Troubleshooters

This is a very obscure, essentially forgotten construction-based show from NBC from 1959-1960. My father, Chet Allen, played the role of "Slats" on the show. He has for many years tried to obtain VHS/DVD copies of the show but with no success. There is rumor that the archives were destroyed due to neglect over the years. I've never seen the show and would be delighted to be able to do so. Anyone out there with any concrete information about how to obtain copies of this show or who is in contact with former cast members or who have any memorabilia from the show, please feel free to contact me. My Dad would be really grateful if you have any information. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

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!

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!

Seriously, I caught this show in second run on WGN in Chicago,(like at least one other poster), in the early 1960s. As I remember the opening, Keenan Wynn comes uphill towards the camera on a motorcycle, (make, unknown), and Bob Mathias comes down towards the camera riding a hook on a construction crane. They are, the troubleshooters ! Interesting look at the life of 'globe trotting' construction workers. Aside from their work, these two, naturally, get involved in the lives of the people who work for, with, or, around them. One episode had them, and their crew, build an iron lung for a young local/native lad who had apparently contracted polio, or a similar type of respiration paralysis. Another had them hold a carnival, subsidized by the construction company they work for, to raise funds for something or other. The highlight of this episode was a booth where each kid got a free ice cream cone, which they could either eat, or, throw at Keenan Wynn's face sticking through a canvas backdrop. Now, the telling part. As I remember, the name of the construction company was Corbett. At the same time, early 1960s, my uncle worked for a Corbett Construction Company, on the project to build what is now the Michigan Ave., Oak St. Lake Shore Drive interchange. Yet, I can't find it on Google.

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.