Troubleshooters

This show was my very first recollection of TV. Through the power of the internet I was able to search on 'Kodiak', 'construction', and 'TV' and got a couple hits which brought me here. If this show aired in '59, then I would have been 3 years old at the time. Sort of amazing considering it was on for such a short time and I may have seen it only a few times. But I loved playing in the dirt and big machines. I actually was training to operate earthmoving equipment but then got my old job back and never went into construction. I too would like to see tapes of this show and see if it was really so cool that a three year old kid would remember it after 46 plus years.

Yes, a simple TV show like Troubleshooters was one of my favorites. I've often wondered why they haven't done reruns on cable or satellite. Growing up loving heavy equipment, I would go anywhere earth moving or ditch digging equipment was operating. When Troubleshooters started, I was in Heaven! Solving situational problems with heavy equipment was a bonus. The one I remember the best is the episode where the push a pipe through a wall of dirt at a cave-in to get air to the trapped people in the cave. Of there were a few more involving personnel issues. But overall a decent show. You could set down and watch it with family and come away with a positive message. Keenan and Bob became favorite actors. Sorry, I can't right off recall the others. Maybe I will if I ever see a rerun. Let's hope that is soon!

Clicked onto TCM to find the movie Around the World Under the Sea (1966) featuring Keenan Wynn - also Lloyd Bridges, Shirley (Goldfinger) Eaton & David McCallum) - and was reminded of this series, but could not remember the title. A quick search of Keenan's credits did the trick! I just want to thank everyone who put their personal recollections & reflections in these interviews - refreshing my memory of this all-too-brief, very cool series! It's a shame that any recordings are apparently lost! This would've been a great addition to any of the many channels now offering reruns from the 50s & 60s!

I remember the show... it was shown on a local independent (WGN) here in Chicago as an after-market show...

I saw the notice of Bob Matthias' death today on cnn.com and remembered that he and Keenan Wynn starred in the show.

They were always tearing around on bulldozers and such, and blowing stuff up.

I vaguely remember Slats... just the name... what did he do? The opener to the show started off with an explosion... I can remember one episode where Bob Matthias had to get over a ditch... so he made a pole out of bamboo and pole-vaulted over the ditch...

This really was an interesting and unusual show, quite a change from so much of the routine programming of that era. I suppose that the success of "Sea Hunt" made the idea of a series based on somewhat unusual occupations look like a good idea for a series. I remember one episode where some men were trapped by a cave-in in a tunnel, which was filling with water. The men on the outside used a bulldozer to push a large pipe with a cap on the end, not screwed tight with a wrench so that the men on the inside could remove it with their hands, through the soft cave-in to the inside.They knew that they would have to add another length of pipe, so they put another cap on the end the bulldozer pushed so as not to mess up the threads. Shows you how careful and realistic they tried to be down to the last detail. Great series, too bad it only lasted one season. Hope the episodes have not been lost.