Publicity interview with a dog named Johnny and his trainer, Ray Berwick, for the NBC show, Here's Boomer. Footage of Johnny performing tricks on the couch. Natural sound.
Here's Boomer is an American adventure/drama television series produced by Paramount Television that premiered on the NBC network on March 14, 1980.[1] A television film called A Christmas for Boomer aired on December 6, 1979 and served as the pilot.[2] A spin-off of the live-action series The Red Hand Gang, the show follows the adventures of the titular stray dog, "Boomer" and ran for two seasons, ending its run on August 14, 1982, with the final original episode, "Flatfoots," airing on July 3 of that year.
The series followed the adventures of Boomer, a stray dog that traveled around helping people in trouble. The part of Boomer in all of the shows was played by a four-year-old Mongrel named Johnny, who was trained by Ray Berwick.[3][4] One early title considered for the series was Here's Johnny, after the dog who played the part, but was rejected owing to the use of that catch-phrase on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.[5]
Johnny reportedly earned $3,500 a week while appearing on the series,[5] and had a stunt dog who stood in for him on some of his more difficult tricks.[2]
When the series was set to return in the fall of 1980, viewers were to hear Boomer's thoughts the same way viewers had heard Jackie Cooper's dog's thoughts on The People's Choice in the 1950s.[6] However, Boomer's thoughts were only heard in one episode aired as a special on December 7, 1980. When the series returned with new episodes in 1981 the gimmick was dropped and viewers could no longer hear Boomer.[7]
The premise of Here's Boomer was similar to that of the Benji films and television specials of the 1970s and 1980s. In real life, both Johnny and Higgins, the dog who first played Benji, were abandoned or lost mixed-breed dogs who were adopted from animal shelters by animal trainers in California.[5][8] On screen, both played the parts of stray dogs who were smart, friendly, and loving of their human and animal friends.
The show bore a similarity to the Canadian TV series The Littlest Hobo, which was running at the same time on CTV Television Network in Canada and in syndication in the U.S.[9] Both series are about a vagabond dog who helps people in trouble only to go on his way at the end of the episode, and both series even used similar title sequences involving split screens. The only significant difference between the shows was the breed of the dog in each show (London, the star of The Littlest Hobo, was a German Shepherd).
Cast[edit source]
The series featured a different cast each week. Guest stars include:
John Amos
Rosanna Arquette
Scott Baio
Kaye Ballard
Tom Bosley
Todd Bridges
Dean Butler
Patrick Cassidy
Bill Dana
Jack Elam
Michael J. Fox
Jonathan Frakes
Tracey Gold
Rance Howard
Ken Kercheval
Matthew Laborteaux
Tammy Lauren
Meadowlark Lemon
Rue McClanahan
Roddy McDowall
Stuart Pankin
Gene Rayburn
John Reilly
Doris Roberts
Natalie Schafer
Ron Silver (2 episodes per IMDb
