The show ran six seasons (129 episodes) with seven two-hour television movie specials including the pilot film ("The Wedsworth-Townsend Act"). with a national audience that averaged 30 million viewers each week. Mantooth directed two episodes of "Emergency!"; "The Nuisance" (1976) and "Insanity Epidemic" (1977), and also directed the television movie "Greatest Rescues of Emergency" (1978). Mantooth and Tighe did many of their own stunts in the early years with the rule of thumb, "if you could see our faces, it was us doing the stunts; if you couldn't, it was our stunt doubles." He was offered an opportunity after Emergency! went off the air to be an actual firefighter, but decided to continue with acting.