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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.
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!
- 12/23 5:00PMThe Screenwriter"A screenwriter spends a day observing Squad 51 at work, including a motorcycle accident, a worker suffering from exposure to chemicals, the delivery of a baby, and a structure fire at a toy factory."
- 12/24 5:00PMI'll Fix It"A woman's husband is trapped under their house where a natural oil well has erupted. John tries to fix a boy's bike. A boy who wants to become a doctor is admitted to Rampart. The firemen rescue a child stuck in a pipe. Roy and John remove a ring from a young man’s finger. Roy and Capt. Stanley struggle with a shutoff valve at a structure fire."
- 12/25 5:00PMGossip"Roy encourages John to represent the station in the Fireman's Olympics track events. An armored car sideswipes a motorist and Station 51 must break into the van. A nurse spreads the rumor that Dr. Morton is having financial problems. Doctors treat a child with cyanide poisoning from peach pits. Dr. Brackett treats a bigamist with a skull fracture. The firemen rescue an electrocution victim hanging in mid-air and a man trapped in a warehouse fire."
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?
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