Adding further woes to the troubled series, actor Slim Pickens, who played Big Guy Beck in the original hour-long pilot episode, was rushed to San Francisco Medical Center several days before the series premiered, and he underwent five hours of surgery to remove a brain tumor the day after the show's TV debut. Pickens was released from the hospital before production resumed on the series, but he was unfit to appear. Most subsequent episodes played without Big Guy, though Pickens was quickly replaced by Forrest Tucker, who didn't play the role with the same broad, comic zeal.