E Fugitive Unum (Homepage of the Hunted: Unofficial Website of The Fugitive)

All roads lead to Stafford for Richard Kimble

E Fugitive Unum

Richard Kimble's desperate chase leads him on a dark odyssey through the big cities and down the lonely roads of America. His drama unfolds across at least two dozen States of the Union, plus the District of Columbia, and even ends up taking him to Mexico and the border of Canada. The list below highlights some of the stations of Kimble's flight.

While he may hide in the back of a laundry truck or hitch a ride from time to time, Kimble's preferred way of getting from place to place is definitely to take a bus. In many episodes, buses play a fateful role — serving even as getaway vehicles sometimes. Kimble's story so glamorized this mode of transportation that a 1966 ad campaign by Greyhound Lines featured actors from the TV series, who were seen boarding and riding buses from the Greyhound fleet. Perhaps not surprisingly, the commercials omitted references to the many bus hostage situations, incidents of driver negligence and injurious accidents which regularly occurred on the show — for instance, in such episodes as WINGS OF AN ANGEL and LANDSCAPE WITH RUNNING FIGURES.

Throughout Kimble's travels, though, one can't help having the uncanny notion that all the landscapes he visits have something in common. In fact, they all seem to resemble Southern California. Even in the hometown of this most itinerant Hoosier, Stafford, Indiana, palm trees line the streets, as we discover in the thrilling finale of THE JUDGMENT. But to a running man, the entire world can narrow itself down to a recurring nightmare, and every place he goes can seem monotonously the same . . .