Richard (Dick) Simmons [NO, not THAT Richard Simmons, the exercise guy - I mean the ACTOR] ALWAYS turned in a good, if not GREAT performance as Sergeant Preston of Canada's North West Mounted Police, in this program created by the man who invented The Lone Ranger AND The Green 🐝 Hornet! All of those were created for Radio (Yes, Boys and Girls - Radio once did something besides playing mediocre music or All-News.) The producers had the foresight to shoot this series in color, even though a national broadcast standard for color television had yet to be widely adopted by U. S. TV Networks and local stations. "The Jailbreaker" first aired on CBS In November of 1957, but the NTSC color standard, adopted by the FCC in 1953 didn't go into widespread use until the 1960's. Therefore, the entire series looked like this film print of this outing, which for some reason was a film print in Black and White.
It was still a good installment of the series, despite the fact that it takes something above the mind of a child to watch something without color in it, not the least of which was the presence of actor Dick Wilson, better known to most people as "Mr. Whipple", the store clerk in the "Charmin" bathroom tissue commercials of the 1970's and early '80's.
This installment was written by none other than a man (YES, A MAN) who went by the name of Fran Striker, and back in the Radio Days of the aforementioned shows, Striker wrote the bulk of the Lone Ranger series... LONG before it had a picture! If you've ever watched a Sergeant Preston show and you noticed that with all the narration, which was for the most part superbly done by Vic Perrin (who happens to have a list of Film, Radio and TV credits that's as long as BOTH your arms AND legs!), you really didn't need a picture, people like Fran Striker, and of course George W. Trendle are MAJOR parts of the reason. And if, like me, you've seen a gazillion CAR chase scenes on cop shows, you haven't LIVED until you've seen one on DOG SLEDS!!!!
So what happens in the plot? First, read the. IMDB page for more info. Second, watch "The Jailbreaker", because I'm not giving you a single clue as to what goes on in THIS one! Well, except for one thing you may already know. Sergeant Preston, like EVERY Canadian Mountie ever, always gets his man!
It was still a good installment of the series, despite the fact that it takes something above the mind of a child to watch something without color in it, not the least of which was the presence of actor Dick Wilson, better known to most people as "Mr. Whipple", the store clerk in the "Charmin" bathroom tissue commercials of the 1970's and early '80's.
This installment was written by none other than a man (YES, A MAN) who went by the name of Fran Striker, and back in the Radio Days of the aforementioned shows, Striker wrote the bulk of the Lone Ranger series... LONG before it had a picture! If you've ever watched a Sergeant Preston show and you noticed that with all the narration, which was for the most part superbly done by Vic Perrin (who happens to have a list of Film, Radio and TV credits that's as long as BOTH your arms AND legs!), you really didn't need a picture, people like Fran Striker, and of course George W. Trendle are MAJOR parts of the reason. And if, like me, you've seen a gazillion CAR chase scenes on cop shows, you haven't LIVED until you've seen one on DOG SLEDS!!!!
So what happens in the plot? First, read the. IMDB page for more info. Second, watch "The Jailbreaker", because I'm not giving you a single clue as to what goes on in THIS one! Well, except for one thing you may already know. Sergeant Preston, like EVERY Canadian Mountie ever, always gets his man!
