Watched it with my dad never missed it!!! Aceses5[whstl]
Of course! That’s where I learned a soldier with an M1 could outshoot one with a “Mauser” any time, how many seconds to count off a grenade, and how a BAR works. Classic. Gotta remember in 1962 we all thought war was something kinda cool and we “played” it all the time in the yard.
How could you ever forget this show. I have photos of my sons playing with toy M-1s, wearing helmets and fatigues. They were into Combat in a big way. Thanks for bringing back some old memories.
Not only remember it, but bought a copy of the first season DVD collection recently. Called Season I; Campaign I, it has 4 episodes/DVD disc, and it starts the series from D-Day onward. You can find them at DVD sales companies and such for less than you might think. Even got interviews with surviving cast members like Pierre Jalbert “Cage”. There are a number of offerings from successive seasons. Might even think of selling mine, but the memories will REALLY pour back into semi-consciousness if you have any memory left AT ALL.
I loved that show, along with 12 O’clock High. I can still remember the theme songs. Those were great days. Rick.
Hey guys, its cool to see how this series influenced several generations. I’m 26 so I never watched the show when it aired originally but my dad introduced me to reruns when I was in grade school. It was one of my favorite shows. I recall the reruns would play in the evening, around dinner time, and my mother would tell me to run to the store down the street for some milk or some such. I’d wait for a commercial then hump the distance as fast as I could to get back in time. Fortunately, the older gentleman who tended the store would have it playing on the tv as well, so we’d watch it together until the next commercial and I’d run as fast as I could home. Good memories…
To help relive those memories, Icon History has this figure 
avalable at Military Miniatures Warehouse.
Sgt. Saunders with his magic Tommy gun that never needed reloading. Note the correct camo covered helmet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0qQGS4fXSY
I never missed it, along with 12 O’Clock High, McHale’s Navy, 12 O’Clock High, The Rat Patrol, Hogan’s Heroes, and I managed to tape about 20 episoes when it was showing on AMC on “Action Thursdays” back in the late 90’s…
Reckon I’ll have to buy the DVDs though…
Back when I was a kid and everyone in the neighborhood “played Army”, I had a white GI parade helmet liner that I painted camo (didn’t any camo-cloth) so I could be SGT Saunders… Then, Scott, Larry, and Kevin were instantly Little John, Caje, and Doc… For some reason, nobody ever wanted to be LT Hanley… Never could find a Thompson SMG though, so I had my trusty “Johnny Seven” rifle… Man, that thing was cool… I had a “Mighty Mo” howitzer also… Broke some windows providing “fire support” with that thing, lol…
Summer of '68 or so, I managed to find a plastic German-type ‘surfer’ helmet one day that I painted up in grey (it was blue) and “switched” sides… Nobody else wanted to be a German though, so I was usually the entire Heer…Probably when “Hans von Hammer” was first “born”, lol…
Just though of someting there was another army show it was on the same night as Combat it was on right after Combat but I don’t remember the name, one of the actors name was Eddy Fontain anybody know. Aceses5[^o)][whstl]
I remember I started watching it the last season when it went to color, how can you forget the opening when the announcer says ‘COMBAT!’ followed by ‘in color!’[Y].
In the seventy’s they started showing it in reruns and I got to catch it from the beginning. Didn’t even bother me that it was in B/W.
Oh yeah got to give a shout out to ‘Rat Patrol’ also[;)].
I wasn’t around back then, but it was one my dad’s favorites when he was young and we’ve been watching some seasons on DVD and its great!
It was Gallent Men. only lasted one season, and set in Italy.
yeah i remember playing with toy solders in the grass in the backyard at the end of the day taking a rake to catch any guys you missed or the lawnmower man would get them[:XX]
then some yrs ago toys r us stopped selling them because it wasn’t PC but i noticed the last couple yrs they are making a comback
I loved the first year of 12 O’Clock High with Robert Lansing as Gen. Savage - after he left the series not so much.
We also played army all the time. My brother was Sgt. Saunders, mostly because he had a Mattel Thompson that would shoot a continous roll of caps.
I had a cap-firing bolt-action rifle that ejected plastic shells when you cycled the bolt, plus a bazooka that fired plastic rounds about twenty feet. We also had plastic hand grenades that used caps.
Still remember the smoke and smell of all the fired caps.
We continually defended our street from the “Russians” on the next block. Great fun until we got a bit carried away and got in trouble for digging a foxhole in a neighbor’s yard for a machine gun nest.
Mark
Ahhh, the memories. I loved Combat, The Rat Patrol and every other WWII show, movie, documentary, etc. that came on the old black and white. I remember for a few years every Saturday afternoon was war movie day on one of the local TV channels. We would spend the morning and evenings playing Army but in the afternoons we would be huddled around the TV watching the war movie double feature. Those were fun times.
Why Green Army Men are better than Action Figures:
Nobody ever referred to Army Men as dolls.
Army Men won 't give you nightmares.
With Army Men, it’s either a rifle, pistol, machine gun, bazooka, flamethrower or grenade. You don’t have to read comic books to learn a whole new array of bizarre weapons in order to play.
When an Action Figure comes with an “accessory included,” it’s either a single firearm or other simple piece of equipment. When Army men come with “accessories included,” you get a tank AND a jeep AND field artillery.
Army Men are straightforward: each has a weapon and he uses it. You have to study the comic books to figure out what each action figure does regardless of his weapons.
If an adult comes down the street dressed like an Army Man, you can pretty much guess that he is in the Army, Marines or National Guard. If an adult comes down the street dressed like an Action Figure, you can pretty much guess that his girlfriend’s name is either Bruce, Rodney or Tyrone.
The design of Army Men does not involve the use of LSD, Angel Dust or other hallucinogenics and psychotropics.
Your big sister won’t pilfer your Army Men if she needs a date for her new Barbie Doll.
You can excuse collecting Army Men as an interest in history. But how do you excuse collecting Action Figures? As an interest in dolls? Or an obsession with comic books?
You can play with Army Men without having to sweat their “collectible value.”
With Army men, you don’t have to worry about preserving the packaging. It’s what’s inside the bag that counts!
If you put Action Figures on electric trains, they look like freaks on a kiddie ride. Army Men can ride your Lionels and K-Lines and still look like cool.
Army Men and their vehicles and accessories won’t get ruined if you leave them out in the rain.
If your mother steps on an Army Man and crushes it, you still have 50 more to play with.
Remember Kirby? Corp I think and the big guy ? I think hr was the BAR dude.Oh man. Rat Patrol 12 o’clock High ?
I Lived for them, Anybody remember those M-16’s I think Mattel came out with in early 70’s had the sound and rep copy . My bro and I were at war constantly. lol
You could get a bag of Army men, both green, the good guys, and tan, the bad guys, for a buck. If you saved up a couple of weeks you could get the mega bag that included jeeps and tanks. If the dog ate one, who cared because you always had plenty more.
When the fist G.I. Joe action figures came out, the 12" ones, my buds and I all thought of them as more of a baby doll than a real Army man. We never got into them at all. Now the action figures that have been around for the last twenty or so years are pretty cool. Very realistic and most come with lots of weapons. And most of the vehicles are nice too. But still, they are much more expensive than the old Army men used to be and I don’t think any more fun.
Was in high school, we all watched and talked about them the next day. This was in the early 60’s, most of our fathers were WW II vets
John Wayne smashed one of those against a tree in The Green Berets… If you pay attention, you’ll see the “sound slots” in the “magazine”…