Slashdot Mirror
SciFi TV Series 'Space Patrol Orion' Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary (wikipedia.org)
In Germany the phrase "Fallback to Earth!" is about as cult as "Engage warp drive," reports Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino: One of the oldest science fiction TV serials, the famous German "Raumpatrouille Orion" (Space Patrol Orion) turned 50 today. Heise.de has a scoop on the anniversary in German [or roughly translated into English by Google]. The production of Space Patrol Orion predates Star Trek by roughly a year and was a huge hit in Germany, gaining the status of a "street sweeper" (Strabenfeger), referring to the effect it's airing had on public life.
The special effects are pretty good for 1966 -- you can watch episode one on YouTube. (And feel free to share other related videos in the comments.) "In the series, nations no longer exist and Earth is united," according to Wikipedia, which reports that Commander Cliff McLane and his loyal crew fight an alien race called the Frogs, and "He is notoriously defiant towards his superiors."
The special effects are pretty good for 1966 -- you can watch episode one on YouTube. (And feel free to share other related videos in the comments.) "In the series, nations no longer exist and Earth is united," according to Wikipedia, which reports that Commander Cliff McLane and his loyal crew fight an alien race called the Frogs, and "He is notoriously defiant towards his superiors."
So it's a fantasy in which Germans took over the world and are now fighting to wipe out the French???
Looks a lot like another Lost in Space (which was a few years before this). There were plenty of shows of this sort at the time.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
There were no references to French people as such particularly since nation states apparently did not exist any more. There was one reference to "Frogs" being a kind of animal. In the series there were just blurry shapes with glitter. There actually was a French version of that series which seemingly got lost in the mists of time. Only one fragment exists.
The reason why there were only so few episodes was that it was _really_ expensive to make. Multiple German TV stations had to cooperate to finance it. Since it was filmed just before TV stations invested in colour, it didn't get sold abroad very much. There were plans to make a second series in colour but those were abandoned.
What really drew new generations of viewers to that series are the sets and the dancing. Both incredibly goofy even for a 1960s show.
Only seven episodes? Guess it was like "The Prisoner", where it establishes its premise and then wraps everything up. I wonder if the series ended when the spaceship achieved a victory -- or peace -- with the Frogs. (See Star Trek VI...) Surely it's just a coincidence that "frogs" is also a derogatory slang word for French people...
Actually, it ended because it was too expensive to produce - especially the special effects. They are not great, but then it was 1966, and Orion showed a lot more space action than Star Trek, where the redshirts beam down to whatever stage setting was available from the latest western or mobster movie.
The series used the English term "Frogs" even in German. Neither Frogs not "Frösche" is now or was then a derogative term for the French in German.
Stephan
This one is subtitled.
I love The Prisoner. However nothing was wrapped up. I dare you to explain that last episode with the missile, the lorry, and everyone singing "dem bones".
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Saw it in the firehose, no way to let them know that they were wrong :-(
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Men In Space started broadcasting on September 30, 1959.
And if you are in the US you can see episode airing on Comet TV
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
n/t
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Can you explain the ridiculous dancing in the background? Did people really think we'd dance like that in the future?
Mostly random stuff.
I guess the German "sz" ligature does look a bit like a "b".
Should've seen that coming, sorry.
"ß" is the letter, a ligature for "sz" that is a common member of the german glyph alphabet.
But you can substitute it with two "s"es in a pinch.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
"Foreign race without galactic signature."
Not exactly french, but maybe close enough, depending on your point of view. :-)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I prefer "Space Patrol", made in the UK in 1962.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yeah, it's puppets, but the detail and the attention to science is really good.
No sig today...
Also check out "Space Patrol" - well worth it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No sig today...
I think they were going for a deliberately alien dance to show just how different the future is.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Have you ever seen Germans dance? They danced like that in 1966.
Germans do great science and engineering. But give us musical instruments and you get Polka or Techno.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Can you explain the ridiculous dancing in the background? Did people really think we'd dance like that in the future?
I think this is just intended to show that it's different from today. But if you look at history, I don't think this is too far from the envelope of human behaviour:
Stephan
Polka is not German. As the name tells you, it's Polish (it's actually Polish for "Polish").
Only the Germans who have a quite good knowledge of U.S. culture would be able to identify frogs with the French. First, the frog in German is called Frosch, not Frog, and second, the Germans don't call the French frogs, that's an U.S. term.
IIRC that nickname was chosen because it sounded "alien", yet familiar enough, and of course it had to sound cool and edgy. And in the 60s, anything "English" was absolutely edgy and cool.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Luckily this name is taken on Eve Online.
Guess by whom ...
Played by Charlotte Kerr, one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. RIP.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Wikipedia puts the blame on the Czechs...
In any case; German's should in no case be allowed to dance. At best, it looks so much like marching, the French surrender.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No one danced like that in the 1960s.
The dances are artificially invented just for this TV show.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
nuff said.
Not in Germany, Star Trek was unkown for many years.
.. nuff nuff ..
First the similarities:
Cliff Mclane / James T. Kirk
- good looking
- strong
- black sheep
Now the difference
General Lydia van Dyke (high ranking female) disciplining Cliff Mclane and not getting layed!
'Frog' was coined by the Brits.
Also: http://www.rsdb.org/
Missing a lot.
Dutch: missing 'Swamp German'
SF Bay area citizen: no entry, missing 'Bay Aryan'.
Disappointing Belgian entry. Half from Monty Python.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The great thing about keeping up with English subtitles derived from German dialog is that you get the challenge of keeping up with 500 words per minute. You could make a brain game or some such thing out of it.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
"...I dare you to explain that last episode ..."
Really good Acid.
This has been rumoured for decades, but a much better explanation is simply overwork. Once, I pulled 60 hours straight at the Lab, and on the way home, I saw Giraffes feeding by the Freeway. I didn't consider it particularly unusual at the time...
McGoohan wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the last episode, and he was still working on the Script as filming started. Odd things happen to and around the sleep-deprived. (Remember the Dick van Dyke Show episode where Rob attempts to stay awake for 100 hours as a publicity stunt?)
Captcha: ostrich
(At least it wasn't a Giraffe.....)
or Rammstein, Accept and the Scorpions. (Who all had their moments.)
How and why Star Trek did what it did was a LOT more complicated than simply beaming onto whatever miscellaneous set was available, as you state.
Go read the "These Are the Voyages" books. Even the free sample from Amazon will do.
Star Trek had almost nothing to work with and no budget and went to extremes to make the show look as good as they could. Sometimes they failed but a lot or times they succeeded. I never much cared for the old show but having now read how they did it and why, and how much genius went into simple things like lighting a set... it's completely different now.
Sig for hire.
IIRC, the name was supposed to be an abbreviation/bastardization of fremde Organismen, as the inscrutable aliens were never really shown, only blurry human shapes where they were supposedly standing.
Note that I misremembered. One of the characters specifically christened them "Frogs", specifically saying that the German word (Frösche) was too familiar, thus the "foreign language" name.
.. problems with that?
At least it was the topic of the thread.
It was so expensive, they even used a clothes iron as a prop on the ship's bridge.
Yes. That iron ("Bügeleisen" in German) actually has cult status. It's basically a national heritage. :-)
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca