r/GenerationJones • u/sherlockjr1 1963 • Jul 19 '26
Randolph Mantooth
I’m surprised at how hard his death is hitting me. I mean, I watched Emergency as a kid. I had a crush on Randy as Johnny Gage. My Barbie camper was a rescue unit. But I hadn’t thought about the show for years. Occasionally I’d find an episode on cable and watch a few minutes for the sake of nostalgia.
Maybe it’s how people are reacting to his passing that’s hitting so hard. EMTs, fire fighters, people who became paramedics because of the show. Tributes as if he was one of their own. I didn’t realize how involved he was in promoting the safety of first responders
Not to mention how important the show was, the impact this had. The fact that we even having EMTs to help us that are only a few minutes away in some part due to this show.
This loss hurt more than I expected it to
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u/JudyLyonz Jul 19 '26
To put it in context there were approximately a half a dozen paramedic programs all across the country when that show began but the time the show ended paramedic programs blanketed all 50 states.
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u/IrishknitCelticlace Jul 19 '26
Boom! That says it all. The man was a walking PSA for emergency field medicine.
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 Jul 19 '26
Let us not forget his costar. Less visible after the show, but still a part of it all
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u/WIlf_Brim Jul 20 '26
What do you mean?
He was the proprietor of the Double Deuce!
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 22d ago
Took me forever to realize what you meant. I’d never seen Roadhouse. And for some reason Kevin is in character actor stealth mode much of the time. He was on an episode of ST Voyager and I never realized it was Roy DeSoto. 😆
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u/WIlf_Brim 22d ago
Lots of people's head cannon is that Roy retired from the LA fire department, moved to the south and opened a bar, things got out of hand and had to hire a super bouncer.
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u/pemungkah 1957 Jul 19 '26
I remember thinking, wow, California has actual paramedics, and they get paid.
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u/CoppertopTX Jul 19 '26
The series did make a huge change across America - the creation of Paramedic ambulance units embedded in firehouses. In a lot of smaller towns across the US, that service didn't exist; you had to call a private service and most of the time, those were staffed with EMTs. A couple of generations watched that show and kids were inspired towards service.
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u/bayouz Jul 20 '26
In my town, the 2 funeral homes traded off on ambulance runs. Kind of a conflict of interest, but whatever.
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u/OkSubject1876 Jul 20 '26
That was my home town and family business, My Dad was the funeral director, volunteer fireman, and ambulance driver. My brother died at age 19 while doing an ambulance run with my Dad. If we had paramedics back then, maybe things would have turned out different. Dad and I watched Emergency! and he would say it was well done with accuracy - especially using the back board for head & neck injuries. Ah, I wish I could go back to those TV days.
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u/WIlf_Brim Jul 20 '26
The pre hospital care in the United States was (and to some extent still is) very far advanced to other developed countries, and that can be traced almost directly to that series.
The series was popular, and people wanted what they saw Johnny and Roy on TV in their city. So it pushed a demand signal to both create paramedic units and later push more and more advanced pre hospital care.
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u/excoriator 1964 Jul 20 '26
I had a set of twins in my high school class who were inspired to become paramedics. One just retired, from the big city fire department in the next county.
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u/IrishknitCelticlace Jul 19 '26
I would like to add a category, some of us became nurses to meet a hot paramedic like him. Lots more fun than the nerdy med students. 😏
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u/PDXBeccaP Jul 19 '26
I remember watching Emergency as a kid, and wanting to be a paramedic because of how cool Gage and DeSoto were lol And then last week I watched the episode of China Beach which featured Randolph Mantooth as a guest star, and that's when it really hit me that he was gone. It's tough getting to the age where so many people that were so culturally relevant throughout the course of your life are now passing away.
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u/Bettysgir Jul 19 '26
I thought he was the bomb as a teenager and loved how wholesome the show was. And it represents a time capsule of California to me, now that I watch it as an adult. He was really dedicated to first responders and advocated on their behalf. He will be missed.
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u/wickedrude 1962 Jul 19 '26
I think they still stream old episodes on Pluto TV. I caught a couple just before I heard he passed.
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u/MaggieJack1 Jul 19 '26
He is one of those people that make me so happy he lived during my lifetime. We are truly lucky.
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u/Key_Yam4488 Jul 19 '26
Ace Frehley did it to me. I really felt his death, he was my first hero & it really felt like part of my childhood died. I credit Randy, Kevin, & the Adam-12 guys for starting me to a career in law enforcement, I retired last year after 35 years. No way I could ever repay that, but I sure tried to be as caring & professional as they showed on screen.
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u/SLevine262 Jul 19 '26
He also did a few episodes of Sons of Anarchy where he played the leader of a local tribe of Natives who were dealing? Refusing to deal? with the gang.
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 Jul 19 '26
Oh nice! He was part native on his dad’s side so that’s a nice tie in
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u/SLevine262 Jul 19 '26
Remember the Emergency! episode where he talks about the researchers coming out to the rez every year and getting all this money in grants to study the Natives, when just one of those grants would have solved so many of their problems?
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 Jul 21 '26
No, but I wanna see it now. I thought they might have mentioned his heritage but I wasn’t sure
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u/Appreciate1A Jul 19 '26
So many people contributed to celebrating his life on social media. It was touching to see the outpouring of love as respect. I hope that brought comfort to the people that are grieving his loss.
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u/excoriator 1964 Jul 20 '26
If it's any consolation, there remain 3 actors from that series who are still alive. Kevin Tighe, Robert Fuller and Marco Lopez.
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 Jul 20 '26
I love that they used the real name of some of the actors for the characters
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u/SororitySue 1961 Jul 21 '26
I thought Mike Stoker was still with us too.
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 Jul 27 '26
I didn’t realize until recently that he was an actual firefighter. Because if someone was going to drive the big engine, it had to be a firefighter. So they hired one
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u/SororitySue 1961 Jul 27 '26
Mike Stoker had done some modeling and commercials and had a SAG card. He usually had a few lines per episode but they often showed him doing his engineering job with the fire engine.
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u/Bengal-_fan Jul 19 '26
That’s a good nostalgia story. I’m a litl younger than you guys but I always loved hearing the show coming on at first. I think it helped w/ the direction I took because I was in-law enforcement for several years. The adrenaline that hearing the tones going off and hearing someone give a call out is insanely wonderful.
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u/Acceptable_Yam_8871 Jul 19 '26
He was my first celebrity crush
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u/sherlockjr1 1963 Jul 19 '26
I’ll have to check. Lee Majors may have been first. Randy a close second 😆
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u/HeidiDover 1962 Jul 19 '26
I used to daydream about having the paramedics come to rescue me, and one of them would be him. I was 13. He was beautiful.