Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Saturday School: Tsunami (Emergency! Plus 4, 1973)

 Squad 51's Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe) & John Gage (Randolph Mantooth) have a full day's work in clearing out the harbor before a "Tsunami" hits in this season 1 installment of Emergency! +4.


The use of animals tells us NBC wanted a hybrid of two of ABC's freshman entries, not just Super Friends, mind, but also Lassie's Rescue Rangers. Unfortunately, co-executive producer-director Fred Calvert, using a lot of the veteran animators as other studios, such as Filmation and Hanna-Barbera, proved to be even cheaper than the big boys. David Jolliffe (ex-Room 222) and Sarah Kennedy (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) are heard as two of the kids. In fact, Sarah's character was originally named Sally, but was mysteriously changed to Carol just a few weeks into the season.

Some of the plots on the show were probably ones they couldn't use on the parent Emergency!, which aired a few hours later.

Rating: B. One of the better entries.

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