Emergency! TV Show - Emergency! Television Show - Yahoo! TV

I was 7 years old when NBC premiered this show in 1972 and looked forward to be allowed to stay up to watch it on Saturday nights. Of course, Hollywood (through the magic of Jack Webb's Mark VII Productions) was able to glamorize what is in reallife a dangerous and grueling occupation.

It has been well-documented that the success of this show helped carry the momentum for the establishment of emergency paramedic services worldwide. Once it could be shown how a system like that evolving within the LACoFD could extend the reach of emergency medicine and save lives, municipalities quickly came on board to crete their own EMT services.

The acting was at best, uneven. The leads (Randy Mantooth, Kevin Tighe, and Robert Fuller) were all seasoned actors and did well. However, asking Webb's ex-wife (singer Julie London) and her reallife husband (bandleader Bobby Troup of "Get your Kicks on Route 66" fame) to act was a stretch -- both were frequently wooden. Likewise, the mix of actors and real LACoFD firefighters with SAG cards made for uneven banter at the stationhouse between calls.

Admit it -- even 35 years later, you can still hear the guys on the biophone calling into the hospital "Rampart, this is Squad 51, how do you read?" Was it just me, or could the good doctors Brackett and early ever prescribe anything other that 5cc of Ringers Lactate or a D5W drip?

Of course, a 7-year old kid like me was enamored with the fire apparatus. Heck, a lot of kids watched the show and grew up to become doctors, medics and firefighters.