(Webmaster note: this original text was added to this website several decades ago; a recent reading suggested some edits were in order. So, updated and reformatted for 2024, etc.)

Seventy-eight hour-long episodes, sometimes cheesy, sometimes lame, sometimes hackneyed, but usually acted out in the venue of a B-17, or at least a Hollywood-prop B-17, for the two and one half year run of the TV series 12 O’Clock High. In the early 1960s Twentieth-Century Fox was struggling and looked about its movie catalog for some “fresh” ideas. Out popped Peyton Place and, whoa, 12 O’Clock High for ABC television. Yes, a Q-M Production as everybody was reminded before the opening credits began to roll and, indeed, Quinn Martin was the producer in partnership with Fox to bring the 918th Bomb Group to the little screen every week with four acts and an epilog. Work began in late 1963 to pull together a pilot episode, drawn largely from a sub-story of the original book/movie, that of a bad-boy aircraft commander and his confrontation with his commanding officer, still Gen. Frank Savage, and the crew of misfits Savage assigns to teach the bad-boy about leadership. Ironically, the pilot starred Robert Lansing as Savage and Paul Burke as the bad-boy Capt. Joe Gallagher who, again, ironically, replaced Savage, …err…Lansing, at the beginning of the second season.

B-17G 44-83684 and Chino Airport

The series relied on combat footage, mostly drawn from the wartime documentary The Memphis Belle for the aerial action, and the Air Museum’s ex-drone director DB-17P 44-83684, operating as N3713G but on loan to the museum from the USAF. The USAF supported the TV series, so the Air Museum supported the TV series. The Air Museum happened to be located at the Ontario, California, airport, only a stone’s throw away from the Chino Airport. Chino, one time Cal-Aero Field that conducted a massive amount of flight training during World War II, became the exterior set location for the TV series, the 918th Bomb Group taking up residence during the production. N3713G didn’t actually fly for any of the TV series but became based at Chino to provide taxiing, embarking, debarking, background barking, and other such services for the 918th Bomb Group.

Series Debut: September 18, 1964 on ABC-Television

All the pieces came together for the first episode, debuting on ABC on Friday night, September 18, 1964 at 9:30 p.m. on the coasts. The show never really became a hit, but it didn’t tank either. In those days, a TV series shot, like, 39 or 32 episodes a year so it wasn’t in re-runs by Columbus Day like they are today. Coincidently, they shot 32 episodes of 12 O’Clock High the first season, all in living black and white.

Season 2: Goodbye Savage; Hello Gallagher

For season two, they killed off Gen. Savage in the first show of the season, airing on September 13, 1965. Ironically, Robert “Last time I’m nice to Paul Burke” Lansing, having been fired, for some reason would not consent to appear, or even let his photograph appear, in the episode killing off his character, so it was all done with clever shots of an actor’s back standing in for Lansing’s back as he was shot down over Germany. Bummer.

But now Col. Joe Gallagher becomes the group commander, his character possibly being a softer more cuddly character than Savage. Opinions differ, but I’d have to concur that the Gallagher character as played by Paul Burke fit the role better than what seemed to be a stiff Lansing playing Savage. Nothing against Robert Lansing….he’s a good actor, but come on, it’s okay to smile sometimes, even if it was because the indigestion went away.

Early in the second season, the fuselage of VB-17G 44-83316 was acquired for the TV series. It came from an unofficial USAF collection at nearby Norton AFB being disbursed. The fuselage was cleverly placed in scenes to depict a second B-17 on the airfield, and also was subjected to at least one “belly landing” with attendant fire and explosions. It ultimately survived the series, however, and went on to somewhat better things. See also this information on 44-83316.

The series rolled along through the fall 1965 and spring of 1966, putting another 29 episodes on the air. The magnetos began to misfire, though, with the stories starting to drift off target a bit. Romances flourished with nurse girls, French underground girls, English girls, enlisted girls, German girls, American girls, officer girls, Russian girls, female girls, etc. Joe Gallagher led commando raids, flew P-51 Mustangs, saved the day, saved the Piccadilly Lily, saved the mission, saved the 918th, saved the 8th Air Force, saved the Navy, saved lots of girls, kissed same, etc. By the end of season two the show was coming in on a wing and a prayer.

Season Three: In Color and Struggling

Doubts were out there about its airworthiness for season three, but the series was ultimately cleared for takeoff and, on Friday night, September 9, 1966, the third season started. Season three was remarkable in that the series was now shot in full living color, the still dark grey painted with light grey undersurfaced N3713G not getting altogether with the program. As the series continued through the fall, the smoke was trailing from at least four, maybe five, engines and the parachutes could be seen as the series began its death dive. On November 2, 1966, ABC announced that 12 O’Clock High was going to be missing in action on its January schedule. Last show, show number 78, was broadcast on January 13, 1967. After that, the whole thing went off to TV’s equivalent of Kingman for scrapping.

Actually, all in all it wasn’t that bad of a series, especially if you were, say, some anonymous eleven year old kid who only got to stay up until 11:00 p.m. on Friday night just once a month because OF MY DAD! GEE, DAD, THANKS A LOT, DAD!!

And, actually, if you plop a TV guide down in front of me and offer me the choice of Armed and Famous with La Toya Jackson, Beauty and the Geek with who knows who, literally, or a 12 O’Clock High rerun from forty years ago, I’ll take Joe Gallagher any day. ARE YOU LISTENING, TV LAND?

For a few more details about the filming, see this dedicated post also.

Anecdotal

• Well, of course, the greatest mystery is why was it Piccadilly Lily in 1966 and Piccadilly Lilly II in 2007? Where did the extra “L” come from in Lilly and when did it show up? And what’s with the “II”? It’s the same airplane! Well, I personally don’t know the answer to any of these questions. But facts are facts, and the fact is that for the TV series the name of the airplane was Piccadilly Lily and Planes of Fame (later) marked their airplane as the Piccadilly Lilly II.
• According to The 12 O’Clock High Logbook, the character Sgt. Sandy Komansky’s (Chris Robinson) real first name was (snicker) Alexander, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but, well, it is actually wrong for a tech sarge to be named Alexander. You can now understand why he went by Sandy, which isn’t that great of a name either. Bud, now, Bud is a great name. He should have been Bud Komansky.
• The Piccadilly Lily was ex-drone director 44-83684 on loan to the Air Museum (now Planes of Fame) from the USAF since 1959. It was the last active manned B-17 in the USAF inventory when it was retired in 1959. The title to the B-17 was ultimately transferred to the museum in 1999, and Planes of Fame is trying to get the funding together to do a restoration to flying condition. The last time it flew was in the mid-1970s, but it remains on display at the museum site at Chino. 44-83684 was more than just the Lil in the series; a bit of paint and some clever camera angles and, presto-chango, you had a squadron of B-17s.
• A second B-17G, s/n 44-83316, was used as a set prop for the series. This VB-17G had been part of an aircraft display at nearby Norton AFB in the 1950s. The USAF promised the airplane to Tallmantz Aviation circa 1963 for its museum but before they could get it, studio technicians from 20th Century Fox and/or Quinn Martin Productions had gutted the cockpit for a studio mockup while the airplane was still at Norton. Useless to Tallmantz as a flyable airplane, a series of scathing accusations between the TV producers, the USAF, and Paul Mantz ensued. The USAF eventually soothed Mantz’s ruffled feathers by promising him the last B-17G held in storage at Davis-Monthan. Meanwhile, the gutted fuselage hulk of 44-83316 made numerous appearances in the TV series on the exterior sets at Chino, either as set dressing, or for crashed airplanes, or for exploding airplanes, etc. The fuselage hulk survived the series and parts of it were used to rebuild one B-17G in the late 1960s (N6694C) and are now being used in another rebuild that also uses the parts of N6694C, some of which came from 44-83316 originally. Yeah, it gets confusing. For more on this confusion, see here.
• Okay, another mystery, not as great as the added “L” in Lily (see above) but pretty great. The Twelve O’Clock Logbook, which is very exhaustive, states that 44-83316 was sliced and diced for use in the film studio, becoming the indoor set used for process shots and B-17 interior scenes. But, 44-83316 was a whole fuselage in 1965 and 1966 at Chino, so how could this be? Well, there may have been a third B-17 involved (!), kind of like the second gunman on the Grassy Knoll except that this is real. So, what about that? Well, there were a number of B-17 mockups around, Fox itself never having explained why it didn’t give the B-17 airframe used for interior process shots in the original movie, s/n 44-83387, back to the USAF in 1949. And two B-17s turned up in an Malibu canyon film storage yard in the mid-1970s, and at least one popped out of a MGM storage yard in Culver City at about the same time. So there were other B-17 airframes in the Hollywood inventory, and it is suspected that one of them actually was the in-studio prop used, probably enhanced with those cockpit parts from 44-83316 that made Paul Mantz see red. It may take a major big investigation to verify this, however. And then there is that front half of a B-17 fuselage that hung, until recently, in the Armory bar in Greeley, Colorado. What about that? Was that the TV series studio prop? It may, indeed, take a major big investigation to get to the bottom of this. (2024 update: yes, the B-17 used for the cockpit interiors was B-17G 44-83387, the same as used in the 1949 filming of the movie.)
• The distinctive musical theme for the series was composed by Dominic Frontiere, who composed many themes for many movies and TV series including, yes, Rat Patrol. The 12 O’Clock High theme was very reminiscent of the theme to the original movie, with enough difference to avoid those copyright problems and also make it a bit more distinctive, almost catchy. Lots of chiming clock-like bells (get it—12 O’Clock High, clocks, bells…get it?). In the 1980s, Dominic was married for eight years to Georgia Rosenbloom, owner of the Los Angeles Rams after her prior husband, Carroll, had passed on. But Dominic allegedly tried to scalp tickets to a Super Bowl, and Georgia actually moved the Rams to St. Louis, and not one of them was ever heard from again, except maybe St. Louis. (2024 update: The Rams crept back to Los Angeles in 2016, but not really to Los Angeles…actually Inglewood. No one, however, has yet dared to call the team the Inglewood Rams.)
• Okay, late word comes that might explain the added “L” to the “Lily.” Someone who was there remembers that artist and writer Jim Farmer, who did the second generation (post filming) nose art and markings, added the second “L” to be faithful to a number of the actual Piccadilly Lillys that flew during the operations of the 8th Air Force (We count about ten of them, seven as Lilly, two as Lily and then there’s the one oddball spelled Lilley). Oh well, I liked the mystery better but sometimes I guess the facts are helpful. Perhaps Jim will shed further light on this at some point.
• One final mystery: the 1949 movie is officially titled Twelve O’Clock High while the 1964-67 TV series was 12 O’Clock High. Confusing and suspicious and there is possibly a conspiracy afoot. More research needed.