As a young man I joined the VFD. I was inspired and entertained by the show. I went from the bottom ranks all the way to the top. During this process I became an EMT then to Paramedic. I quess the nation as whole move fire and ems foward due to this show. When I was new on the ambulance I was third person. One crew fashioned themselves to be Johnny and Roy. They were in there own world. If you did not keep up with the show you just got left out. Unfortantly it is hard to find it here on TV. The new digital splits was running it on RTN. I did not get it on DISH but they had it on cable at 1:00. A mad dash was made by many to go to the firehouse where it came on cable. Now it is gone again. We will find it once more. I started at 18 now near 55. I still find it inspiring. by the way 37 years ago the same VFD.
I was once in a Fire Dispatch class from APCO. The instructor was a career Lieutenant from somewhere in Mississippi, and he was very young. At one point he said he had heard of but never seen an old show about some paramedics in LA county called Rescue 50 or something like that. He didn't understand why it was so popular but he had heard that allot of people became firefighters and paramedics because of this show.
As a class break I approached him, and said that if he had never seen Emergency, then he really couldn't grasp much about my generations entrance into the emergency services and there was probably very little he could say about dispatching or firefighting that would be all that relevant. I know, it was mean but really. We make our probies watch episodes.
The newer guys do not allways grasp " Thats how it was then " and can not relate to currnet times. It gave a goal to reach for when it was all so ahead of it's time. Embrase the past and go forth to improve all we have. But we all had a starting place to dream.