Garrison's Gorillas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Garrison's Gorillas
Opening Screen for Garrison's Gorillas
Format	World War II series
Starring	Ron Harper as First Lt. Craig Garrison Cesare Danova as Actor Brendon Boone as Chief Rudy Solari as Casino Christopher Cary as Goniff
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	26
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	September, 1967 – March, 1968

Garrison's Gorillas was an ABC TV series broadcast from 1967 to 1968; a total of 26 hour-long episodes were produced.

[edit] Plot

It was action series that focused on a motley group of commandos recruited from stateside prisons to use their special skills against the Germans in World War II. They had been promised a presidential pardon at the end of the war if they worked out; if not, they could expect a firing squad. The four were Actor, a handsome, resonant-voiced con man; Casino, a tough, wiry safe-cracker; Goniff, a slender, likable cat burglar; and Chief, a rugged, somber American Indian proficient with a switchblade. Led by West Pointer First Lt. Craig Garrison, and headquartered in a secluded spot in England, this slippery group ranged all over Europe in exploits that often took them behind enemy lines. It was inspired by the 1967 film The Dirty Dozen, which featured a similar scenario of training Allied prisoners for World War II military missions.

Garrison's Gorillas was cancelled and replaced by The Mod Squad in 1968.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

It managed to gather a cult following in China the 1980s.
Dell Comics published a short-lived comic book based on the series.
Two spin-off novels were written by Jack Pearl: the first a mass-market adult paperback published by Dell, called, simply GARRISON'S GORILLAS; the second aimed at the Young Adult (YA) market and published by Whitman, titled GARRISON'S GORILLAS AND THE FEAR FORMULA. Both are of course long out of print, but fairly easy to find at reasonable prices from eBay and other antiquarian & collectible book sites.