Lassie's Rescue Rangers is an animated TV show

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

 produced by Filmation

Filmation

Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...

 and featuring Lassie

Lassie

Lassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...

, running from 1973 to 1975. The hour-long pilot

Television pilot

A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

, Lassie and the Spirit of Thunder Mountain, was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie

The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie

The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie — renamed The New Saturday Superstar Movie in its second season — is a series of one-hour animated TV-movies , broadcast on the ABC television network on Saturday mornings from September 9, 1972, to November 17, 1973.Intended as a "Movie of the Week" for kids, this...

.

Overview

In the series, Lassie the collie

Collie

The collie is a distinctive type of herding dog, including many related landraces and formal breeds. It originates in Scotland and Northern England. It is a medium-sized, fairly lightly built dog with a pointed snout, and many types have a distinctive white pattern over the shoulders. Collies...

 dog lives near Thunder Mountain

Thunder Mountain

Thunder Mountain can refer to:*Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, used as Thunder Mountain in the television series Jeremiah*Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in several Disney theme parks*Thunder Mountain Motor Speedway, a race track in Rusk, Texas....

 with the Turner family. Ranger

Park ranger

A park ranger or forest ranger is a person entrusted with protecting and preserving parklands – national, state, provincial, or local parks. Different countries use different names for the position. Ranger is the favored term in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Within the United...

 Ben Turner works with wife Laura and children Susan, Jackie, and Ben Jr. as The Forest Force, a ranger-rescue team that protects Thunder Mountain National Park. Lassie is the leader of The Rescue Rangers, a group of wild animals living in the park, working alongside the Turners to help protect the environment and keep it safe for visitors.

The Rescue Rangers were eight animals including Groucho the owl

Owl

Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...

, Toothless the mountain lion, Musty the skunk

Skunk

Skunks are mammals best known for their ability to secrete a liquid with a strong, foul odor. General appearance varies from species to species, from black-and-white to brown or cream colored. Skunks belong to the family Mephitidae and to the order Carnivora...

, and Robbie the raccoon

Raccoon

Procyon is a genus of nocturnal mammals, comprising three species commonly known as raccoons, in the family Procyonidae. The most familiar species, the common raccoon , is often known simply as "the" raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are...

. Also helping the Forest Force was Gene Fox, a Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

, who was Ben Jr.'s, Jackie's and Susan's friend.

Episode list

№	Title	Original airdate
0	"Lassie and the Spirit of Thunder Mountain"	November 11, 1972
1	"The Animals Are Missing"	September 15, 1973
2	"Mystic Monster"	September 22, 1973
3	"Lassie's Special Assignment"	September 29, 1973
4	"The Imposters"	October 6, 1973
5	"Deadly Cargo"	October 13, 1973
6	"Grizzly"	October 20, 1973
7	"Deepsea Disaster"	October 27, 1973
8	"Black Out"	November 3, 1973
9	"Arctic Adventure"	November 10, 1973
10	"The Sunken Galleon"	November 17, 1973
11	"Goldmine"	November 24, 1973
12	"Rodeo"	December 1, 1973
13	"Hullabaloo in Hollywood"	December 8, 1973
14	"Tidal Wave"	December 15, 1973
15	"Lost"	December 22, 1973

External links

• Episode index at the Big Cartoon DataBase
  Big Cartoon DataBase
  The Big Cartoon DataBase is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows and cartoon shorts....