Emergency! The TV Show (2011)

Do you remember the TV show Emergency!? Of course any true fire buff does. I was a bit too young to catch the first run, but I did catch the last season or so and then again in syndicate. What a great show; a timeless piece of fire service Americana. No show to date has captured the essence of the fire/EMS service nor likely ever will.
What I remember of the show is not the events, or episode content, but the pure excitement that only a child can experience. Too young to know the name of the show, I simply called it, “my fire trucks”. Yells of, “Mommy, my fire trucks are on!” would echo through the house when the TV found the correct channel at the given time. I do recall, and perhaps as a premonition, of not being especially interested until the engines and trucks rolled. The squad didn’t seem to have the draw for me, and to this day, I certainly prefer fire to EMS.
For me there was always a personal connection; the town I was raised in housed our county’s Station 5. We had an Engine 51. It was, at one time, a convertible American-LaFrance, very similar looking (especially to an enamored young boy) to the LA County Engine 51 depicted in the series. Even from 3,000 miles away, I could tell they were the same, or so I thought!
Lately I have found myself watching again, via internet syndication on Hulu. For anyone that enjoys good, quality, family grade entertainment that intertwines a good deal of fire service history, I highly recommend it.
        I guess for me the importance of the show is in what I got from it. The show sparked and fuelled a passion that still burns on in me some 30+ years later (and counting). I can’t say that Emergency!  is what made me want to be a firefighter; I was raised in a volunteer firefighting family and therefore I think I just always knew that I, too, would someday get there. The show did provide me the excitement to bridge the gap until I could volunteer. Eventually the show ended, I grew older, and my interests changed. But the spark remained.
        Today as I watch (re-watch) the episodes, I am reminded of a time when a young boy, donning his rain jacket “bunker coat” and boots, would ride tailboard on his bunk bed “fire engine”, anxiously awaiting his turn to answer a call.