What Might've Been: The Gallant Men (1962)

 1962 was a good year for shows set in World War II. Well, not entirely.

ABC launched a trio of freshman series set in that era in the season. The sitcom, McHale's Navy, lasted 4 seasons, and spawned a pair of feature films. Combat! ran for 5.

The Gallant Men, a Warner Bros. entry, didn't make it past the season.

Set up on Fridays as a lead-in to The Flintstones, and airing in the same time slot where Combat! was on Tuesdays, The Gallant Men should've appealed to the same audience as Combat!, but ran instead into unexpected opposition, and unfavorable comparisons to Combat!, produced by ABC's in-house production company, Selmur Productions. Three of the stars of Gallant Men went on to success elsewhere.

William Reynolds would resurface in The FBI, which Warners co-produced with Quinn Martin.

Roger Davis was first the announcer, then co-star, on Alias Smith & Jones.

Robert Ridgely reinvented himself as a voice actor, doing commercials and cartoons, the latter starting in the 70's (i.e. Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Thundarr The Barbarian) while still getting the occasional character role.

Had there not been so much indifference from viewers & critics, maybe Gallant Men gets a 2nd season.

Let's check the opener:

Edit, 8/30/24: The video was deleted. WB has an excerpt on one of their YouTube channels:

No rating. Just a public service.