Garrison's Gorillas
Garrison's Gorillas
| 06 September 1967 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 1
  • Season 1 : 1967 | 26 Episodes

    EP1 The Big Con Sep 06, 1967

    The team's first mission is to substitute counterfeit printing plates for the real ones, which are being transported across Germany in a tank.

    EP2 Breakout Sep 13, 1967

    The team kidnaps a German colonel's son in order to trade him for a captured resistance leader.

    EP3 The Grab Sep 19, 1967

    In order to rescue the infant son of a defecting German scientist, the team is forced to kidnap three infants and transport them cross-country.

    EP4 The Great Theft Sep 26, 1967

    When a mission to bring back information on a new German airplane engine goes awry, Garrison decides to steal the entire engine.

    EP5 Now I Lay Me Down to Die Oct 03, 1967

    When the team rescues an Allied agent who is under interrogation at a German hospital, not only is Goniff captured but they find out that the agent already spilled top secret information to the Germans.

    EP6 The Deadly Masquerade Oct 10, 1967

    It was hard enough teaching Goniff to masquerade as an international playboy whom he resembles, but then the team has to rescue him from gangsters to whom the playboy owed money.

    EP7 the Expendables Oct 17, 1967

    After several failed missions, team received a new mission from major Richards. Although garrison strongly opposed it, it was ineffective. Garrison and his ministry, who had a lot of worries, reached the joint site. It turned out that their task was to attract the enemy's firepower, so that the rebellious German general could escape smoothly. When team tried to break through the encirclement and prepare to return to Britain, he met major Richards. The German general was caught by the German army, and Richards came for help. team rescued the general again and returned to Britain, winning the trust and appreciation of major Richards.

    EP8 48 Hours to Doomsday Oct 24, 1967

    The team has only 48 hours to recover important microfilm hidden in a painting in a Dutch museum.

    EP9 Banker's Hours Oct 31, 1967

    When another con is recruited from prison to assist the team in robbing a German bank, they soon suspect that he has a plan of his own.

    EP10 Thieves' Holiday Nov 07, 1967

    In France to get information on German defenses with the help of a double agent, the cons decide to go off on their own and rob a museum.

    EP11 20 Gallons to Kill Nov 14, 1967

    When the team's plane is shot down over Yugoslavia on the way back from a mission, they decide to help a local group of resistance fighters.

    EP12 Operation Hellfire Nov 21, 1967

    In order to better complete the task, garrison asked fleig of the arson investigation team of the Chicago police department to join the operation and assist GG to go to the university town of Windsor in Germany to obtain information. However, due to the police identity of freig, GG was full of hostility and distrust.

    EP13 Black Market Nov 28, 1967

    The team is assigned to infiltrate a gang of Italian black marketeers who are hijacking Allied supply trucks.

    EP14 The Great Crime Wave Dec 05, 1967

    The team stages a crime wave to keep the German authorities busy while Garrison plants explosives to destroy a cache of gold.

    EP15 Friendly Enemies Dec 19, 1967

    The team helps a group of Americans escape from a prison camp in Italy by sowing dissension between the Germans and Italians.

    EP16 Run From Death Dec 26, 1967

    A French nun convinces the team to transport four orphans and a dog back to England with them.

    EP17 The Magnificent Forger Jan 02, 1968

    The team is sent to replace a list of Nazi collaborators with a list of Allied agents, but they need the assistance of a forger who's too scared to complete the job.

    EP18 The Death Sentence Jan 09, 1968

    When Garrison is charged with cowardice and desertion, the team goes into action to find out the truth.

    EP19 War Games Jan 16, 1968

    While rescuing Allied prisoners behind enemy lines, Garrison finds out from an old friend how to destroy a huge German artillery piece that has been wreaking havoc among the Allied forces.

    EP20 The Big Lie Jan 23, 1968

    The mission is to convince a German officer that a big Allied attack is already in progress, in a location other than where it will really take place.

    EP21 Ride of Terror Jan 30, 1968

    The American colonel that the team is to rescue from a prison camp in France turns out to have been the warden of a hellhole of an American prison where Chief was an inmate.

    EP22 War and Crime Feb 13, 1968

    Garrison's plan to substitute a convict in New York for a lookalike German field marshal goes awry when the convict escapes from prison.

    EP23 The Plot to Kill Feb 20, 1968

    The team accompanies Keeler to the meeting of German officers where he is to give the go-ahead on the plot to kill Hitler, but things go awry again when Keeler is killed.

    EP24 The Frame-Up Feb 27, 1968

    A con woman is temporarily brought in to replace a wounded Chief and pull off a con at a French casino.

    EP25 The War Diamonds Mar 05, 1968

    The team goes to Switzerland to recover industrial diamonds that were stolen from a German train.

    EP26 Time Bomb Mar 12, 1968

    The team must enter a room with an unexploded bomb in order to crack a safe containing a vital sample of heavy water.
    Reviews
    ShadeGrenade

    Whenever a successful movie appears, you can be sure television will capitalise on it somehow. In 1967, Robert Aldrich's 'The Dirty Dozen' overtook that year's Bond movie - 'You Only Live Twice' - to be top box office draw, and ( along with Arthur Penn's 'Bonnie & Clyde' ) ushered in a new wave of violent cinema. Things would never be the same again. 'Garrisons Gorillas' was on air within months of the Dozen firing their first shots. It starred Ron Harper as 'Lt.Craig Garrison', who like Lee Marvin's 'Major Reisman', is put in charge of a band of convicted criminals recruited to fight the Nazis; they are the handsome 'Actor' ( Cesare Danova ), chirpy Cockney 'Goniff' ( Christopher Cary ), gambling-mad 'Casino' ( Rudy Solari ) and native American 'Chief' ( Brendon Boone ). They are given a choice - fight for Uncle Sam or go up before a firing squad. Each week, the Gorillas went on missions as daring as stealing a new German aeroplane engine, substituting counterfeit printing plates for real ones, kidnapping a German Colonel's son, recovering important microfilm hidden in a painting in a Dutch museum, and helping Americans escape from an Italian prison camp. It was the 'A-Team' of its day, with a dollop of 'Mission: Impossible' thrown in for good measure.Characterisation was sparse, though in fairness there was chemistry between the cast. Though Garrison was their 'keeper', the Gorillas grew to like him, bestowing him with the nickname 'Warden'. When, in one episode, he was suspected of crimes, they went out of their way to clear him. Had Alistair Maclean been hired to write a series, it probably would have looked a lot like 'Garrison's Gorillas'.The team often found themselves behind enemy lines, and their favourite escape method was impersonating Germans. I used to marvel at how they managed to find perfectly fitting uniforms without any difficulty whatever! 'The Dirty Dozen' connection was reinforced by the presence of Telly Savalas in the premiere episode as the argumentative 'Wheeler' - he was religious fanatic 'Archer Maggot' in the Aldrich movie.The combat scenes were unusually violent by then-television standards; each episode had a body count worthy of 'Rambo' with Nazis machine-gunned to death at a rate of knots. As an 8 year-old, I loved it!But the Gorillas' war was to be short-lived. Though popular, an anti-violence crusade sweeping the networks in the aftermath of Bobby Kennedy's assassination led to the show's unexpected cancellation after only 26 episodes. It was last shown in the U.K. in a late-night slot on I.T.V. in the early '90's. Since then, nothing. Despite the formulaic 'Boys Own'-style plots, it was an entertaining and exciting show, and should it ever appear on D.V.D. I'll be ready with my pre-order!

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    verbusen

    I was really wanting to watch this show and was thrilled that I found it through a collector. OK so how did it measure up? First let me say that I like drama in a war setting, All Quiet On The Western Front comes to my mind as a favorite, Hell Is For Heroes as another not that they are in the same league but thats a cross section of my tastes for war movies. For TV shows Combat! is most widely known and what I watched in reruns in the 70's as a pre-teen. For the record I hated Combat! as it was lame, you knew certain characters would live, so whats the point, I realized this as a youth. Garrisons Gorillas (notice they didn't use the term Guerilla) is basically a mix of mostly the Dirty Dozen (Telly Savalez was in the pilot and the redone pilot first episode), mixed with a bit of maybe Mission Impossible. It's extremely light on character development, it's full of action (the cowboys vs Indians action), and it's tedious. It has no redeeming place for a war film lover like myself, it's to the point that it's dare I say it, like Combat! boring. Combat! at least had it's character interaction, this is very devoid of good dialog, "lets go get in the back, you know something? It's gonna be light soon", as examples, it's just really lame action packaged in a WW2 TV show. The whole show is totally implausible and it is not helped that we never see any one higher than the Officer in charged handing out the missions, we just take his word that he got them, it's lazy writing (how about the officer questioning any of this? Some 12 O'Clock High TV show dialog would have worked here very well). How not to write a WW2 or war drama should use Garrisons Gorillas as an example. Definitely targeted for youths and I doubt even they would have liked it after 5 or so episodes.

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    SavhCaro

    I watched the show when it was first on TV when I was 12 & fell in love with the characters. My favorite was Chief & he became a teen idol during that time. The stories were good, the humor I loved! Even my parents enjoyed it. The TV show was shown on GoodTime TV about 4 years ago and I tried to tape all the episodes. For the time period that the show was made the sets were OK. The costumes/uniforms were great. Loved the give and take between the characters. I would recommend this to anybody! It was a take-off from the movies but it was still well done. Comparing it to today's TV shows is not fair. Acting, special effects and such have come along way in 40 plus years. The main story was that people could change and improve themselves especially when working for the greater good. Many times the guys could have escaped but chose to do their job and honor their commitment and the Warden. It had a great theme running through the entire show.

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    Lonixcap

    Combat! went off the air in 1967 after a successful, five year run. Garrison's Gorillas, also from Selmur Productions, took over Combat's same time period on Tuesday nights on ABC. Where Combat had a great character actor in Vic Morrow leading a strong supporting cast, Garrison had Ron Harper in the lead, and by time he got to the Planet of the Apes TV series some years later, he was still just as wooden and one dimensional as he is here. Only Christopher Cary and Cesare Danova(you know him as the mayor in Animal House) are any good acting-wise, and the writing wasn't nearly good enough for a show that was TV's attempt to cash in on the success of The Dirty Dozen, released the same year. CBS's take on the genre, Jericho(1967) was slightly better but was also filmed on the same MGM back lot just like Combat and Garrison's Gorillas were. By now you would see the same sets and backgrounds on three different war shows. And by the late 60's war was a little too real on the evening news and these type of WWII shows looked unrealistic and had run their course. Garrison's Gorillas was canceled and replaced by The Mod Squad in 1968.

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