Danger Theatre

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Danger Theatre was a half-hour comedy anthology series for television, produced by Universal Studios and originally aired on the American FOX network in 1993.

Each half-hour-long show (with one exception) comprised two comedy segments, each a spoof of a familiar action/anthology format. The style of the comedy was somewhat similar to that of films like Airplane! and TV shows like Police Squad!

Robert Vaughn, most familiar to audiences from his role on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., was the host for each episode, introducing to camera each fifteen-minute segment with mock earnestness. The jokes ranged from humorous or preposterous dialogue to visual gags and slapstick designed to poke fun at the serious dramatic formats being lampooned.

Danger Theatre only ran to seven episodes before cancellation, but was syndicated beyond the USA; successfully gaining an airing in the United Kingdom on the BBC in 1994.

1 The Searcher
2 Other segments
3 Airing history and other details
4 External links & sources

[edit] The Searcher

One segment in each episode centred on a motorbike-riding, leather-clad hero called only “The Searcher", played by Diedrich Bader. A spoof of both the stereotypical motorbiking renegade from many classic movies and the “one man on a mission” format of series such as Knight Rider (and many others), this segment is perhaps the most commonly remembered element of the series.

The Searcher would always appear coming over the horizon on his motorcycle, with a dramatic backing chorus, narrating :

“Someone needs help, so they called me. That’s what I do. I help people in trouble.......They call me: The Searcher”.

A recurring visual gag would have the Searcher conclude a scene with a quizzical stare directly at camera, utter a thoughtful, “Hmmm..”, and would then suddenly be squashed by a bulldozer, falling object, or other variant of a falling grand piano. For the actual slapstick event, it would be highly obvious that a dummy was being used in the stunt.

The popularity of this segment led to the last episode in the series being given over in its entirety to a 30-minute adventure for the Searcher.

[edit] Other segments

There were several other spoofs featured in the show. One was Tropical Punch; a send-up of Hawaii 5-0, with Adam West (of Batman fame) playing the lead role corresponding to Jack Lord’s on the original.