We are in the midst of our blog series, “Examining Some of Our Favorite Medical Shows.” When I picked these shows, I did not look at how long they were on the air or when they debuted. It seems ironic that both Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare were on from 1961-66. Last week we learned Marcus Welby, MD was on the air from 1969-1976 and oddly enough that is the exact same time frame as our show for today: Medical Center.

Medical Center aired on CBS, produced by MGM Television. The pilot was televised in April of 1969 with two very different faces: Edward G. Robinson was Dr. Forestman and the role of Gannon was played by Richard Bradford.

Dr. Paul Lochner (James Daly), chief of staff, and Dr. Joe Gannon (Chad Everett) are surgeons at a large university hospital in Los Angeles. We learned about both their professional and personal lives. Gannon was the younger of the two and their age difference is what caused several of their disagreements. Nurse Wilcox (Audrey Totter) was a regular as were Nurses Chambers (Jayne Meadows) and Murphy (Jane Dulo). Several other cast members would show up in different episodes.

What was amazing about this show was the way you were able to journey through the entire process of treating a patient from the first examination to the recovery after surgery.

I do remember watching this show every week. While I could describe the show for you, I think that the best description comes from another WordPress blog, drunktv. You can read the entire article at https://drunktv.net/2019/01/27/medical-center-season-1-1969-1970-tv-series-review/. His detailed and fun summary of the show is:

“Los Angeles, California, 1969 B.O.C. (Before ObamaCare). At the state-of-the-art Medical Center, strapping, square-jawed, 100% insured-against-malpractice Dr. Joe Gannon (Chad Everett) strides through the pea green soup-colored halls like an Olympic god, dispensing pity bromides and lightning-fast scalpel incisions with eerie aplomb. In Room 447, there’s a racist who doesn’t like his black doctor. In Room 443, there’s a blind girl whose hippie boyfriend cracked up his motorcycle. In Room 441, there’s a U.N. Ambassador whose heart is about to vapor lock. And calmly, calmly, Dr. Joe moves from one room to the other, working slowly and carefully through his diagnosis before whipping out a number 10 Dermatome and striking like a cat, much to the consternation of flibbertigibbet parents, joy-boy scalpel jockeys, and administrators who don’t know their catheters from their elbows.

Usually offering backup to Dr. Groovy is Chief of Staff Dr. Paul Lochner (James Daly), who knows Dr. Joe is the best surgeon around, who knows Dr. Joe is almost always right…and who knows Dr. Joe is certainly the best-dressed cat on his staff. That doesn’t mean they don’t scrap and spark a little over procedure, or over diagnoses; however, their relationship is basically sound: Dr. Joe gets the sighs from adoring female patients, and Dr. Paul has board meetings and drinks a lot of coffee. Into these halls come the sick, the broken, and the dying, and they leave…healed.”

The theme song was “Medical Center,” composed by Lalo Schifrin. Schrifin is a five-time Grammy winner who was also nominated for six Academy awards and four Emmy awards. His best-known work is the theme from Mission: Impossible.

Tyne Daly talked about working on Medical Center with her father James. She was on four shows as four different characters. She said it was hard because her father’s name opened doors, but she had to prove herself. She was not willing to change her name but got tired of people assuming all her parts were because of her father’s connection.

The show aired on Wednesday nights with no real competition. Even so, it only ranked in the top ten during one season but was in the top twenty or thirty. In 1973, CBS moved the show to Monday nights where it had to compete with Monday Night Football and it fell out of the top thirty. In 1974 it crept back into the top thirty but fell again the next year. When the show was canceled in 1976, it was tied with Marcus Welby, MD as the longest-running medical drama. The cast would be surprised to see how long ER and Grey’s Anatomy were able to stay on the air.

I do remember watching the show but not regularly like Marcus Welby MD. I’m sure once it went up against Monday Night Football, it’s fall ratings were not good. This was a time with no ESPN or Thursday Night Football. It is pretty amazing that medical shows have continued to be a television staple through the decades even when westerns, variety shows, and nightly soap operas have come and gone.