Troubleshooters

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...

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.

As a 22 year old, I was immediately drawn to this TV program. I thought the story lines were kind of kooky but that's Ray Braqdbury for you. He had a way of displaying what his unbridled imagination produced so you really wanted to believe what was happening, albeit a make believe performance. Witness the successful longevity of Star Trek and it's "Trekkies" followers. I just wish I could remember the name of the construction company the characters on "Troubleshooters" worked for. Anyone with that name is welcome to contact me at "snapfat@aol.com." Why didn't somebody save some film of these episodes? I would have thought the families of Bradbury and Altman should have done this for their own (or anyone else's)future interests.

I know Keenan Wynn was a character actor in the show, I seem to remember him riding a Harley or an Indian in the show. Does anyone out there remember if he did? I was just wondering, I would love to see tape of the show if anyone out there has one. I was very very young when the show aired, and I remember watching it. It always involved something to do with construction, and it seemed they were always traveling all over the world, and Wynn would at some point always end up riding a motorcycle in the show. I seem to remember as it being an early American Vtwin, either a Harley or an Indian. Like I mentioned I was extremely young when the show aired, so I don'r remember to much about the episodes.

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.