A slightly better than average sit-com for it's period, RUN BUDDY RUN was a comic turn based on THE FUGITIVE. Instead of David Jannsen's Dr. Richard Kimble running from Barry Morse's Inspector Gerard on The Fugitive to clear himself of his wife's murder (and find the one armed man who did it), Buddy (Jack Sheldon) was running from the mob. In the opening episode we see that Buddy went into a steam room which was full of mobsters led by Bruce Gordon (an interesting choice: the actor who played Frank Nitti on THE UNTOUCHABLES, but here doing the part of mob boss for laughs). Buddy overhears a sinister plot involving "Chicken Little" and then is discovered by the others. He is chased out and he finds himself constantly in danger for the rest of the series.It was amusing. In one episode he goes to a psychiatrist for help and the mob decides to make him look like a madman by not doing anything to him for awhile. The shrink actually convinces Buddy that he's been imagining everything, until at the conclusion the shrink witnesses the mobsters dropping their pretense and chasing their prey again.My favorite moment of the show was Gordon's. In one episode he is having another high level dinner/meeting with his fellow capos. After discussing all sorts of skulduggery they are involved in, it's time to relax. One of his lieutenants says they have the motion picture room ready for the movies they'll show that night. Fine says Gordon, but nothing like LITTLE CAESAR please. It's too violent for his taste! The show only lasted one season. It would be certainly worth a second glance.

I have a DVD of four episodes of this series and it's quite entertaining. Bernie Kopell plays Buddy Overstreet's brother Albert. He appeared in Get Smart as well playing the head of KAOS. Leonard Stern also produced Get Smart. More similarities: David Ketchum, who appeared in Get Smart, also appeared in Run, Buddy Run. The very first episode was executive-produced by David Susskind but other episodes I have did not list him. The pill-taking Superhero was either Captain Nice or Mr. Terrific. These shows also include the network id (CBS) but did not include the original commercials. My copies were done from 16mm film. According to some information I have, Jack Sheldon is a musician and got his start in show-business as a musician and his son also is a musician now. When watching this, it reminded me of the naiveté of Will Ferrell's character in "Elf" and Jack Sheldon looked a little like Will Ferrell in that movie. Buddy Overstreet appears to be a simpleton.

My memory of this show was that it was a vignette within another; i.e. it was a very short format that was used something like an intermission within another show.But I do remember some of the words to the theme tune --went something like "Run Buddy Run" (what a whiz I am ;)and the Turkish bath scene does ring a bell--thanks for the memory-jog.I must have got this idea from another show--does anyone remember what that might be? and keeping in mind I was only 6 at the time and watching in London, England it may well have been sandwiched between two episodes of the same show--which may well have been Get Smart.

I remember a show from childhood in which the protagonist takes a huge pill and gets 20 or 30 seconds of super power, just enough to beat the bad guys. Was this show Run Buddy Run? (I can't imagine why I remember a show that only ran 16 episodes when I was 5.)