filming, an LACoFD station's main base station radio was usually in "quiet" mode, so the crew on duty wouldn't have to hear every transmission over the fire channel at all hours. Although only two tones could be heard for each station dispatched to an alarm, the Quik Call system actually used two sets of tones (four total) to activate station alarms. When a dispatcher selected one or more stations to be "toned out", the Quik Call system would transmit the first set of tones which would unsquelch the radio at one or more stations and turn on their loudspeakers, closely followed by a second set of tones for each individual station which could be heard and which activated the intended station's alarm klaxon.

The electrocardiograph (ECG or EKG) machine used in the show was a Datascope model 850 Dual Trace Physiological Monitor. This model came out in 1971 and was the first portable, battery rechargeable unit of its time. The paramedics also carried some medical equipment in a black model "PF-3300" Old Pal tackle box, which was commonly used by LACoFD at the time. The other medical gear terminology and jargon, and emergency medical practices at the time were usually represented as faithfully and accurately as possible, although the results of some rescue efforts were frequently dramatized to the point of the occasional unlikely outcome. Because of the attention to detail, there were times when the actors had some difficulty pronouncing the "medical" words in the show convincingly, so some scenes show the characters from the back or behind a mask, which allowed them to dub in the correct pronunciations at a later time.

The protective clothing that the firefighters wore, including the MSA Topguard helmets, as well as nearly all other equipment such as insignia, were standard LACoFD issue at the time.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

^ "Sierra X-Over," Emergencyfans.com. Accessed August 24, 2007.

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