Emergency! (1972)

Jack Webb-produced drama following the adventures of two paramedics Roy DeSoto and Johnny Gage who worked for the Los Angeles County Fire Department's Squad 51. "Emergency!" featured Gage (a young ladies' man), DeSoto (who was devoted to his wife and family), the fellow firefighters of Squad 51, and the emergency staff of Rampart Hospital. Each episode saw Gage and DeSoto (or sometimes, everyone at Squad 51) respond to several incidents, ranging from routine and humorous to major emergencies. A typical show might feature an obese woman struggling to remove her girdle, a man trapped in his new car with an angry lion in the back seat, a teenage girl who overdosed on dieting pills and a major explosion involving toxic chemicals at a nearby plant. Often, the rescues involved "danglers" (people trapped in high places because of faulty scaffolding, rigging, etc.) or from cliffs (where either cars threatened to tip over the edge or ropes were about to break). The patients were always rushed to Rampart for emergency care. Though many of the show's subplots depicted when there wasn't a rescue were humorous, some shows explored social issues and issues related to the jobs of paramedics. As with its sister show, Adam-12, and parent show Dragnet 1967, careful attention was paid to realism. A series of made-for-TV movies aired following the original run of "Emergency!"