Garrison's Gorillas

Garrison's Gorillas
Opening Screen for Garrison's Gorillas
Created by	Mort Green
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
Production company(s)	Selmur Productions
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	September 1967 – March 1968

Garrison's Gorillas is an ABC TV series broadcast from 1967 to 1968; a total of 26 hour-long episodes were produced. 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 canceled at the close of its first season and replaced by The Mod Squad in 1968. It managed to gather a cult following in China in the 1980s.

This action series focused on a group of commandos recruited from stateside prisons to use their special skills against the Germans in World War II. They had been promised a parole at the end of the war if they worked out (and if they lived). The alternative was an immediate return to prison; if they ran, they could expect execution for desertion. The four were: Actor (Cesare' Danova), a handsome, resonant-voiced con man; Casino (Rudy Solari), a tough, wiry safe-cracker and mechanic; Goniff (Christopher Cary), a slender, likable cat burglar; and Chief (Brendon Boone), a rugged, somber American Indian who handled a switchblade like he was born to it. Led by West Pointer First Lt. Craig Garrison (Ron Harper) and headquartered in a secluded mansion in London, this slippery group ranged all over Europe in exploits that often took them behind enemy lines. Other recruits were sometimes brought in where special skills were required. In the episode "Banker's Hours", Jack Klugman's character is recruited to help loot a vault. In "The Magnificent Forger", comedian Larry Storch plays a con brought in to help 'doctor' a Gestapo list of American agents. And in the two-parter "War And Crime/Plot to Kill", a con played by Richard Kiley is recruited because he is a dead ringer for a German field marshal who was part of a plot to assassinate Hitler.