Television didn’t dominate Post WWII Media when it first began — it took at least a decade of trial and error before Newton Minnow’s “Vast Wasteland” of Network TV established itself — crushing the prime time Network Radio which gave it birth, and rivaling the related movie industry in Hollywood for cultural influence.
Before all that occurred, TV tried many things in order to entertain the families comprising their audience. Some things local stations tried were cheap, out of fashion, movie cartoons -- sometimes silent, sometimes dreary, but with enough semiprecious gems in the muck to justify air time. B movies and “selected shorts” from the 30’s and 40’s played to more folks than saw them in the theaters. Hal Roach’s name was prominent on Laurel and Hardy films and Our Gang comedies, repackaged as the Little Rascals.
Westerns were big-time entertainment in general, and William Boyd’s backlog of Hopalong Cassidy films was a phenomenal success on the small screen. Cowboy stars from other Horse Operas will haunt this diary too. Soap Operas transitioned to TV rather smoothly, and Space Operas were attempted too. This essay is about some of those none-too-scientific Sci-Fi heroes and villains who traipsed an imaginary Solar System before real rockets put actual objects into orbit.
I have made links to YouTube videos of these geeky Kitsch Klassics, some of them dubbed from Kinescopes — made by a film camera shooting the show from a spare TV screen in the studio. There’s an Advert Alert for every link. Be ready to mute, close, cancel, turn down volume, or whatever you do with online commercials. This diary is partly about advertisements too, so it’s hard to get away from them.
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Rocky Jones
This was a syndicated series, shot on film around 1954 and distributed for years. The special effects were obviously animated toys, and the costumes even resembled props from Babes in Toyland.
Rocky Jones Beyond the Moon
Stock characters included an eccentric scientist (Prof. Newton or Prof. Mayberry); an obnoxious kid (Bobby); and Secretary of Space Drake among the good guys.
Rocky Jones Silver Needle in the Sky
The bad guys tend to be recognizable criminals, but they are often working for Rocky’s nemesis Queen Cleolanta, played by deceptively beautiful Patsy Parsons, sneering away in the photo below.
Complete Version: Crash of Moons
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Tom Corbett — Space Cadet
The term “Space Cadet” is still in common use, three generations after Tom Corbett’s Radio and TV show went off the air.
Sponsors ruled early TV, and the “Kraft TV Cameraman” was used as kind of an animated MC on a number of different shows, like Perry Como. In between commercials, the plots of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet were minimal at best, and relied on Armed Forces barracks banter, tall tales, shop talk, and various situations commonly faced during times of a universal male draft, basic training, WWII, and the Korean War. It was also regularly broadcast over world-wide Radio, the most popular medium of that time, which may explain Space Cadet ’s pervasive cultural memory -- more so than the barely-budgeted TV show.
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet — Monster of Space
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Space Patrol
Space Patrol started each episode with huckstering, yelling, and bluster — all in service to its breakfast cereal sponsors. The actual stories were much calmer. There’s some good examples of the commercial tail wagging the dog in this episode, featuring future game show host Jack Narz decked out as a Space Patrolman/Announcer —
Space Patrol — Interplanetary Smugglers
(Right) Buzz Correy, Commander in Chief of Space Patrol has his hands full with the Giants of Pluto
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Commando Cody
King of the Rocketmen was a Republic Serial from 1949, then Jeff King’s Rocket Man outfit, and stock footage, was used by the character Commando Cody, edited into a pair of serials that were successfully run and re-run on TV — Especially Radar Men from the Moon, which featured Clayton (Lone Ranger) Moore as a villain. He won almost every fistfight, but couldn’t prevent Cody from defeating his Moon Man boss.
Zombies of the Stratosphere (Clip of Chapter 1 only) is now notable for Leonard Nimoy as an alien underling who saves the world in a moment of conscience while dying in the final chapter.
Finally — enjoy newly-masked Commando Cody, Sky Marshall of the Universe, battling the Ruler of the Moon in his made-for-TV series.
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Captain Video and his Video Rangers
Captain Video was on the early Dumont Network, created by the manufacturer of Dumont TV sets, and it was only a rumor to me until the Internet made it possible to see an example of this odd, but seminal, show — which hopped between cowboy flicks, army surplus costumes, cast-off sets, plus a minimal military-like HQ in painted mountains. Not to mention the in-your-face commercials.
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Flash Gordon
Who is this guy? It seems like King Features Syndicate authorized a new TV series in the 50’s featuring their enduring space hero Flash Gordon, who was still known as a well-drawn fixture on Sundays in family newspapers all over the world.
A number of respectable TV shows were filmed in European countries for early television, possibly for economic reasons, but the Flash Gordon TV series LOOKED cheap. It was shot in Berlin, when the city was still digging out from the rubble of World War Two, and didn’t hide that fact. The production values were pretty low by anybody’s standards, but take a look yourselves —
Flash Gordon and the Planet of Death
The big irony in this debacle was that the Flash Gordon serials made by Universal Pictures were extremely popular on early TV, especially the first, and flamboyantly barbaric, sequence from 1936, which was re-titled “Rocket Ship” for the sake of King Features’ dour competing version of Flash.
The First Flash Gordon Serial 1936 (fan edit)
Here’s my comparisons of Princess Aura saving Flash from Emperor Ming in the newspapers and on-screen — Cellulose to Celluloid: Part I, Chapter 4
The second serial, Flash Gordon -- Trip to Mars had only a little to do with Alex Raymond’s comic strip, but there was ONE scene where Dale Arden saves Flash and Zarkov’s lives with her skill as a rocket ship pilot.
Here’s my own description of that scene from the Internet (enlarge the image) — Spitfires of the Spaceways: Dale Arden
Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938) — slightly edited
King Features changed the name of 1940’s Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe serial to Space Soldiers , but it remains better than any Flash Gordon movie that came afterward. IMHO
You are invited to read my comparisons with the entire serial and the newspapers of the time — Cellulose to Celluloid Part III (all chapters)
Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) — Serial episodes with restorations.
BTW — The theme music was composed by Franz Liszt, not Richard Wagner.
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Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buster Crabbe made a Buck Rogers serial in 1939, and the comic strip was still syndicated throughout the world during the 50’s. This noisy series was run on the same TV stations that ran Buster Crabbe’s Flash Gordon , especially since Crabbe continued to be a popular action hero -- note the cowboy outfit below -- plus he had his own TV show on the air.
I remember seeing this serial running on local TV just before and after school hours, as late as 1967, while I was in high school, and hearing good word-of-mouth responses across different age groups. In two more years I was studying Comic Art in College, learning about Popular Culture via these kinds of artifacts produced before my birth and/or during my life before Third Grade.
I have written another web page about singer Constance Moore playing Lt./Colonel Wilma Deering, taking charge when Buck was incapacitated -- Spitfires of the Spaceways: Wilma Deering
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1939) — Edited as Planet Outlaws in 1953
BTW — The 1939 Buck Rogers serial borrowed footage from the 1930 Science Fiction Musical, Just Imagine, They weren’t the first or even the last, but Flash Gordon’s serial used Just Imagine footage, and Just Imagine’s prop rocket ship too, although they didn’t touch the tiny airplanes that filled New York’s skies in that goofy, but influential, flick. Try it out —
Just Imagine (1930) — Starring Swedish comic actor El Brendel and Maureen O’ Sullivan, who played Jane Porter to Weissmuller’s Tarzan .
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Denouement — Gene Autry and Superman
One of the biggest stars of the 1950’s was singing cowboy Gene Autry, and every inch of film he ever shot was repeatedly shown on TV — including the extremely odd and confusing Phantom Empire serial from 1935. Despite the success of Commando Cody and Flash Gordon, chapter serials were NOT all that popular on early TV. Although they were cheap to show, they were made for other audiences in other times.
Queen Tika (above, speaking with her prisoner Gene Autry) fears for the security of the underground empire as Autry’s “Radio Ranch” draws attention to her formerly-remote area, obviously located near Hollywood, California. It wasn’t a Space Opera, but it was sure loaded with common cliches found in Pulp Science Fiction, including She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, whom the hero frustrates at every turn. So just for fun, here’s one chapter --
The Phantom Empire — Chapter Five
I have skipped most analysis about why these quirky entertainments succeeded or failed in the long term. The perpetually re-run Superman TV show, starring George Reeves, was also part of this particular mix of pseudo Sci-Fi media, as were the great Fleischer “Superman” Cartoons from the 1940’s.
Like other chapter plays, postwar Kirk Alyn Superman Serials (sample) with Fleischer-animated Superman, and Noel Neill beginning her decade of playing Lois Lane, wasn’t shown much, if at all, even though Early TV tried anything and everything without much discrimination, when it came to quality or good taste.