Creator Robert Pirosh, an Oscar winner for his 1949 screenplay Battleground, pitched producer Selig Seligman in 1961 with an idea for an hour-long war drama originally titled Men in Combat, following a squad of enlisted men from D-Day to the liberation of Paris.
The pilot episode, 'A Day in June,' was shot over six days in December 1961, with one day of location filming at Trancas Beach in Malibu standing in for Omaha Beach; contemporary newspaper reports referred to the show as 'Combat Platoon' before it was renamed Combat!.
Series leads Rick Jason and Vic Morrow were both unimpressed by Pirosh's pilot, with Morrow reportedly considering quitting the show for fear it would damage his career.
After the pilot but before the series was greenlit, producer Selig Seligman dismissed creator Robert Pirosh and replaced him with Robert Blees as producer, while Robert Altman was brought in to direct every other episode of the first season.
Episodes typically took six shooting days to film using a mix of soundstage work and the MGM backlot, though the parched grasses, eucalyptus trees and sandy soils of the Hollywood Hills often looked noticeably unlike northern Europe, especially in the later color episodes.
According to Rick Jason, the first season's episodes cost about $127,500 each including pre- and post-production, rising to $183,000 by the fifth color season; he also recalled that he and Vic Morrow had dressing rooms in an unrenovated building and no dressing rooms at all on outdoor sets during the first season, until Morrow went on strike before season two and conditions improved.
To maintain 'beard continuity' during five-day shoots, cast members were not allowed to shave, and military advisors reviewed scripts and maps for accuracy; German characters mostly spoke actual German dialogue rather than English.
Actor Robert Winston Mercy, who also wrote an episode script, played several German officers and said the uniforms were recreated so precisely with correct pipings and insignia that wearing his costume during lunch breaks would cause a stir among Jewish cafeteria workers.
Before filming began in May 1962, producer Selig Seligman sent principal cast members Rick Jason, Vic Morrow, Steven Rogers, Pierre Jalbert and Shecky Greene through a week of actual basic training at the Army's Infantry Training Center at Fort Ord, including crawling under live machine-gun fire and throwing a live grenade.
Vic Morrow's character wears what looks like a USMC helmet cover that is actually a scrap of camouflage parachute material used during the D-Day invasion.
The Army assigned Major Homer Jones, a veteran of the 82nd Airborne's 508th Parachute Infantry who had parachuted into France on D-Day, as a technical advisor to review scripts and help source authentic Army equipment for the production.
The series' rousing score by Leonard Rosenman featured martial horns and drums that helped define the show's grim, action-heavy tone, often accompanying scenes with minimal dialogue beyond Sergeant Saunders' quick orders.
Combat! became television's longest-running World War II drama, airing 152 hour-long episodes over five seasons, with the first 127 in black and white and the final 25, produced after a move from MGM to CBS studios, in color.
In 1997, TV Guide ranked the Combat! episode 'Survival' number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Episodes.
In the 1990s, a Combat! feature film was developed first by Savoy Pictures and later by Todman/Simon Productions for Paramount, with a script by Bill Wisher, Bruce Willis in talks to star, and Walter Hill set to direct, but the project never materialized.
A 1963 Ideal Toy Company board game featured Lt. Hanley and Sgt. Saunders on its cover and used the Combat! logo, but the actual gameplay was an unrelated two-player World War II strategy game.
