The Rat Patrol is an American action and adventure television series aired on ABC between 1966 and 1968. This event follows the exploitation of four Allied soldiers - three Americans and one Briton - which was part of a long-range desert patrol group in a North African campaign during World War II. Their mission: "to attack, harass, and vent out anger at Marshal Rommel Field, Africa Corps".
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The show was inspired by and loosely mimicked David Stirling's British Special Air Services (SAS), which uses modified Jeeps armed with machine guns as their transport through the dangerous desert terrain, and Civil War Popski. There were no similar American units at the time. The title of the program refers to a nickname given to some British Commonwealth forces in a North African campaign (Rats of Tobruk or Desert Rats), especially Australian soldiers. At the time of the original airing, many British, Australian and New Zealand viewers were offended by the majority of American characters on the program, resulting in the event being withdrawn from the BBC after six episodes. In Australia, the show was quickly relegated to Saturday afternoon time slot, when most people were out. The main audience becomes children who do not know the history of WW2. (The series was later shown on English satellite television in the 1990s.) In addition, the opening episode presented a trio of American actors over the British number, Sergeant Jack Moffitt, who asked permission to "create," a British public school effort to educate American- its about the goodness of a cup of tea.
While the premise for the show might be SAS, the show itself modeled part of the film The Desert Rats (1953). A 30-minute time limit limits the storyline of the event to a formulated plot: regular contests between Troy, American, and Dietrich, German characters reflect "cowboys" and "Indians". The first show aired on 12 September 1966; his last season began on September 16, 1967. Despite many historical inconsistencies, the show achieved a successful ranking at a time when the military show suffered a setback due to public discontent with the Vietnam War.
Ratings
In his first season, Rat Patrol was successful enough to suck up about a million viewers from The Lucy Show, placing it in the top 30 for the season and making it strong enough. show to be updated for the second season. During the 1967-68 season, however, it hit a rocky competition: Rowan and Martin and The Man from Uncle shown at the same time slot, bookended by The Monkees and Danny Thomas Show . This combination beat him easily. Other ABC nights with a 30 minute time slot on Thursday, are clearly family oriented: Batman , Flying Nun , Magic , and Girls it's .
Maps The Rat Patrol
Cast
The four members of Allied patrol are:
Leading adversaries include:
For some episodes during the second season, the storyline requires Tully's temporary absence. Three different characters take turns rounding Patrol until Tully returns:
- Peterson (Darwin Joston)
- Andy (Mac McLaughlin)
- Bo Randall (Bo Hopkins)
A Ratrol Patrol soldier named Cotter (played by Whitey Christy) is shown being beaten by enemy fire and slumped over his machine gun during the opening action of the pilot episode, "The Chase of Fire Raid". The resulting void allows the addition of Moffitt to the team.
Production
A total of fifty-eight episodes of 30 minutes were produced by Mirisch-Rich Television Productions (when Lee Rich left the partnership during the second season, the company's name changed to Mirisch TV Inc.), a subsidiary of United Artists Television, in association with Tom Gries Productions Inc. (Tom Gries, Inc. in season two). Same as with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. , where the episode title includes the word "Affair", all Rat Patrol episode titles have "Raid" for example. "The Do or Die Raid", "The Lighthouse Raid" or "Mask-A-Raid".
Part of the first season of the show was filmed in Almeria, Spain, with the remainder in the United States.
The three-part bow story "The Last Harbor Raid" was released theatrically in several places under the heading "Massacre Harbor".
As a leverage against actors who ask for a raise, every major player, after the first season, shows a separate prospective script where he was killed in action.
Christopher George suffered a heartburn when a jeep overturned him during filming in January 1967. The injury contributed to his 1983 death.
As usual for the production of the era, other equipment is replaced for the original. German vehicles are actually Patton's American tank, M7 Priest self-propelled guns, Half-track M3 and M35 2-1/2 tons of cargo trucks painted in desert sand.
Perhaps the most memorable visual is a jeep jumping over a sandbar, seen in the opening credits and other scenes in the series.
The light machine gun used by the troops was unusual. Since the first season has been filmed in Spain, the producers have obtained some fixed wood versions of the Spanish Star Z-45 (9x23mm Largo) assault rifle from the Spanish Army, in a real effort to mimic the look of World War II.45 Thompson's light machine gun. This was changed in the first season episode later when Thompsons was finally available.
During the series, Sgt. Troy is wearing an Australian bush hat (the real hat is Rhodes' hat: a different puggaree, a two-piece chin strap, crown hat NOT rolled in the approved 2 AIF way, the "sunrise badge" is too high on an inverted hat cap). When the show was aired in Australia, veterans of both World Wars criticized an American actor who wore an important symbol of Australian courage and sacrifice. It is seen by some to undermine and censor the memory and passion of the dead ANZAC against fascism. George, a veteran of the US Naval War War, and Greek extraction, said he insisted that his character was wearing a slouch hat in honor of the Australians who fought in Greece. Larry Casey stated in an interview that Tom Gries original idea is that each character will come from a different country and wear a different hat. But this changed, and with Christopher George who wanted to wear a Humpback Hat, his American helmet was given to Justin Tarr.
Episode guides
The Rat Patrol appeared on television between 1966-1968. 58 episodes divided into two seasons; 1966-1967 (32 episodes) and 1967-1968 (26 episodes).
DVD release
MGM Home Entertainment has released both seasons of The Rat Patrol on DVD in Region 1. The First Season is also available in Region 2 DVD. On May 13, 2008, MGM released seven disc boxes from the complete series.
On August 11, 2017, it was announced that Shout! The factory has secured the rights to the series and will be re-releasing The Rat Patrol - Full Series on DVD in Region 1 on November 28, 2017.
Comic book
Dell Comics published a series of six-issue comic books (1967; a problem in 1969). It has a cover photo taken from a television series.
Books
- Five books were released by the Paperback Library.
- The Rat Patrol by Norman Daniels
- The Rat Patrol # 2 at Desert Danger, by David King
- The Rat Patrol # 3 in The Trojan Tank Affair, by David King
- The Rat Patrol # 4 in The Two Faced Enemy, by David King
- The Rat Patrol # 5 in Target For Tonight, by David King
- The Rat Patrol # 6 at Desert Masquerade, by David King
- One book released by Whitman
- The Rat Patrol, The Iron Monster Raid , by I G Edmonds
The coloring book was published by Saalfield, 1966, based on the series.
A series of trading cards was published in 1966 by Topps Chewing Gum for Mirisch-Rich Television Productions. A total set includes 66 cards, with a silent shot of the series on the front and the text about the stills behind (as part of the full story about having to blow the buried fuel dump), along with a section of 9 different picture puzzles that can assembled to show the main characters of the show: Troy, Moffitt, Tully, Hitchcock, Dietrich, as well as some other still images, including photos of four members of Rat Patrol in one jeep.
Soundtrack
Like The Fugitive , The Rat Patrol is one of several primetime dramatic series of the era to use the music library rather than having a special episode printed. Dominic Frontiere, who replaced Alex North when he was fired during the pilot's post-production (along with the creator of the Tom Gries series when the pilot over-budgeted), wrote the theme series and music library, performing the Graunke Symphony Orchestra. La-La Land Records released a limited edition music album Frontiere in 2011, and a second volume in 2014 featuring more Frontiere music and a North score that was not used for pilots.
References
External links
- The Rat Patrol on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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