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The Early Days of TV Science Fiction
mcse_knowthyenemy writes: "The very first TV sci-fi shows are covered in detail here. The author, a professor of physics, approaches the topic with academic rigorousness. If you think the original Star Trek was low-budget, consider the $5 per episode these studios could spend."
At $5 per episode, that's only 1 redshirt.
bummer.
That site is one I am hosting for a friend, please be nice to it bandwidth-wise or I will have to take it offline temporarily. If you _really_ have to wget the whole thing, send me a check for $300 in advance, thanks ;)
"Space helmet on Captain Video!"
...when The Register goes offline.
Still, it's interesting to see the humble beginnings from whence TV sci-fi came. Just think, it only took 52 years to get from Captain Video to Battlefield Earth: The Animated Series.
I'm going back to bed now. Wake me if it starts getting clever.
My theory is, as global population increases, total intelligence remains constant.
It reads at 46057 right now.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
Yeah, but back in my day, we didn't need these fancy "computers" with their "render farms". We just had a guy named Ted, and he drew pictures, on toliet paper, with chalk, and held it up to the camera, and we LIKED it!
5 dollars would buy the whole crew food for a month, and we'd still have enough left over to put our kids through college. We didn't have trailers, and props, and sets, and we LIKED it!
Props, yeah, we didn't have all these fancy props, your "phasers" and your "pulse pistols". We just stuck out hands out, painted them silver, and went "pew, pew, pow" with out mouths. And the silver paint made you impotent, and no one would talk to you because someone started a rumour that Communists had silver hands, but we LIKED it.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
This story is worth reading in only one aspect; It gives you a pretty good glimpse at how things have changed for kids since 1950.
Back then, kids had almost nothing but their imagination, the special effects were not very special, and space was still a very real part of their future.
Kids today get to watch movies that are entirely computer generated, like Final Fantasy, and if the newest games graphics aren't the best, it must suck. And space, well, I guess it's going to take a little longer than we expected, eh?
-- Dan
I highly recommend checking out twistedmojo.com's Public Domain Theater redub of Radar Men from the Moon, a truely stinky bit of sci-fi cinema from the 50's (i presume).
The redub, however, is great (beware: its in RM format)
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
That's about what they spend per episode nowadays, and sci-fi TV shows are still as popular as ever. It must be the quality of the scripts and the acting that keeps these shows going.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"this site powered by vi"... and it SHOWS!
Back here they are replaying the 'Blue Book Serie', a kind of X-Files of the 50's or 60's. In color with lot of flying objects. And every episode there seems to be a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. There is always a non UFO.
It's funny to see the non 'special effects0 of those days. Part of the fun is to see who they see the aliens. Short guys with black clothes/'skin/ and white eyes.
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
i think it's great how space exploration was and continues to be such a huge tennant of sci-fi.. i've heard from a number of people who grew up in the era in question that their love affair with sci-fi ended when they freaked out over the realization of how closely science-fact tails science fiction.
now, if you're one of those bone-headed types who believes everything they see on FOX, you may even think that the trips to the moon never actually happened.
in reality, the logistics of space travel have been a frequent oversight in science fiction since it's inception. in 'The Physics of Star Trek', when asked how the Heisenberg Compensator works, the engineering officer replies, "Very well, thank you!" for fear of sounding like a commercial for IBM i'm almost afraid to ask where my flying car is..
now, in the 21st century, technology that usually starts as military-grade is fed to the populace like an iv drip. if the governments of the world poured half the money into space travel and other future tech that they do into $900,000 bombs and stealth planes that are obsolete before they ever leave the tarmac we might actually be realizing a lot more sci-FACT than we have been..
wow, that was pretty incoherent..
-j0nah
I wasn't able to read the article. Ever since @Home went down I've had wonky DNS issues.
However, the description of the story reminded me of an episode of Quantum Leap called "Future Boy". Sam had lept into one of the actors for a show called "Time Patrol", a '$5 per episode' serial in the mid-50's.
What I found interesting about this episode, in relation to this article, was the argument between the show's Star and the show's Producer. The script originally called for the time travellers (Same co-starred as 'Future Boy') to overhear a conversation between two aliens (or twisted humans... my memory has faded) conspiring about the destruction of Earth. Moe, the star of the show, aborted filming and argued with the producer about people being evil in the future. He was very passionate about the show portraying a bright future where people were happy. He didn't want it ruined by having stories about people trying to destroy it.
I can't help but think this character was inspired by Gene Roddenberry. Gene also had a vision that the future would be bright and welcoming vs. dark and gloomy. It's possible, though, that this character reflected somebody even earlier in the time period.
I'm curious, has anybody seen this episode that thinks Moe was modeled after somebody influential in the sci-fi industry?
"Derp de derp."
Oh man... do I remember Rocky Jones. If any of you are curious about some of these old Scifi-shows, find an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 called "Crash of the Moons". This movie stars Rocky Jones and crew and is mentioned in the article.
You can watch the movie without Joel and the bots at MovieFlix.com for a small price. I warn you, though: the movie's a lot more fun with the MST3k crew.
"Derp de derp."
OK, so they built the Tardis, and occasionally invest in some styrofoam rocks or cardboard monster robots, but it's nice to have a show where they don't let special effects budget drive *too* much of the plot :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Found these while going on my usual manic spurt of new google and ebay searches when an interestng story comes up. ( :-] >
ClassicSciFi.comEbay's old school sci-fi toys section
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
and the counter reads 47349 either they're being kind or this is just not that interesting...
Just Limin' Mon
Man, I remember reading some old Tom Corbett books when I was a teenager. I don't remember any more whether they belonged to my parents or if we dug them out of a dusty corner of the house we moved into. I remember Astro's troubles with classes, and the Roger/Tom boxing match. After growing up on ST:TOS reruns, it was neat to read earlier sci-fi with nuclear-powered rockets, canals on Mars, and Venusian jungles.
The space cadet patch logo looks just like the one on the front of the books.
Does anybody know if the books came before the show, or vice versa?
Constitutionally Correct
Back in those days, $5 went far! You could buy a few dozen medical scanning devices!
And unlike today, they also dispensed fixin's for food!
(For non-old-school-trekkies: Some of McCoy's instruments were actually dressed up salt shakers.
"Jim! Your sodium level is dangerously low! *shake shake shake* There. You're salty, Jim."
Nah, every new sci-fi series is pretty much a rehash of every old sci-fi series. They just randomly piece together snippets from the old shows, throw in some new T&A (which is a requirment), give it a cheezy name, and throw it on the air!
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
You walked uphill 40 miles in the snow BOTH ways to the studio AND your shoes were leftover film cans?
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
what's up with all these people advertising for goatse.cx?
I rilly apreshiated the rigorisness and thoroughsity of the artikle. Its rair to find this type of insightfulous and comprehenstable matereal in a acedemical orientated analisis.
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
Ahhhh, the sheer elegance of simple set design. These days it would all be several hundred hours of CGI dev time, depending on where you were going
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
At the beginning of the show Lisa and Bart are watching one of those early sci-fi movies. It's a riot: "space air is leaking in! put on your googles!"
Wasn't there some sort of Captain Video TV show in the late 80's/early 90's? The name is familiar, it was some sort of post-apocalyptic humans vs robots thing. One part I do remember is there was a line of toys that you could use to shoot at teh tv show at certain points and the tv show would shoot back (there was some weird strobe effect going on on the screen).
"gasp, space-air is leaking in!"
:-)
"Quick, put on your goggles!"
Put on protective glasses only covering the eyes and lightes a smoke.
Anyone see that EP of Futurama? A perfect example.
THANK YOU!!!! I've missed my Vulture Central fix while their DNS was down!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I had the opportunity to meet and listen to Jan Merlin (Roger Manning from 'Tom Corbett - Space Cadet') a few years back at a Wild West days festival. He's a very engaging speaker with a huge repertoire of tales of the Golden Age of Hollywood, some taller than others [grin].
If you get the chance, Jan's going to be appearing at the Williamsburg Film Festival 28-Feb thru 2-Mar next year. As the website notes, guest stars appear subject to their availability and health. Opportunities to meet people like Jan and have them share their memories with you are becoming more and more rare as the years go by, so if you can fit it into your schedule you should. I personally found it definitely worth my time and money to go when I did.
"Williamsburg Film Festival"
Even when I was a kid, before Gould computers traced the first lightsabre, I hung on old black and white reruns played on Sunday mornings. Weird as the stories seem now, they were enough to spark a lot of imagination to fill the void of special effects, model-like actors, and expensive sets. Kinda like reading a book, the focus is on the story, rather than distractions of bad acting and lots of firey explosions. I don't think I could have enjoyed anything more, as we went out into the back yard and did battle with aliens and conquered new worlds.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Even the third season looks very good, due to the work of the lighting and camera crews.
I doubt you'll find a show that was costing the studio as much during the same time period.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
...is the so-called Science Fiction Book Club. Once the pillar of SciFi, it has become a fantasy and softcore service with a sprinkle every now and then of real SciFi. They are false advertising. They are EVIL as the horror they push. Hell, TV has just about taken over the genre. That and anime. BTW, I very much recommend "Vanilla Sky"!
The page talks about the fun of live broadcasts. Imagine if a Star Trek series was done as _live TV_. Just pre-render the CGI and pray the actors remember the script.
Actually, given Shatner's admission that his... unique... speakingstyle as... Kirk in ST:TOS was due to the need to pause to remember his just-given-that-day lines, maybe we sort of had that once.
Still, watching live actors attempting to remember the current crop of technobabble would at least improve Star Trek scriptwriting.
A.
By the time I was 12 or 13 I discovered high-voltage (having mistaken a potted transformer for a relay and getting a zap off the secondary as I tried to energize the primary "relay coil" with a battery). I quickly built all sorts of high-voltage circuits. I knew enough about AC, DC, and step-up transformers to be dangerous, though it would still be a while before I'd think to charge up old capacitors salvaged from TV sets via half-wave rectifiers (I was too cheap to get 4 diodes for a full-wave bridge). About this time I got an TI SR-52 calculator to help with practical calculations related to my other interests: calculus, physics (espescially general relativity, which, though I had saved up to buy a college level text, was at the limit of my ability to comprehend), and programming. In 1974, I finally had access to a timesharing computer: an HP 2000, accessed via a teletype and acoustic coupled modem in the "terminal room" in my high school. This was heady stuff.
In those days, building anything electrical, or electronic was "something". Oh sure, you could get kits, but I wanted to design my own stuff, and the hand-me-down parts I scrounged from my father proved handy. The fact was that anything technical was rare. LCDs didn't exist and LEDs were a novelty.
We graduated from a black and white TV to colour around 1967, and cable TV shortly thereafter. I remember the first UHF stations, and the difficulty to receive them. My father had a "Super-8" movie camera, and projector for making home movies. I remember him having to send 35mm and movie film away for processing and waiting a couple of weeks to get it back. There were no VCRs, walkmans, or answering machines in the late 1960s. Eight track tape decks were a big thing.
Things started changing slowly in the early to mid-1970s. "We" had been to the moon, and it was clear that change was afoot. I got a mono cassette deck for Christmas, 1972, though I still coveted my father's open real 2 track 7-1/2 ips reel to reel deck. Open reel decks were to be prefered for "serious" recording for some time after that, though 15ips and stereo. During high school, I had progressed to designing radio-controlled devices and anoying the heck out of neighbours by remote control (remotely-exploded firecrackers in the flower beds, anyone?). Getting time on the HP2000 was a major priority, especially when we got an upgrade to a 300 baud modem and a DECwriter. The big thing for geeks to do then was design multi-terminal spacewar games (text-based)... in BASIC... with files for inter-process communication. Then, in 1975, something big happened: The MITS Altair.
I never got an Altair, but my father "worked with someone who knew someone who knew someone who worked for someone who got one for his business", seriously. By this time, I had progressed to logic circuits (designing my own state-machine based gizmos, and had multi-channel remote control down to a tee. I got a chance to see the Altair and play with it. I ended up writing much of the initial code for an "invoice" program for the owner of the machine. And what a beauty it was! 16K RAM, and a CRT terminal (about $3000), glowing nicely with blue lettering. BASIC took 8 minutes to load from cassette tape (one of my first projects was to build a second cassette interface), and the invoicing program about 30 seconds. And the printer! Sure, it was upper case only, but it printed at 1200 Baud! (well, it accepted data that fast, most of the time). During lunch, when I didn't have school, I got to play with that computer.
This brings us to about 1979, when I started on my B.Comp.Sc. degree program. Notice anything? From 1965 to 1979 there were very few innovative things! Colour TV, calculators, bulky video cameras, and finally the first VHS and Beta VCRs. Computers were a real expensive hobby item, only for garage tinkerers, though the Apple ][ was starting to make an impact, as well as this thing called CP/M, which brought order to hardware abstraction. I turned 18 in 1979, the legal start of adulthood where I lived. So, during the course of my childhood, very little change occured. And I thought, at the time, what modern times and things are being invented! After all, the big things for my parents' generation were cars, planes, electricity (with it, phones, radio, and TV) -- I had seen as many new and cool things during my childhood as they had seen during their whole lives.
My daughter is now 8-1/2 years old. Since 1993 she has seen the advent of the internet (email, www, on-line shopping and payment), cell phones becoming ubiquitous, DVDs, hand-held electronic games, satellite TV. Most importantly, I grew up in an analog world and her's is most certainly digital. My son probably won't even remember the time of the dial-up ISP: we dropped it in favour of DSL when he was 14 months old -- a whole connectivity paradigm shift in half his sister's childhood.
When people lament that their kids' lives are on some kind of techno-amphetamine induced fast-forward, with little time for imaginative play, I wonder if its just that their world changes so much faster than that of their parents', that keeping up and absorbing all of it results in a short span of attention to any one thing, lest something else be missed. There is no time to imagine: when you return to reality, it will have changed so much, you won't recognize it.
I do not expect this trend to continue indefinately. Moore's Law and Quantum Physics will collide at some point. Until that is reached however, we will progress at breakneck speed through a socio-economic upheaval that can probably be compared to the industrial revolution. Entire industries will disappear, though not without resistance. New companies will fight to dominate in a digital, information-rich world. Our kids will be caught up in this turmoil, and the usual effects that social upheaval causes, fighting for rights that were impossible to curtail a decade ago, that the point in their lives where they barely realize that such rights are important.
The world is in the middle of a technological transformation that will result in a new one, without breakneck change, or at least a change of an implementative and not architectural nature. Once that happens, kids will once again be able to take a breather and let their imagination run wild in that frontier of new possibilities.
You could've hired me.
was it me, or was that page impossible to navigate? bad link colors, no guidance at all... boo.
My gym teacher in elementary school was named Mr. CORBETT and there is a CAPTAIN VIDEO store near my grandmother's where you can rent movies for ::GASP:: 5 DOLLARS!
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
The future just isn't what it used to be.
This is a boring sig
They used to show tom corbett and space patrol at the wee hours of the night. Pretty enjoyable shows as long as you were stoned off your ass
WTF is "rigorousness"?
Flying Nun?
By way of comparison, watch an episode of TOS and then an episode of Lost In Space. Pee-yew! It wasn't just the acting and scripts on LIS that sucked. And Marta Kristen ("Judy"), unlike Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols and Grace Lee Whitney ("Yomen Rand"), wasn't near hot enough to compensate.
Type "science fiction television" into GOOGLE and the Ultimate Science Fiction Web Guide comes in #5 in the world, this week. There a lot about Sci-Fi TV of the 1950s (including the Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein connections). Some of what it says about Sci-Fi TV of the 1940s:
1940s: Science Fiction TV 1940-1949
Captain Video and His Video Rangers, Dumont,
27 Jun 1949-1 Apr 1955
This was a historically significant show, despite the astonishingly stingy prop budget of $25 per week. Why? Because it was the first and most successful of three children's science fiction shows that seduced kids into the axioms of the Space Opera genre, the other two being "Space Patrol" and "Tom Corbett--Space Cadet." It can be argued that this created some of the popular support that allowed for a genuine space program only a few years later. A wonderful book about these shows is "The Great Television Heroes" by Donald F. Glut and Jim Harmon.
The government played no significant role in scientific genius Captain Video single-handedly saving the world out of a sense of civic duty. By so doing, he not only defeated evildoers such as Dr. Clysmok, Dahoumie, Heng Foo Seeng, Kul of Eos, Mook the Moon Man, and Nargola, but also had a chance to field-test his gadgets, including The Atomic Rifle, the Discatron, the Optical Scillometer, the Radio Scillograph, and the Cosmic Ray Vibrator (stop giggling, will you?).
His most fiendish adversary was Dr. Pauli, who had his own set of super-duper hardware, including the Barrier of Silence (later parodied on "Get Smart"), the Cloak of Invisibility, and the Trisonic Compensator. The Dumont Network (whose demise alone could end this popular show) sold to their viewers such premiums as Decoder Rings, Space Helmets, and plastic copies of Captain Video's weaponry, almost all of which are highly collectable today.
Late in its life, the show was retitled "The Secret Files of Captain Video" and they stopped editing in stock footage of Westerns through the money-saving "Remote Carrier Beam."
Captain Video's spaceship was called the "Galaxy" -- and every child wished to be Captain Video's sidekick "The Ranger" and ride the Galaxy to exotic destinations, whether or not the instruments on the control panel were obviously painted on.
Captain Video (1949-50) -- Richard Coogan
Captain Video (1950-55) -- Al Hodge (formerly the voice of "The Green Hornet" on radio)
The Ranger -- Don Hastings
Dr. Pauli (1949) -- Bran Mossen
Dr. Pauli (1949-55) -- Hal Conklin
Creator/Producer -- James Caddigan
Producer -- Larry Menkin
Writer -- Maurice C. Brockhauser, and later: Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Sheckley, and Jack Vance
Music -- Wagner's Overture to the Flying Dutchman
Lights Out, NBC, 19 July 1949-29 Sep 1952
Spun off from the hit radio show which began in 1934, there were four television specials produced by Fred Coe (Goodyear TV Playhouse,
Producer's Showcase, 1955 Emmy for Best Producer of a Live Series) in 1946, and then after three years of development hell, this fine suspense anthology. Each epsiode opened with an extreme close-up of a pair of eyes, cutting to a close-up of a bloody hand reaching for the light switch, and a voice-over of a chilling laugh and the catch-phrase "lights out, everybody!"
Each episode was shot live. Some were adaptations of classic short stories, others were developed specially for this series.
Narrator (1949-50) -- Jack LaRue
Narrator (1950-52) -- Frank Gallop
Musical Effects:
Theremin -- Paul Lipman (1949)
Organ (1949-52) -- Arlo Hults
Harp (1950-52) -- Doris Johnson
Began on radio (1934) and 4 specials
(produced by Fred Coe) on TV (1946)
Guest Stars: Boris Karloff, Eddie Albert, Billie Burke, Yvonne DeCarlo, Raymond Massey, Burgess Meredith, Leslie Nielsen, Basil Rathbone
The Secret Files of Captain Video -- see Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1940s)
Starring Boris Karloff, ABC, Sep 1949-Dec 1949
starting with 27 Oct 1949 episode name changed to "Mystery Playhouse Starring Boris Karloff."
Host -- Boris Karloff
The Ultimate Science Fiction Web Guide is in the last couple of months of its 6th year online. Go to http:/magicdragon.com and click on "Science Fiction", and then click on TV, or Movies, or Authors, or Genres, or Countries, or whatever. See why this labor-of-love free information domain gets over 1,200,000 visitors a year...
The co-webmaster, who posted this teaser, is in the Open Source Community, was once on the Board of Directors of Brave New Worlds, Inc., and still has 3,600 shares of VALinux, umm, I mean VA Software left from VA's acquisition of Brave New Worlds...
Some people mentioned the title "Project Bluebook," but I think that the name was changed in syndication a la "Have Gun Will Travel/Paladin."
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.