PROBE (1972) TV-Movie Reminiscence
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- I take a trip down memory lane remembering the first time I saw the 50-year-old TV-Movie PROBE that served as the pilot and paved the way for the 1972-1973 NBC TV series SEARCH.
PROBE (1972) was the brainchild of producer Leslie Stevens and starred Hugh O'Brian, Burgess Meredith, and Elke Sommer.
If any show needed a rebooting it was SEARCH. I never saw the pilot until I bought the DVD, and why it was separated from the rest of the series is a mystery, SEARCH was one of my favorite shows, but I can also see why people did not quite understand it rather the network did not.
"Search" was must-see TV back then. I have "Probe" and "Search" on DVD. It's as much fun to watch now as it was then.
I remember this show growing up in the UK back in the 1970's! I had a wonderful childhood and the 70's were a great decade with great shows;
The Six Million Dollar Man,
The Waltons,
The High Chaparral,
The Quest,
Alias Smith & Jones,
Cannon,
Starsky & Hutch,
Little House on the Prairie,
Vegas,
Kung Fu,
Kojak,
Manhunter,
Rich Man, Poor Man,
Dallas,
Logan's Run,
Man From Atlantis......
When i talk today about Probe/SEARCH, no one else remembers this show! Thank you for the great memories! Love & respect, from the UK brother.
I think you and I are one of the few who remember Search. Here in the SF Bay Area they kept pre-empting the show for news specials from the network and the local NBC station KRON.
If they did that nationwide its no wonder that the show only lasted a year.
I loved the show and bought a Probe scanner on a chain that someone was selling in Southern California. I lost it when I lost my storage in 2001.
I am from Pittsburgh, born and raised in Oakland and am THE GUY FROM PITTSBURGH not my imposter, on UA-cam.
Nice to see someone from the Burgh.
I have a copy of Probe and next year I will buy the series.
DC Cameron used to make me laugh when Lockwood would shut off his scanner and Angel Tompkins character would get jealous whenever Lockwoods blood pressure would go up when he was romancing a beautiful woman.
The series DVDs are well done. The only thing that somewhat annoyed me is that some of the footage seems a bit washed-out (or should I say worshed-out to a fellow Pittsburgher?) in certain spots. Too bad there aren't any extras on those disks.
I was transfixed by this show as an 11 year old kid. It was very cool!
That theme song though 🤩
R.I.P. the incredibly talented Dominic Frontiere🙏🏼
Before I got the DVDs, that theme song in my playlist was my only memory of the show.
I thought that I was the only one who loved the show since it only lasted one season.
I remember Search and was furious at the age of 11 that it wasn't picked up by NBC. More often than not I had to watch it with the light out and the volume very low because I was supposed to be asleep! I still remember Hugh O'Brian calling himself a camera. Click click. Those were the days...
You can re-visit that part of your youth!
The complete SEARCH series is still available on DVD for about $40. You can even watch it with the lights on and the volume up (if you want to). After watching, be sure to come back and check out my reviews of each episode.
This little montage was very well done. The presentation was genuine,organic and nostalgic....many thanks for this overview. Kudos!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I remember rerun was still 1976 go for it dude i loved televsion in the 70s also
I met Hugh O'Brian at the Memphis Film Festival and he signed an enlargement of a TV Guide Search cover for me, also a photo of him and Doug in the first Virginian episode in which Hugh was the guest star. Leslie Stevens produced all of Doug's episodes of the final season of The Virginian under the title The Men From Shiloh.
Thanks for this. I too was 13 at the time but living thousands of miles away in England. I still love this movie and series and the theme is my most favourite ever, Vegas comes a close second and Spenser For Hire also.
Nobody I talk to remembers this show when I mention it.
It's so fresh like it hasn't aged and could quite easily fit in today. Many thanks.
The pilot was the first thing I was on Irish TV after returning from my first trip to America in 1972. Doug McClure filmed two episodes, Short Circuit and In Search of Midas.while I was in LA. I was in Las Vegas one night the same month the episode In Search of Midas was filmed, but Doug and Barbara Feldon were never there, all their scenes were filmed on the Warner Brothers backlot, producer and second unit director John Strong shot the scenes of the Cadillac limo on the Las Vegas Strip without Doug or Barbara in it.
Did the series run in Ireland, and if so, did they run it after 1973? I heard that it ran in New Zealand in, I believe the 1980s. It was labeled for export only by the studio, so we never saw it in the States after the initial run on NBC. The DVDs are my first look since 1973.
@@oldjoesreminiscence5583 It a short, incomplete run about 1978, (BBC showed it
in 1973) followed the same night by a equally short and incomplete run of The Name of the Game. so Tony Franciosa fans sometimes got a double bill. The first episode they showed was To the Ends of the Earth with Doug McClure's Checkmate co-star Sebastian Cabot.
I graduated from High School in 1972. 🙂
'Search Control' in the UK. Couldn't wait for it every week. 8 year old mind blown. My favourite was Doug McClure.
Yeah, Grover was my favorite PROBE agent, too. Then Lockwood, followed by Bianco.
@@oldjoesreminiscence5583 Not seen it since but have a vague memory of him driving a yellow sports car - Stingray? I could be totally wrong :)
@@TheFringeOfKuryakin You are correct. Check out my reviews of the individual episodes to find out who drives what car.
I remember this on WIIC as well, I'm from the Pittsburgh area too. I was born in 1966 and remember this show. We had a 23 inch Zenith Color TV. This show was ahead of its time. Keep this up.
The TV Pilot, "PROBE", was broadcast on NBC World Premiere, February 21, 1972, and was directed by Russell Mayberry (who, a decade later, went on to direct numerous episodes of CBS and Universal Television's original "THE EQUALIZER" (1985-1989) with Edward Woodward. The 1972 NBC pilot was a superior entry, as TV viewers were introduced to "Hugh Lockwood", who, while engaging in a rescue operation in Latin America, is fired at from various gunmen, while engaging in a two way conversation with his superior, "VCR Cameron", via his neuro transmitter, is advised to abort the mission, for which he refuses, risking gunfire from M-16s and other assault rifles, dispatches one of the insurgents with a martial arts kick, and eventually rescuing and liberating the political hostage. created by Leslie Stevens ("THE OUTER LIMITS") "PROBE", which later became rebranded as the NBC series, "SEARCH" (due to a copyright claim by Albert Burke, who owned the rights to the "PROBE" title from a 1962 syndicated series, as his objections carried huge weight with the NBC executives) was produced by Warner Bros.Television, which became TV's first, original "spy-fi" TV series of its type, almost in the tradition of "THE MAN FROM UNCLE", but on a way, more "high tech" level, some 40 years advanced. As the story goes, World Securities Corporation, a private company, which uses computerized technology and other electronic gadgets, for their field agents, known as "Probes", with Lockwood, a former NASA Astronaut, turned private investigator for The Probe Control division of World Securities, is assigned to track down a set of stolen diamonds presumed lost during the fall of Nazi, Germany, and being used to revitalize a Nazi movement, as World Securities and Probe, with the assist of "Harold Streeter" (Sir John Gielgud), are assigned to recover "the entourage collection", with Lockwood on full assignment to recover the priceless gems. he also enlists the aid of "Uli Ullman" (Elke Sommer). the depiction of the miniaturized TV scanner, which the Probe agent uses, was a spectacular example of the "high tech" concept, right down to its linear use, as the scanner contains numerous abilities, and plugged in to Probe Control, a NASA like control room with staff, who monitors the agent's every movement, along with medical telemetry personnel, who monitors brain waves and other vital areas, thus justifying the term, "spy-fi", because of the show's unique high tech background. when "SEARCH" debuted on September 13, 1972, it opened with "The Murrow Disappearance", which Russell Mayberry (Russ Mayberry) had directed, which featured guest stars, Capucine, Maurice Evens, David White (both "BEWITCHED" regulars), and the uncredited voice of former "THE MILLIONAIRE" actor, Marvin Miller, and the appearance of actor, Vernon Weddle, who was also the uncredited "dossier" voice in Probe. another remarkable actor in "SEARCH" was Ford Rainey (1908-2005), who appeared in the PROBE TV pilot as a different character, but played "Dr. Barnett" (and was replaced in mid season by Keith Andes). Ford Rainey later worked on ABC's "THE BIONIC WOMAN" in 1976, but was also part of the ensamble cast of NBC's "THE RICHARD BOONE SHOW" (1963-1964), and played The US President in "LOST IN SPACE" and "VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA", and also as "Abraham Lincoln" in "THE TIME TUNNEL", and as an opposing lawyer in "I, Robot", a 1964 episode of "THE OUTER LIMITS". "PROBE" was, beyond a doubt, an exceptional TV pilot, but "SEARCH" should been allowed another TV season! the series was eventually released on MOD DVD by Warner Archive in February 2014.
A BIG thank you so much! I haven't seen these since they first aired. As a sci-fi kid from the 70's this was one of my "must watch" shows. Looking forward to future reminiscences.
If you are into sci-fi, stick around. I have more in store for you.
Thank you.
I came here to experience a bit of nostalgia from my youth of one of my favorite tv shows... what I got was a clickbait 23 minute selfie where it was more important for you to be one the screen, than the subject you're supposed to be covering in the title.
Probe/ Search (not to be confused with the Issac Asimov created series starring Parker Stevenson) was one of my favorite shows. Still enjoyable to watch even though the tech is somewhat dated.
¡¡ Maravillosa serie de tv !! La vi cuando era niño.
¡Saludos desde España!
❤💛❤
Gracias
Back in America, Lockwood drove a Lincoln Continental Mark IV rather than the Mercedes-Benz 350SL he drove later. As far as I remember, the car tailing them was a BMW 507, not a Porsche.
As the series progresses I've found that Lockwood likes the Mercedes, Bianco has a pricey Jensen Interceptor until at least mid-season, and Grover is seen several times in a yellow Corvette Stingray. I'd have to go back to look, but I could have sworn that the fat man following them in the pilot film was in a Porsche, but I could be wrong. Just don't tell my wife that I admitted to that. 🤣
@@oldjoesreminiscence5583 I was thinking of the car Alfred Ryder was driving, not a fat man , so there must have been a man in a Porsche , too.
I love this show too
I had the Probe Board Game
---Needs a reboot--- actually they could probably do it for real now. I used to watch Search, The Magician (with Bill Bixby). How about "The Girl, Gold Watch, and Everything" (the watch could stop time). Remember the Friday night specials where they would show the cartoons that were beginning that Saturday?
I do remember watching The Magician. The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, sounds familiar, but I have no recollection of watching it. Another one I enjoyed was Starman.
@@oldjoesreminiscence5583 Starman sounds familiar. like he returned to find his son? How about Manimal? interesting concept, poor writing
@@danas62 Yes, Robert Hays (Airplane!) plays the alien who comes back to Earth to find his son, and the two of them search for Jenny Hayden, the boy's mother, who's gone into hiding or something. It lasted one season.
Was the show named "Search" the same thing as "In Search Of?..."
"SEARCH" was the regular weekly series prompted by the TV movie "PROBE." They had to change the name to avoid confusion with a PBS show with the same name.
"In Search of" was a show with Leonard Nimoy as the narrator exploring oddities like The Bermuda Triangle, theories about what happened to Amelia Earhart, Crop Circles, stuff like that.
My first copy of the pilot film was in the later 90s, when it aired on the PBS station we get. That had to do until the DVDs came out.
Oh man... finally I found it. I'm from Brazil and here the TV series was called "Controle Remoto" (in Portuguese, that translates to something like "Remote Control" in English). It was aired here in 1977 and I was just 9 years old!
Everyone my age that I spoke to didn't remember the series and said it was all only in my head. Even searching in English I didn't find anythin...
Funny fact I remember to see this in full collor...
Taking advantage of the fact that you know so much about TV series, maybe you could help me...
There was an American TV series in which one of its episodes took place in a casino. The hero is led to investigate the absurd winnings of this casino. Finally he discovers the trick: next to the main casino table there was a large painting that was actually a huge LCD screen (I'm sure the series took place in the 70s, where this technology was still new). The villain wore special glasses with polarizing filters to be able to see the other players' cards on the canvas/painting TV frame made.
I was trying to remember which TV series it could be from. For my young age, in the mid-70s, I only remembered the series "Casal 20" in Brazil ("Hart to Hart" in the USA). But I checked the list of episodes on Wikipedia and none of them seem to fit this story... 🙏🙏
Enjoy the series. I'm not familiar with the series you are describing. There is an episode of SEARCH that features a rigged poker table with a camera above the table, but I doubt it's what you're looking for. Maybe someone here will recognize it.
@@oldjoesreminiscence5583 Humm! I think that it is EXACTLY this episode. I also remember that there was a camera above the table: it was used to capture the players' cards and project the image onto a nearby frame. Only the villain could see it because his glasses had polarizing filters...
Thank's a lot for your attention!
@@Jupiter31416 Check out my review of "The Murrow Disappearance," the first episode of SEARCH titled: SEARCH (1972) Episode 1 Review
@@oldjoesreminiscence5583 Hi Joe! I will. At first glance I thought it was the episode "Let Us Prey" based on the summary of the story I found on Wikipedia, but then I realized it wasn't... Thanks again!