On Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 1:05:06 PM UTC-4, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <t2kgpf$6ns$1...@dont-email.me>,
> Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On 06/04/2022 09.55, Quadibloc wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 8:04:53 AM UTC-6, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> From chapter 2 of the book:
> >>> "The third myth involved the belief that it was impossible to weave
> >continuing characters
> >>> into television science fiction. Until STAR TREK, all television's
> >science fiction had been
> >>> anthologies.
> >>
> >>> "Yet, Roddenberry noted, virtually every other television series on
> >the air, with mass
> >>> audience appeal, had a cast of familiar, continuing characters."
> >There then follows
> >>> an analysis of audience engagement with BONANZA characters. (It's
> >fairly obvious
> >>> why sf would have a need to be anthology more than westerns, police,
> >or medical
> >>> shows.)
> >>
> >> These paragraphs are (with one glaring exception) a reasonable and factual
> >> statement of the issue at hand...
> >
> >> What were "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", "Captain Video", "Tom
> >> Corbett, Space Cadet" and "My Favorite Martian", chopped liver? Well, no,
> >> they weren't, but they certainly weren't _serious_ science fiction either,
> >> which Star Trek at least approached being in some of its better episodes.
> >
> >The first episode of _Lost in Space_ aired 1965-09-15.
> >
> >The first episode of _Star Trek_ aired 1966-09-08, not quite
> >a year later.
> >
> >The first episode of _The Time Tunnel_ aired 1966-09-09, the
> >very next day.
> >
> >I say nothing about the quality of any of these, but they
> >all had "cast[s] of familiary, continuing characters."
> >
> The first season of "Lost In Space" was quite different in tone and plotlines
> than the second and third ones. I won't say it was *plausible*, but it was
> serious.
> -

It was less than original, also.

https://www.toonopedia.com/spacefam.htm

https://www.comics.org/issue/17318/cover/4/

Gold Key (Western Publishing) avoided a lawsuit. They just adjusted
the title of their magazine to include "Lost In Space," ....

https://www.comics.org/issue/19766/cover/4/

....and did more business with Irwin Allen, as they had been doing
for a while.

https://www.comics.org/issue/18818/cover/4/?

Hadn't Roddenberry complained that CBS, after hearing his
STAR TREK pitch, fed what he told them to Irwin Allen and
bought his sci-fi show?

Though I'm a Robinson, I rarely got to watch LOST IN SPACE
in first run. 11 people sharing 1 TV. I didn't always win the vote.
Then there were the vetoes of the

https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/gold_key_comics
--
Kevin R
a.a #2310

On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 9:52:28 PM UTC-4, Kevrob wrote:

[snip]

> Then there were the vetoes of the ....

....parental units .

The Desilu wardrobe department was responsible for a few of those.

--
Kevin R

On Thu, 7 Apr 2022 09:25:22 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 9:42:06 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 11:57:19 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
>> <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> >The first episode of _The Time Tunnel_ aired 1966-09-09, the
>> >very next day.
>
>> Wasn't that the one whose /trailers/ promised us battles with bad guys
>> from the future while the /shows/ were all obviously "educational"
>> disguised as science fiction to lure the kids?
>
>No. In this respect, The Time Tunnel was a lot like Doctor Who. It started
>out by having many episodes set in historical times, with the odd episode
>involving alien monsters, and gradually changed over to dump the historical
>episodes and stick to the more popular alien monsters.

If you say so.

The only episodes /I/ saw were educational.

But, of course, I soon gave up on it.

You're right about Doctor Who, of course. Selling SF as "educational
programming" was not limited to the USA.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 16:42:06 UTC+1, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 11:57:19 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
> <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On 06/04/2022 09.55, Quadibloc wrote:
> >> On Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 8:04:53 AM UTC-6, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> From chapter 2 of the book:
> >>> "The third myth involved the belief that it was impossible to weave continuing characters
> >>> into television science fiction. Until STAR TREK, all television's science fiction had been
> >>> anthologies.
> >>
> >>> "Yet, Roddenberry noted, virtually every other television series on the air, with mass
> >>> audience appeal, had a cast of familiar, continuing characters." There then follows
> >>> an analysis of audience engagement with BONANZA characters. (It's fairly obvious
> >>> why sf would have a need to be anthology more than westerns, police, or medical
> >>> shows.)
> >>
> >> These paragraphs are (with one glaring exception) a reasonable and factual
> >> statement of the issue at hand...
> >
> >> What were "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", "Captain Video", "Tom
> >> Corbett, Space Cadet" and "My Favorite Martian", chopped liver? Well, no,
> >> they weren't, but they certainly weren't _serious_ science fiction either,
> >> which Star Trek at least approached being in some of its better episodes.
> >
> >The first episode of _Lost in Space_ aired 1965-09-15.
> I didn't much like the TV show and I liked the movie even less. But
> tastes vary.
>
> I /do/ remember "prominent child psychologists" worrying about leaving
> the Mother out in space between two episodes having a negative impact
> on the children watching, however.
> >The first episode of _Star Trek_ aired 1966-09-08, not quite
> >a year later.
> >
> >The first episode of _The Time Tunnel_ aired 1966-09-09, the
> >very next day.
>
> Wasn't that the one whose /trailers/ promised us battles with bad guys
> from the future while the /shows/ were all obviously "educational"
> disguised as science fiction to lure the kids?

Not exactly, such as when Merlin showed up. I don't
think there was an intention to educate anyone, and
episodes weren't set in history so much as inside
historical (and biblical) feature films, whose large
action sequences were unblushingly placed around
our heroes' doings.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Tunnel>
says "Only one set was constructed for the show,
that of the Time Tunnel main control room"; otherwise
"the production used sets, stock footage, and props
left over from the large number of period dramas made
by the 20th Century Fox film company"; and the
time travellers "shot their scenes in another studio,
on the 20th Century Fox backlot, or on location."
"The prop computer, however, had an unusual degree
of verisimilitude because it was an array of memory
modules from the Air Force's recently decommissioned
SAGE computer."

On Friday, April 8, 2022 at 4:19:45 PM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> "The prop computer, however, had an unusual degree
> of verisimilitude because it was an array of memory
> modules from the Air Force's recently decommissioned
> SAGE computer."

That shows that whoever wrote that may be an expert on TV
shows, but is not very knowledgeable about computers.

The computer used in the SAGE air-defense system was an
AN-FSQ/7 computer, built for the U.S. military by IBM.

The part of that computer which was seen on the show most often
was that computer's front panel (with a section removed in which a
CRT, like those used in TV sets, was placed). Some vacuum tube
logic modules were mounted, widely spaced, on a portion of the set
off to the side of the Time Tunnel, which was featured once in a chase
scene, but none of the AN-FSQ/7's core memories were seen on the
show.

John Savard

On Fri, 8 Apr 2022 15:19:43 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.carnegie@excite.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, 7 April 2022 at 16:42:06 UTC+1, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Wed, 6 Apr 2022 11:57:19 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
>> <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On 06/04/2022 09.55, Quadibloc wrote:
>> >> On Wednesday, April 6, 2022 at 8:04:53 AM UTC-6, jack....@gmail.com wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> From chapter 2 of the book:
>> >>> "The third myth involved the belief that it was impossible to weave continuing characters
>> >>> into television science fiction. Until STAR TREK, all television's science fiction had been
>> >>> anthologies.
>> >>
>> >>> "Yet, Roddenberry noted, virtually every other television series on the air, with mass
>> >>> audience appeal, had a cast of familiar, continuing characters." There then follows
>> >>> an analysis of audience engagement with BONANZA characters. (It's fairly obvious
>> >>> why sf would have a need to be anthology more than westerns, police, or medical
>> >>> shows.)
>> >>
>> >> These paragraphs are (with one glaring exception) a reasonable and factual
>> >> statement of the issue at hand...
>> >
>> >> What were "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", "Captain Video", "Tom
>> >> Corbett, Space Cadet" and "My Favorite Martian", chopped liver? Well, no,
>> >> they weren't, but they certainly weren't _serious_ science fiction either,
>> >> which Star Trek at least approached being in some of its better episodes.
>> >
>> >The first episode of _Lost in Space_ aired 1965-09-15.
>> I didn't much like the TV show and I liked the movie even less. But
>> tastes vary.
>>
>> I /do/ remember "prominent child psychologists" worrying about leaving
>> the Mother out in space between two episodes having a negative impact
>> on the children watching, however.
>> >The first episode of _Star Trek_ aired 1966-09-08, not quite
>> >a year later.
>> >
>> >The first episode of _The Time Tunnel_ aired 1966-09-09, the
>> >very next day.
>>
>> Wasn't that the one whose /trailers/ promised us battles with bad guys
>> from the future while the /shows/ were all obviously "educational"
>> disguised as science fiction to lure the kids?
>
>Not exactly, such as when Merlin showed up. I don't
>think there was an intention to educate anyone, and
>episodes weren't set in history so much as inside
>historical (and biblical) feature films, whose large
>action sequences were unblushingly placed around
>our heroes' doings.
><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Tunnel>
>says "Only one set was constructed for the show,
>that of the Time Tunnel main control room"; otherwise
>"the production used sets, stock footage, and props
>left over from the large number of period dramas made
>by the 20th Century Fox film company"; and the
>time travellers "shot their scenes in another studio,
>on the 20th Century Fox backlot, or on location."
>"The prop computer, however, had an unusual degree
>of verisimilitude because it was an array of memory
>modules from the Air Force's recently decommissioned
>SAGE computer."

So, telling bits of the Arthur legend (in mutilated form, BTW), which
is part of Our Cultural Heritage, is, somehow, not educational?

The /real/ problem was that (IIRC) each week they would show a preview
of the next show -- which showed them fighting aliens from the future.
But after three or four shows that clearly did no such thing, I gave
up and concluded it was a pointless educational sham.

At the time, I was avoiding the Draft by being a Sophomore in College,
carrying a Full Load and Making Satisfactory Progress. While working
as many hours as possible to keep myself afloat. I wasn't particularly
happy about any of it, but that's just me.
--
"I begin to envy Petronius."
"I have envied him long since."

On Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 9:39:54 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:

> The /real/ problem was that (IIRC) each week they would show a preview
> of the next show -- which showed them fighting aliens from the future.
> But after three or four shows that clearly did no such thing, I gave
> up and concluded it was a pointless educational sham.

And, as I noted, you just had bad luck. Complete episode guides are
available on the web. There is even a 2 DVD set of the entire series.

As for Merlin, well, Merlin wasn't real. So how does he belong in a _science
fiction_ show about a secret U.S. government project? This is confusing and
inconsistent input.

Which, of course, can be resolved; it eventually becomes apparent that this
show, like the others from Irwin Allen, is meant for the kiddies.

One episode that featured an alien from the future... had the alien leave
behind information about what time and place he had abducted Tony and
Doug to.

By dropping *a standard 80-column Hollerith card*, which they still used
in the far future, and which the scientists of Project Tictoc decoded by
submitting it to... an ASR 33 Teletype. Well, why wouldn't Project Tictoc
have access to secret technology I had never heard of?

John Savard

On Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 12:02:42 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 9:39:54 AM UTC-6, Paul S Person wrote:
>
> > The /real/ problem was that (IIRC) each week they would show a preview
> > of the next show -- which showed them fighting aliens from the future.
> > But after three or four shows that clearly did no such thing, I gave
> > up and concluded it was a pointless educational sham.
> And, as I noted, you just had bad luck. Complete episode guides are
> available on the web. There is even a 2 DVD set of the entire series.
>
> As for Merlin, well, Merlin wasn't real. So how does he belong in a _science
> fiction_ show about a secret U.S. government project? This is confusing and
> inconsistent input.
>
> Which, of course, can be resolved; it eventually becomes apparent that this
> show, like the others from Irwin Allen, is meant for the kiddies.
>
> One episode that featured an alien from the future... had the alien leave
> behind information about what time and place he had abducted Tony and
> Doug to.
>
> By dropping *a standard 80-column Hollerith card*, which they still used
> in the far future, and which the scientists of Project Tictoc decoded by
> submitting it to... an ASR 33 Teletype. Well, why wouldn't Project Tictoc
> have access to secret technology I had never heard of?
>
>

I think Quaddie is referencing the 1st season TT episode, "The Kidnappers."

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0723775/

These dudes were from the Canopus system. Even at age 10 1/4 I knew that,
since the Earth moved through space a time machine had to be also a space
travel device. I probably absorbed that from Julie Schwartz-edited science
fiction comics, or the Supeman titles under Mort Weisinger.

[quote]

In the year 8433, the Canopians made use of their time-travel technology to abduct
Human beings from several time periods and extract their memories in order to study
their culture. Among those who have been abducted by them are Marcus Tullius Cicero,
Desiderius Erasmus, and Adolf Hitler.

[/quote]

https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Canopian_(The_Time_Tunnel)

I wonder if Lee Meriwether playing the smart, beautiful Dr MacGregor led to
a bias on my part for intelligent brunettes? {Not that I'd turn down a clever
redhead or blonde...}

--
Kevin R

On Saturday, April 9, 2022 at 10:02:42 AM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

> By dropping *a standard 80-column Hollerith card*, which they still used
> in the far future, and which the scientists of Project Tictoc decoded by
> submitting it to... an ASR 33 Teletype. Well, why wouldn't Project Tictoc
> have access to secret technology I had never heard of?

Incidentally, while it was very common for Flexowriters to be modified
so that they could read _edge-punched cards_, cards the size of index
cards that were punched the same way as paper tape along one edge,
there was also available an attachment for the Flexowriter that let it
read 80-column cards instead.

So this wasn't totally science-fiction technology, they just bought it
from the wrong company!

John Savard