Q & A: Run, Joe, Run
I get a lot of e-mails from people asking me about television shows, made-for-TV movies or miniseries they remember from years or decades past. I try to answer each question as best I can. Every now and then I like to dig through my inbox and pull out a few choice e-mails to answer here at Television Obscurities for everyone to read. Keep reading for today’s questions and answers.
I’m looking for an old TV program. It’s called Run, Joe, Run about a German Shepard and an Army man who are partners.
lisa
Run, Joe, Run (not to be confused with Run, Buddy, Run) was a live-action Saturday-morning kid’s show that aired on NBC from 1974 to 1976. Thirteen episodes were produced over the course of two seasons and, as was common with such shows, rerun constantly. Joe was German shepherd with the K-9 Corps who was accused of attacking his trainer. He escaped before he could be euthanized and thus the military placed a $200 bounty on his head.
Each week Joe helped someone in trouble even as his trainer and friend Sergeant Will Corey (played by Arch Whiting) chased after him, knowing that Joe had been falsely accused. Over the course of the first season the two came close to meeting but never did. When the second season premiered, Sgt. Corey had been recalled to his unit and Joe settled down with a new partner in the form of hiker Josh McCoy (played by Chad States).
Here’s how Bill D’Angelo explained the show’s conception to The Los Angeles Times in July of 1974:
Richard Landau brought this idea to me about four years ago when I was producing Love: American Style. Ok, it’s The Fugitive, it’s Run for your Life. But they were “Les Miserables.” The part Whiting plays, the trainer, I think of as Ahab in “Moby Dick.” Joe is his white whale. Not that he wants to kill him or lock him up. The dog just doesn’t understand…
We tried for years to sell this as a prime-time show but no network was interested. Last winter, Joe Teritoro, head of children’s programs at NBC, asked if I’d do it as a kid show. I’d never done a kid show, but this was a chance to open my own shop: D’Angelo Productions. So here we are. [1]
Joe was played by D’Angelo’s own dog, Heinrich (whose mother was owned by William Self of 20th Century-Fox); Heinrich’s stunt double was another German shepherd named Gus [2]. Run, Joe, Run premiered on Saturday, September 7th, 1974. In May of 1975, Cecil Smith praised the series, noting that “in writing, acting and production, it is the equal of almost any of the nighttime adventure shows” [3]. It was last seen on September 4th, 1976.
Works Cited:
2 Ibid.
3 Smith, Cecil. “Blowing Back from Hawaii.” Los Angeles Times. 9 May 1975: E1.
Related:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:07PM
I remember this show and loved it, I was always rooting for the dog to escape or have his master find him and help him be exonerated.
I believe it was one of only a handful of non animated Saturday Morning shows at that time because CBS had SHAZAM and ISIS and I think ABC had THE KROFT SUPERSHOW (Dr. Shrinker, ElectraWoman etc.) at that same time.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:32AM
“Handful”? There was an “explosion” of live Saturday morning shows in the mid-’70s, ‘Cee Jay’….remember– “THE HUDSON BROTHERS RAZZLE-DAZZLE SHOW”? “THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS POPCORN MACHINE”? “THE LOST SAUCER”? “BIG JOHN, LITTLE JOHN”? “FAR OUT SPACE NUTS”? “THE GHOST BUSTERS”? “MUGGSY”? “THE RED HAND GANG”? “SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTER”? “W.O.G. {Way Out Games}”? “JUNIOR ALMOST ANYTHING GOES”? Should I continue?
The only problem with “RUN, JOE, RUN” [10:30-11am(et)] was that NBC was too impatient for “ratings magic” in season two: “JOE” successfully survived the competition of “THE NEW ADVENTURES OF GILLIGAN” on ABC, and “PARTRIDGE FAMILY 2200 A.D.” (later replaced by repeats of ‘THE PEBBLES AND BAMM-BAMM SHOW” in mid-season) on CBS during the 1974-’75 season. However, CBS countered in the fall of ‘75 with “THE SHAZAM!/ISIS HOUR” and ABC— initially with “UNCLE CROC’S BLOCK”, one of the most disastrous live action/animated amalgamations they ever scheduled (featuring no less than Charles Nelson Reilly and Jonathan Harris!): at least two of the cartoon series that aired within the show, “Wacky & Packy” and “Fraidy Cat”, are currently available on several “dollar DVD” compilations— eventually replaced by repeats of “SUPER FRIENDS” in mid-season. No matter what the competition was, though, NBC decided not enough kids were watching “RUN, JOE, RUN”, and dumped it after the summer of 1976, replaced by another live-action series, the short-lived “MONSTER SQUAD”….
November 7th, 2009 at 6:47PM
I think I said handul Barry because if I remember those wee the only ones I watched regularly.
I tried to watch the Globetrotter Show( they should have kept to B-Ball), Sigmund (H R Pufnstuf Jr.), Almost Anything Goes was okay I liked the format of cities against each other.