Tuesday, September 27, 2016

What Might've Been: Garrison's Gorillas (1967)

In the wake of "The Dirty Dozen", Selig J. Seligman, a programming executive at ABC, commissioned a series in the mold of the "Dozen". Unfortunately, Garrison's Gorillas lasted just 1 season, and deserved to go longer.

Seligman's production company, Selmur (named for Seligman himself and his wife, Muriel), had also produced Combat!, Shindig, & General Hospital, and by 1967, only the latter, a daytime soap, was still on the air, and remains to this day. Seligman must've assumed that Garrison was a worthy successor to Combat!, considering that it started with a back-door pilot on that series.

Ron Harper, who'd bombed out previously with The Jean Arthur Show and 87th Precinct, led an ensemble that also included Cesare Danova, Rudy Solari, and Golden Globe winner Brandon Boone. Sure, there were just the five of them, counting Garrison himself, just to avoid accusations of an out-and-out ripoff of "Dozen". In truth, it was really a WWII version of CBS' Mission: Impossible, which was entering its 2nd season.

Let's take a look at a sample episode:



As with a lot of television shows from this period, there was a comic book version of the series, published by Dell. Lasted just a couple of issues.

No rating. I cannot recall seeing an episode.

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