Do You Remember?

Do you remember the 'Emergency+4' cartoon?

Jack Webb's popular rescue show 'Emergency!' spawned a cartoon. Despite the monkey, it was fairly true to its source.

September 17, 2015, 12:12PM By MeTV Staff

With it's painstaking attention to realism, Emergency!was a pioneering television show. A spin-off of Adam-12 and Dragnet, the Jack Webb co-production ushered in the sort of "municipal services TV universe" that NBC would continually rely on with its Law & Order and Chicago Fire worlds. Emergency! strived to mirror its cases on the logbook of fire departments. For many, the show bordered on educational. According to the book Emergency! Behind the Scenes, there were merely a dozen paramedic units on the continent when the series premiered in 1972. A decade later, they were ubiquitous.

Emergency!

11/22 5:00PMThe Old Engine
"Roy and John buy an old fire engine, and Station 51 gets a new engine. A woman overdoses on LSD and Roy tries to talk her down, leading the two paramedics on a chase to the top of a building. Brackett treats a resilient gunshot victim. A politician suffers a heart attack and the station responds to a warehouse fire."
11/25 5:00PMAlley Cat
"A stray cat decides to have her kittens on Johns bed at the station. A family is trapped in a down airplane. An old man gets his foot caught in a bear trap. A stage actress suffers an anxiety attack. A school develops a gas leak. Roy and John rescue the victim of a boating accident."
11/26 5:00PMAn English Visitor
"A paramedic from England has a stint with Station 51 observing Roy and John whose rescues include a structure fire, a wild-west performer, a car accident and a man trapped in heavy machinery. The visitor saves John's life. At the hospital Dr Brackett treats a rock singer in a dibetic coma and Dr. Early has problems with a defiant nurse."

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Considering the realism of the show, it might surprise you to learn that it was adapted into that most unreal of mediums — Saturday morning cartoons. The attention to detail slipped a bit with this children's fare. In the opening sequence, Roy DeSoto is shown sliding down a fireman's pole… in a one story firehouse. Oh, and naturally, there was a monkey. The "+4" referred to an ambulance piloted by a group of children and their pets that assisted with series regulars DeSoto and Gage. Series regulars Kevin Tighe and Randolph Mantooth would voice their animated characters as well.

Despite those lightly fantastical elements, the toon remained fairly true to its source. It's not as if they were traveling through time like the Fonz on his cartoon. The plots revolved around rescues and ended in educational addresses (not unlike G.I. Joe's "The More You Know"). It also used a lot of red. Check it out below.

So, do you remember watching Emergency+4?