O.....M.....G. ::heavy sigh with a goofy grin on my face:: When I was a kid, The Rat Patrol and Combat were two of my favorite television shows that I watched with my dad every single week that they were on the air. Hell! Throw 12 0' Clock High in there as well. Dang Robert Lansing was great as General Savage.
+dtrix10kc I loved the way they took out tanks, sabotaged German operations, etc., without ever taking a casualty! That's some serious historical accuracy there ... but highly entertaining. The Aussie hat was a cool touch.
+FurtherReview he wore the slouch hat in honour of the Australians who fought in WW2,it was an original Australian made slouch hat with rising sun ensign pined to left side of hat.
One of the best themes ever! I watched every single episode on dvd a couple years back, and enjoyed the theme everytime I heard it! Too bad it had such a short run.
As a kid during the early 70's, I loved this show. It was excitement and adventure, all rolled in one thirty minute show. This show was cool right from the start of the opening credits, all the way through the ending credits. You could say that it was the Tour Of Duty show, or the Unit show, of it's day.
I loved the show. It made my dad chuckle. He never said why. My uncle later told me: "As close as those explosions were to the jeeps, in real life, the shrapnel from a real Panzer tank of the Afrika Korps would have shredded those poor guys up, what with the lack of any cover. Dad served in Europe during WW2
Don't know if anyone else has noticed this but at 0:30 when Th barrel of the machine gun dips down you can clearly see that the barrel has been spiked ( blocked by hammering in a long metal spike and welding into place).
I loved this show when I was a kid -- the romance of jeeps attacking tanks. A 14-year career in the infantry taught me how silly that is. But heck - it's still fun to believe.
I remember watching this show in the 1960s as a kid. I later found out it was filmed the show in the Coachella Valley around Joshua Tree park. I use to spend my very hot summer vacation there.
teenagerinsac A 1960's US TV show filming in Spain and French Morocco? Hollywood was cheap in those days. The Star Trek transporter was originally "invented" to save the time and expense of depicting shuttle takeoffs and landings. The sparkle effect was much cheaper. More likely they filmed a few establishing shots in Spain and French Morocco once, then did B-team filming in Joshua Tree park, with the rest in the studio or the back lot.
DemosCat Actually in the 50s and 60s Hollywood made a lot of movies abroad, they took some pride in shooting in locations that closely matched the story like Ben Hur and 10 Commandments with Charlton Heston and Hatari with John Wayne. I think I read that most of the desert scenes for the Rat Patrol was shoot in Spain.
John doe Movies, yes. But a TV show? It would have been extremely unusual to have the budget to film abroad. Still, travel to Europe was relatively cheap in those days. With most of Europe still devastated by WWII, the US dollar was very strong. My father vacationed in Germany in 1958, bought a car, and brought it back with him! Regulations make that nearly impossible today. I believe the exchange rate at the time was 4.20 Deutschmarks (DM) to the dollar. By the time I went to Germany in 1976, that was down to about 2.50 to the dollar, and the dollar's value continued its steady drop. If the DM were still around today, the exchange rate would be about 1.75 to the dollar (based on the current Euro value, and knowing the Germans exchanged their DM for Euros in 2001 at about a 2:1 ratio.)
To hear that opening music takes me back to being a kid again in the Trippy 60's. Along with seeing Combat and it's fence line of rising bayonets. That's when the news opened up with daily totals of dead and injured in Vietnam like they were baseball scores.
@GeraldTheBusDriver Before this covid shutdown, I went to see the movie "The Call of the Wild" starring Harrison Ford. The main dog "Buck" was CG and so weren't other dogs in the dog sled team. I cringed at the dumbness of CG dog facial expressions. I gave the movie a C-
Truth is stranger than fiction. The show was based upon the exploits of the nascent Special Air Service, the SAS. As we all know, that regiment would evolve into the British Army's fiercest dogs, their motto : " Who Dares Wins " and as the model for all future tier 1 Special Forces operators. Col. Charles Beckwith, the father of Delta Force, served as a visiting officer with SAS in the 60s.
One of the coolest TV shows of the 1970s. Great cast including Eric Braeden (Hans Gudengast) as the persistent and clever Capt. Dietrich of the Afrika Korps.
I loved this show when I was a kid. It was only on for two or three seasons. Chris George was my favorite character actor back then. This brings back a few memories.
BONES no just that but they destroyed the entire Afrikan Korps, magine deploying this guys in D-Day. just to jeeps in the middle of the beach destroying the German bunkers and the allies having 0 casualties
@@what3424 , I'm hip I'm hip. Hollywood fiction similar to Warp speed and sound in space. Worth a laugh or two for viewers like us that know better ruining it for those who still believe in Santa. Could you imagine if aliens looking down from space or people in the distant future thought of Rat patrol as a real World war II documentary. Even funnier is how communist citizens hold overzealous patriotic blind Faith in Red Chinese propaganda showing one soldier defeat whole Japanese army. Two general purpose Willie Nash rambler Jeeps could have never been that Superior no matter who was behind the wheel. Even if Rat patrol had surface to air missile Sam's like today in the middle East where we see large caliber rapid rate machine guns mounted in the back of Toyota trucks.
A great show, these guys stick together and help each other, something we seldom see on tv today. But that's the way it is in the military, we watch out for each other.
I watched this show when I was a kid and was fascinated with the jeeps. It has not lost its appeal all these years later. A rare show, and would have been much better if it had been an hour instead of thirty minutes.
Ditto! This show, and Combat were my favorites. I still love military shows, even served in 2 branches of the Armed forces. USN/USAF. As kids, marbles, and war were our favorite games we'd play. Im 51 today...lol thanks for the upload!
I saw this when I was a kid. Even got an Aurora plastic model set which had more accurate German tanks like the Panther (not in desert) and Panzer IV. his show had some of the best background musics which still rings in my ear after over 40 years.
THE ONE THING THAT GOT ME WITH THIS SHOW WAS.......THEY NEVER GOT KILLED..I REALIZE IF THEY DID..THE SHOWS OVER.....BUT IT BUGS ME....4 GUYS IN JEEPS TAKING OUT PANZERS AND HALF TRACKS...I PERSONALLY WOULOD RATHER BE IN THE PANZERS OR HALFTRACKS.....I DID RESPECT HAUPTMAN DEITRICH OF DER AFRICA KORP..A TRUE SOLDIER...AND A MAN OF HONOR..MANY GERMANS WERE STRICKLY BY THE GENEVA CONVENTION....AND HE WAS A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF THAT..THANK YOU MR BRAEDON..DANKERSHON
I remember hearing at the time ... when the jeeps jumped over the sand dune at the opening... one of the stuntmen holding the machine gun snapped his back from the whiplash! (not sure if it was true... but it certainly looks possible)
That show seriously rocked...the only complaint I have is with the M2 MG's mounted on the jeeps: The recoil from an M2 .50 caliber would nearly flip a jeep over. Other than that, the Rat Patrol RULES!
I loved Christopher George in the Rat Patrol when I was a kid.....I had the biggest crush on him! Cool hat, first time I ever saw anyone wear it that way.....RIP
oh, does brings back my younger days. when two jeeps could go up against tanks and keep coming out on top! i loved watching this. it came on before or after combat. and the german rival was a great character. i hope with the new retro tv stations they bring back all these great shows.
I loved the Rat Patrol - I always had my homework done early so I could watch. Interestingly, the show was based on an actual unit in WW II except that the actual unit was all British. And that explains why The Rat Patrol bombed in Great Britain.
This was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. I bought the dvds and enjoy the shows for what they were intended to be... entertainment, not a weekly documentary about the African campaign. I'm glad they finally put those dvds out!
Just to set the record straight, the Desert Rats DID patrol the desert with armoured car scouts. The armoured car scouts were with the 11th Hussars, 4th South African Armoured Car Regiment and the 3rd Support Company, Northumberland Fusiliers. They used a wide variety of light/heavey machine armed armoured scout cars throughout the war.
Yeah, they would not last long on too many of those patrols in real life, having an American soldier wearing an Aussie hat was just wrong. Not to mention it should have been an all British soldiers as the Rat Patrol instead of Americans. Propaganda at its best.
Regards from the set location of this TV show! This is Almeria, Spain, and these dunes are the same which were used for Lawrence of Arabia. If some USA fanatic Rat Patrol fan comes to Europe, drop me a line without hesitation and I will guide him/her kindly. I know all the places because they also are the same used in John Lennon's movie, which I am an expert about. My place in Facebook is Lennonalmeriaforever beatlemanos. Take care!
Being English I remember my Dad getting very upset about this show, saying the Long Range Desert Force was a British thing. Me and my mates just loved those Jeeps going over the dunes - which I guess where a long way from North Africa!
really cool show.i have always been a big fan of christopher george.also loved him in the film grizzly and the episodes of police story that he guest starred on.
Have this along with Combat on video, and I never grow tired of them. It was great growing up in the 60's, without cable, and using your imagination, and playing outside, when little boys were allowed to play with toy guns & pretend to battle. Instead of toy guns, the kids today kill people by the thousands, with their video games. Go Figure. Anyway, I think every little guy in the neighborhood wanted to become a soldier because of these shows, and many of us did. Great memories for sure.
the actor Hans has actually also been a long time regular on the soap opera "Young and the Restless" playing Victor Nueman... with the actor's name Eric Braeden.
I was so young then that I could only remember bits and pieces of the show. Just think , this show was on before the Apollo moon landings , Watergate , crack cocaine and so many things.
I watched it as a kid on UHF and loved it. Just bought my first jeep ever 2 days ago, could anyone tell me where I could get the theme song on CD, cause thats all I'm ever gonna play in my jeep.
I was Rat Patrol deprived in my house. There was only one TV and Mom wanted to watch another show on a different channel. Women... I've had deep-seated resentment issues with her ever since. ☺
Always impressed with how close those jeeps could get to a German position without detection. In the desert. At night. Considering how much *noise* a jeep made when driving along that flat empty space.
I remember my Rat Patrol toy/model set as a kid. Came with a German MK IV tank, two jeeps, some army guys and a plastice sand dune with a palm tree on it.
There's several oldies but goodies on channels like RTV and MeTV. "Combat" and "12 O'Clock High" are two in regular rotation that I try to catch as often as possible.
The thing that really makes me mad is that today there's the technology to have accurate armour and planes. The one thing that always annoyed me in the old shows was spotting an M48 posing as a Panzer IV (or worse, a Sherman). Today they have the means to put accurate machinery out there but nobody seems interested. It'll be interesting to see what this new Hanks/Spielberg show looks like if they get it into production.
It’s like selling sand to the Egyptians. Not many takers but cool Jeep jumps. Here, hold my Kepi hat, I’m gonna take out this whole column of battle tanks.
Gary Raymond and Lawtence Casey are still with us. Dominic Frontiere, who composed the music also did the same for The Outer Limits. Hans Gudegast a/k/a Eric Braedon is still acting and recently starred in soaps on TV.
Didn't realize until a few weeks ago that Hans Gudegast is the same guy who has gone by the name Eric Braeden for the last 40 years on Young and the Restless.
This is so much THE SH**!!! I've always wished I could be runnin' the .60 cal from the roll bar, since Rat Patrol came out and now I'm 48! Crap, where does time go? Nice post to take us back a ways -
@Briselance I've been wondering about Hitchcock's hat for a long time, as well as Moffit's black beret, and Troy's ANZAC hat. I've seen references to the French Corps d' Afrique in the horror novel "All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By" and in the movie "The Steel Lady." I thought it might give me a line on Hitchcock's kepi, but when I searched on the Internet all I found was a unit of black soldiers in the Union Army during the American Civil War, well before 1914.
@Camerameister1 -- Yup. The North African campaign was mostly fought by British Empire troops, including Aussies and Kiwis. The US entered that conflict toward the end. The SAS originated there, initially as a part of the Long Range Desert Group. Charles Upham VC was awarded his second Victoria Cross for acts of valor in North Africa. He was a New Zealander -- the only combat trooper ever to be awarded the VC twice. So, no surprises to see Christopher George in an Aussie hat.
![เปิดคำทำนาย นอสตราดามุส - บาบา วานก้า ปี 2025 คนทั่วโลกต้องเจออะไรบ้าง? | แฉ 11 ธ.ค. 67 [2/3] |GMM25](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xmTIKWJUMPM/mqdefault.jpg)
Man, I loved this show. Genius idea to have each of the characters wear a different hat so you could tell them apart in the long shots.
Ahhh
Can't beat those old TV shows..
I love how Christopher George signals to the driver: "Start driving now, so I can dramatically run alongside the jeep and jump in like a bad ass!"
THIS WAS AN EXCELLENT SHOW.
O.....M.....G. ::heavy sigh with a goofy grin on my face:: When I was a kid, The Rat Patrol and Combat were two of my favorite television shows that I watched with my dad every single week that they were on the air. Hell! Throw 12 0' Clock High in there as well. Dang Robert Lansing was great as General Savage.
+dtrix10kc I loved the way they took out tanks, sabotaged German operations, etc., without ever taking a casualty! That's some serious historical accuracy there ... but highly entertaining. The Aussie hat was a cool touch.
+dtrix10kc Don't forget my favorite: Garrison's Gorillas! I had a mad crush on Cesare Danova!
+FurtherReview he wore the slouch hat in honour of the Australians who fought in WW2,it was an original Australian made slouch hat with rising sun ensign pined to left side of hat.
+FurtherReview It was always amazing how close they could get to an enemy position at night in the desert, considering how much noise a jeep makes!
I was just going to mention them, I preferred Garrison's Gorilla's to Combat
I liked this as a kid and I still love the theme song...
One of the best themes ever! I watched every single episode on dvd a couple years back, and enjoyed the theme everytime I heard it! Too bad it had such a short run.
I grew up on this as a kid and it was one of my favorite shows. I even had the GI Joe Rat Patrol set.
As a kid during the early 70's, I loved this show. It was excitement and adventure, all rolled in one thirty minute show. This show was cool right from the start of the opening credits, all the way through the ending credits. You could say that it was the Tour Of Duty show, or the Unit show, of it's day.
The show RAT PATROL Premiered from 1966 to 1968 not the 70's
*"Tour of Duty" is a very undeservedly unnoticed show.*
🙂👍🏻♥️
@@paulmccoy5396 Doesn't mean he couldn't watch re-runs in the 70's.
I loved the show. It made my dad chuckle. He never said why. My uncle later told me: "As close as those explosions were to the jeeps, in real life, the shrapnel from a real Panzer tank of the Afrika Korps would have shredded those poor guys up, what with the lack of any cover. Dad served in Europe during WW2
Don't know if anyone else has noticed this but at 0:30 when Th barrel of the machine gun dips down you can clearly see that the barrel has been spiked ( blocked by hammering in a long metal spike and welding into place).
That was my favorite show growing up !
My favorite show when I was a kid. My parents used to tell the baby sitter, you have to watch Rat patrol at 7 PM if you want a good evening!!
Sound advice!
I loved this show when I was a kid -- the romance of jeeps attacking tanks. A 14-year career in the infantry taught me how silly that is. But heck - it's still fun to believe.
I remember watching this show in the 1960s as a kid. I later found out it was filmed the show in the Coachella Valley around Joshua Tree park. I use to spend my very hot summer vacation there.
Actually they say the filming was mostly in Spain and French Morocco.
teenagerinsac
A 1960's US TV show filming in Spain and French Morocco? Hollywood was cheap in those days. The Star Trek transporter was originally "invented" to save the time and expense of depicting shuttle takeoffs and landings. The sparkle effect was much cheaper.
More likely they filmed a few establishing shots in Spain and French Morocco once, then did B-team filming in Joshua Tree park, with the rest in the studio or the back lot.
DemosCat Actually in the 50s and 60s Hollywood made a lot of movies abroad, they took some pride in shooting in locations that closely matched the story like Ben Hur and 10 Commandments with Charlton Heston and Hatari with John Wayne. I think I read that most of the desert scenes for the Rat Patrol was shoot in Spain.
John doe Movies, yes. But a TV show? It would have been extremely unusual to have the budget to film abroad. Still, travel to Europe was relatively cheap in those days.
With most of Europe still devastated by WWII, the US dollar was very strong. My father vacationed in Germany in 1958, bought a car, and brought it back with him! Regulations make that nearly impossible today. I believe the exchange rate at the time was 4.20 Deutschmarks (DM) to the dollar. By the time I went to Germany in 1976, that was down to about 2.50 to the dollar, and the dollar's value continued its steady drop. If the DM were still around today, the exchange rate would be about 1.75 to the dollar (based on the current Euro value, and knowing the Germans exchanged their DM for Euros in 2001 at about a 2:1 ratio.)
+John doe Spain correct.
When I was a kid I had the lunch box, action figures, models and the board game. Yeah, I was a fan ;-)
YO!! We had the board game, too!!! 😓😓😄
They don't make shows like these anymore.
Chaloner They can’t
To hear that opening music takes me back to being a kid again in the Trippy 60's. Along with seeing Combat and it's fence line of rising bayonets.
That's when the news opened up with daily totals of dead and injured in Vietnam like they were baseball scores.
@GeraldTheBusDriver Before this covid shutdown, I went to see the movie "The Call of the Wild" starring Harrison Ford. The main dog "Buck" was CG and so weren't other dogs in the dog sled team. I cringed at the dumbness of CG dog facial expressions. I gave the movie a C-
Thank god. Its dreadful and hasn't aged well at all
The theme song for The rat patrol was simply AWESOME 👍
Aside from the unlikely premise, this was a good "action" show. As a child, I loved it.
Not that unlikely, that’s what “ patrols “ are for
Truth is stranger than fiction. The show was based upon the exploits of the nascent Special Air Service, the SAS. As we all know, that regiment would evolve into the British Army's fiercest dogs, their motto : " Who Dares Wins " and as the model for all future tier 1 Special Forces operators. Col. Charles Beckwith, the father of Delta Force, served as a visiting officer with SAS in the 60s.
One of the coolest TV shows of the 1970s. Great cast including Eric Braeden (Hans Gudengast) as the persistent and clever Capt. Dietrich of the Afrika Korps.
That show is why I've owned Jeeps all my adult life!! And I'm 73.
Yeah
Jeeps ... because you wanted to be stranded? As a FO, it's Toyota and Isuzu manual trans. Wait, did you even serve?
I remember I once had a Rat Patrol lunchbox......
195511SM so did I wish I still had it.
Me too!
195511SM I had one too. Coolest lunch box everrrrr! I always look for one at yard sales and flea markets. $160 on ebay
I loved this show when I was a kid. It was only on for two or three seasons. Chris George was my favorite character actor back then. This brings back a few memories.
It aired on ABC 1966-1968
One of the greatest shows of all times!
I used to watch this with my father and younger brothers. Awww, I miss it.
He rips the condom off the gun and yells “We’re going bareback boys!”
Best scene ever. 😅
i own both seasons . i found them at walmart awhile back. i watch this with my dad childhood memeories
I used to love this show as a young fella, thanks for posting Roy Rod. Hans Gudegast in Rat Patrol = Eric Braeden in The Night Stalker.
Robert Sykes Hans/Eric is DA BOMB. : )
Of course he's best known as Victor Newman on the Young and the Restless.
The Rat Patrol was one of my favorites, a quote from Sam Troy, " Grab the fiftty and all.of the ammo," when one of the jeeps broke down.
Yes wonderful time and place. We were so lucky to have lived in this era.
One of the great shows
Just by that TV show I fall in love with the willys Jeeps!.
Every episode of this show you see someone getting whiplash from riding all these vehicles over bad terrain.😂
Loved this program when I was a young boy in the early 70’s 👍🏻
Funny I woulda guessed u more a fan of westerns an all... 🚂🐎😏
Wow...does this bring back memories!! I still remember those Jeeps jumping the sand dunes in the opening!!
Classis TV! Nothing like the crap today.
One of the coolest intros the guys doing jumps in the sand with the trucks absolutely EPIC!
I like how 2 jeeps can destroy a tank using machine guns
With depleted uranium tipped ammo of course🤣
BONES no just that but they destroyed the entire Afrikan Korps, magine deploying this guys in D-Day. just to jeeps in the middle of the beach destroying the German bunkers and the allies having 0 casualties
Browning M2 aircraft, not just any machine guns. German infantry could be seen using same guns in rat patrol at times.
CONCERTMANchicago I’m making fun of the logic in this series, like these guys can destroy the hole afrikan corps with just 2 jeeps
@@what3424 , I'm hip I'm hip. Hollywood fiction similar to Warp speed and sound in space. Worth a laugh or two for viewers like us that know better ruining it for those who still believe in Santa.
Could you imagine if aliens looking down from space or people in the distant future thought of Rat patrol as a real World war II documentary.
Even funnier is how communist citizens hold overzealous patriotic blind Faith in Red Chinese propaganda showing one soldier defeat whole Japanese army.
Two general purpose Willie Nash rambler Jeeps could have never been that Superior no matter who was behind the wheel. Even if Rat patrol had surface to air missile Sam's like today in the middle East where we see large caliber rapid rate machine guns mounted in the back of Toyota trucks.
A fun, if unrealistic, adventure show. As a child, I loved it. If I saw it now, I'd just put my brain on "cruise control" and enjoy it.
Thank you for share by Roy Rod. One of my favour movies when i was young.
A great show, these guys stick together and help each other, something we seldom see on tv today. But that's the way it is in the military, we watch out for each other.
I used to stay up till 2 in the morning to see this show. Nice to see that I can find it again.
I watched this as a wee lad. I still have a Rat Patrol lunch box!
I watched this show when I was a kid and was fascinated with the jeeps. It has not lost its appeal all these years later. A rare show, and would have been much better if it had been an hour instead of thirty minutes.
Ditto! This show, and Combat were my favorites. I still love military shows, even served in 2 branches of the Armed forces. USN/USAF. As kids, marbles, and war were our favorite games we'd play. Im 51 today...lol thanks for the upload!
I saw this when I was a kid. Even got an Aurora plastic model set which had more accurate German tanks like the Panther (not in desert) and Panzer IV. his show had some of the best background musics which still rings in my ear after over 40 years.
Thanks guys, I was a big fan myself. I am working on another clip, you will love it.
My pals and I jumped our bikes over ditches, hills, and Ms. Alice's flower bed because *WE* were the neighborhood Rat Patrol. 🚴💨
A Brit after my own heart.
Awesome.
Same here. We used set up our GI Joes in jeeps going over the sand dunes.....we even had a big Tiger tank shooting at them.....good times!
Let's not forget the composer: Dominic Frontiere. Also known for "Hang em High".
THE ONE THING THAT GOT ME WITH THIS SHOW WAS.......THEY NEVER GOT KILLED..I REALIZE IF THEY DID..THE SHOWS OVER.....BUT IT BUGS ME....4 GUYS IN JEEPS TAKING OUT PANZERS AND HALF TRACKS...I PERSONALLY WOULOD RATHER BE IN THE PANZERS OR HALFTRACKS.....I DID RESPECT HAUPTMAN DEITRICH OF DER AFRICA KORP..A TRUE SOLDIER...AND A MAN OF HONOR..MANY GERMANS WERE STRICKLY BY THE GENEVA CONVENTION....AND HE WAS A GOOD REPRESENTATION OF THAT..THANK YOU MR BRAEDON..DANKERSHON
loved it, can't believe it was onn 50 yrs. ago
Michael Laman it’s funny how 2 jeeps can destroy a tank
I remember hearing at the time ... when the jeeps jumped over the sand dune at the opening... one of the stuntmen holding the machine gun snapped his back from the whiplash! (not sure if it was true... but it certainly looks possible)
That brought back some memories. Influenced me so much, I used to wear a hat like George's. Long, long time ago.
That show seriously rocked...the only complaint I have is with the M2 MG's mounted on the jeeps: The recoil from an M2 .50 caliber would nearly flip a jeep over. Other than that, the Rat Patrol RULES!
Those are not Ma Deuces on the jeeps - they are .30 caliber air-cooled Browning machine guns.
0:55
Fergalicous by Fergie sampled this
I loved Christopher George in the Rat Patrol when I was a kid.....I had the biggest crush on him! Cool hat, first time I ever saw anyone wear it that way.....RIP
"Rat Patrol" is today best remembered as the show where Jeeps jumped over a giant sand dune!!
Even though they were shows from the '60s, Rat Patrol and Hogan's Heroes remain my fondest memories of the late night early '80s reruns!
One of the best shows ever!
Rat Patrol, M.A.S.H. & the A-Team = best military series ever!
oh, does brings back my younger days. when two jeeps could go up against tanks and keep coming out on top! i loved watching this. it came on before or after combat. and the german rival was a great character. i hope with the new retro tv stations they bring back all these great shows.
I always liked that hat George wore I had one similar pinned up on one side
It's an iconic Australian slouch hat. The Germans never enjoyed seeing them much in either world war!
It might not have been historically accurate in many aspects of the show but it is a great show just like so many other classics.
Haman Karn it was a fun show.
Man I've always loved this intro! Two jeeps with 50 cal. machine-guns coming over the top of a sand dune! If I was only in the driver's seat. 😎
I loved this show. Great time for TV.
I loved the Rat Patrol - I always had my homework done early so I could watch. Interestingly, the show was based on an actual unit in WW II except that the actual unit was all British. And that explains why The Rat Patrol bombed in Great Britain.
This was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid. I bought the dvds and enjoy the shows for what they were intended to be... entertainment, not a weekly documentary about the African campaign. I'm glad they finally put those dvds out!
Exactly
Wicked awesome show!
Jeez ! I was about 3 or 4 when I first saw this ! Thanks for the memories !
Just to set the record straight, the Desert Rats DID patrol the desert with armoured car scouts. The armoured car scouts were with the 11th Hussars, 4th South African Armoured Car Regiment and the 3rd Support Company, Northumberland Fusiliers. They used a wide variety of light/heavey machine armed armoured scout cars throughout the war.
Yeah, they would not last long on too many of those patrols in real life, having an American soldier wearing an Aussie hat was just wrong. Not to mention it should have been an all British soldiers as the Rat Patrol instead of Americans. Propaganda at its best.
really liked this show...I was a teenager at the time. Chris George didn't have to pretend he was a real tough guy.
Regards from the set location of this TV show! This is Almeria, Spain, and these dunes are the same which were used for Lawrence of Arabia. If some USA fanatic Rat Patrol fan comes to Europe, drop me a line without hesitation and I will guide him/her kindly. I know all the places because they also are the same used in John Lennon's movie, which I am an expert about.
My place in Facebook is Lennonalmeriaforever beatlemanos.
Take care!
Eric Bradon was also the millionaire with the pregnant mistress in Titanic but almost all of his scenes were deleted.
Great tv, I loved to see every week..
Being English I remember my Dad getting very upset about this show, saying the Long Range Desert Force was a British thing.
Me and my mates just loved those Jeeps going over the dunes - which I guess where a long way from North Africa!
Great show fond memories ! Wish I had one of those jeeps for jersey Shore traffic !!
"Rat Patrol" will best be remembered as the series where jeeps leaped across dessert sand dunes!
really cool show.i have always been a big fan of christopher george.also loved him in the film grizzly and the episodes of police story that he guest starred on.
Have this along with Combat on video, and I never grow tired of them. It was great growing up in the 60's, without cable, and using your imagination, and playing outside, when little boys were allowed to play with toy guns & pretend to battle. Instead of toy guns, the kids today kill people by the thousands, with their video games. Go Figure. Anyway, I think every little guy in the neighborhood wanted to become a soldier because of these shows, and many of us did. Great memories for sure.
the actor Hans has actually also been a long time regular on the soap opera "Young and the Restless" playing Victor Nueman... with the actor's name Eric Braeden.
I was so young then that I could only remember bits and pieces of the show. Just think , this show was on before the Apollo moon landings , Watergate , crack cocaine and so many things.
LOVED this as a kid!
The old man has a Ford Jeep 1942 that saw action in the ME - so this series was all time for us
I watched it as a kid on UHF and loved it. Just bought my first jeep ever 2 days ago, could anyone tell me where I could get the theme song on CD, cause thats all I'm ever gonna play in my jeep.
I was Rat Patrol deprived in my house. There was only one TV and Mom wanted to watch another show on a different channel. Women... I've had deep-seated resentment issues with her ever since. ☺
Always impressed with how close those jeeps could get to a German position without detection.
In the desert.
At night.
Considering how much *noise* a jeep made when driving along that flat empty space.
The well-groomed desert soldier is a happy soldier.
Ireally loved this show as a kid
I remember my Rat Patrol toy/model set as a kid. Came with a German MK IV tank, two jeeps, some army guys and a plastice sand dune with a palm tree on it.
There's several oldies but goodies on channels like RTV and MeTV. "Combat" and "12 O'Clock High" are two in regular rotation that I try to catch as often as possible.
The thing that really makes me mad is that today there's the technology to have accurate armour and planes. The one thing that always annoyed me in the old shows was spotting an M48 posing as a Panzer IV (or worse, a Sherman). Today they have the means to put accurate machinery out there but nobody seems interested. It'll be interesting to see what this new Hanks/Spielberg show looks like if they get it into production.
Jeeps with Machine Guns mounted, AWESOME!
It’s like selling sand to the Egyptians.
Not many takers but cool Jeep jumps.
Here, hold my Kepi hat, I’m gonna take out this whole column of battle tanks.
Gary Raymond and Lawtence Casey are still with us. Dominic Frontiere, who composed the music also did the same for The Outer Limits. Hans Gudegast a/k/a Eric Braedon is still acting and recently starred in soaps on TV.
Didn't realize until a few weeks ago that Hans Gudegast is the same guy who has gone by the name Eric Braeden for the last 40 years on Young and the Restless.
this show kicked ass. I always watched it
This show and Combat! were two of my favorite shows when I was a kid
I always thought it was cool when the Jeeps jumped the dune
This is so much THE SH**!!! I've always wished I could be runnin' the .60 cal from the roll bar, since Rat Patrol came out and now I'm 48! Crap, where does time go? Nice post to take us back a ways -
when i was in school as a kid , i would fake being sick so i could stay stay home and watch the rat patrol
@Briselance I've been wondering about Hitchcock's hat for a long time, as well as Moffit's black beret, and Troy's ANZAC hat.
I've seen references to the French Corps d' Afrique in the horror novel "All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By" and in the movie "The Steel Lady." I thought it might give me a line on Hitchcock's kepi, but when I searched on the Internet all I found was a unit of black soldiers in the Union Army during the American Civil War, well before 1914.
@Camerameister1 -- Yup. The North African campaign was mostly fought by British Empire troops, including Aussies and Kiwis. The US entered that conflict toward the end.
The SAS originated there, initially as a part of the Long Range Desert Group.
Charles Upham VC was awarded his second Victoria Cross for acts of valor in North Africa. He was a New Zealander -- the only combat trooper ever to be awarded the VC twice.
So, no surprises to see Christopher George in an Aussie hat.