Space Patrol: Missions of Daring in the Name of Early Television

Rating:
Summary: Greatest Book in United Planets History!
Review: This book is more than great. It is a cosmic work of art, an exquisite sculpture hewn from a planetoid-size diamond! To relate all I find admirable about this book, I'd have to write a book about this book! Archeologists in the 30th Century would not be able to find a better source to illuminate the spirit of mid-20th Century America. If you are at all interested in 1950s America, early television, science fiction, epic space heroes, writing for television, directing and acting, marketing and advertising ... in short, if you are breathing, get this book. You'll love it.

Rating:
Summary: The Wild, Vast Reaches of Space...
Review: One of the ironies of the Golden Age of Television is that some of its most ambitious programming coincided with the primitive infancy of the medium, 1949 -- 1955. Given that all programming was being broadcast "live" as it happened, in "real time," TV directors and producers nevertheless dared to present, in CAPTAIN VIDEO (1949-55), TOM CORBETT SPACE CADET (1950-55) and SPACE PATROL (1950-55), often action-packed science-fictional adventures with complex practical and special effects... and anywhere from 30 minutes once a week to 30 minutes every weekday!

As the casts and crews of these series are steadily taken away from us by time, we are also losing all personal contact with this most heroic (in several senses of the word!) era of early live television broadcasting. So it is very welcome to find this 400-plus-page book by Jean-Noel Bassior, entirely devoted to SPACE PATROL. She began work on the book in the early 1980s, when almost all the cast and crew except for Lyn Osborn (Cadet Happy) were still alive and available for interview, and portions of more than 50 separate interviews are incorporated throughout the book. The book is also copiously illustrated with a large number of clearly-reproduced and often quite rare photos.

More than 20 individual chapters cover almost every aspect of the series, including cast, crew, and writers. About the only significant omission that struck me was that of Carl Macauley, designer of the very impressive and spacious sets... there's not much about him compared to other key crew members. Readers will also find appendices contributed by various experts, describing various Space Patrol-related toys and premiums, the 30-minute network TV episodes, some of the surviving 30-minute radio episodes, and the most-often-seen miniature buildings and spaceships of the series.

Mike Moser's sudden death in the spring of 1953 (struck by a car as he stepped off a dark curb) tolled the end for SPACE PATROL. When Nina Bara (Tonga) reminded Moser's widow of various unkept promises made by Moser to the cast, she was promptly fired. The daily 15-minute broadcasts vanished from the lineup, a development welcomed by the greatly overworked cast and crew. More ominously, by the fall of 1953, kids and their parents who ordered from the impressive catalog of SPACE PATROL toys and merchandise were receiving only a letter explaining that neither the items nor a refund would ever be forthcoming... from a company Moser had mainly operated out of the trunk of his own car! Moser's widow Helen didn't really know what to do with the program she inherited, and as soon as the key sponsor pulled out, that was the end, except for a syndicated series of old kinescope recordings on 35 mm film that could be seen spottily on TV in the late 1950s.

Many kinescoped episodes of SPACE PATROL are available for viewing today on video tape. Seen more than half a century after they were broadcast, and by jaded adults rather than starry-eyed children of the early Space Age, they don't usually hold up well. The weakest element by far is the scripting, while the sets are often extremely impressive. Ed Kemmer (Commander Buzz Corry) is a completely convincing hero; Lyn Osborn (Happy) is as funny and charming as his often poorly written part allows, and his character's relationship with Kemmer's is always believable. Virginia Hewitt (Carol) and Nina Bara (Tonga) come across as simultaneously sexy and intelligent; Ken Mayer (Robbie) is reliable as the only other SPACE PATROL officer we usually get to see; and whatever the name of the villain he plays, Bela Kovacs is always just on the verge of a terrifying burst of hysterical ill-temper. You don't have to watch many episodes to like these people, and to wonder how this unique series came into being. And here's the book to answer almost any question you might have!

Rating:
Summary: TV: The Way It Was (and the way it should be)
Review: This "labor of love" for Bassior is a must read for those interested not only in "kid vid" but in how "television" was born. The reader quickly realizes that the producers of "Space Patrol" were true pioneers...inventing special effects, developing camera techniques and working up stage settings that defined "live" TV in it's first decade. While operating at the lowest end of the budget scale, "Space Patrol" was live sci-fi drama as good as ABC's "other" futuristic adult-themed drama of the same era: "Tales of Tomorrow." There were no digital special effects, no computer-generated images, and the line between good and evil was always crystal clear. The actors and the story were central, NOT the special effects. Plus there were only three commercials in each half-hour episode! How sweet it was! This book is more than a nostalgic look at a childhood memory, it's a well-documented historical review of how television programs were created and produced at a time when there was no "instruction manual" to follow. You will find it fascinating. Wonderful pictures are included, too.

Rating:
Summary: Return to Those Thrilling Days of Commander Buzz Corry
Review: This book is a must for anyone who has fond memories of the old early 50s TV space shows, or who has an interest in early television. Bassior has done an incredible job of gathering more information on the show and the people who made it than I would have imagined possible. The thing I found most astonishing about the book was how hard it was to put down once I started reading it. My only complaint is that, although it is over 400 pages of small print, it's too short! Please Jean-Noel, give us more! Nevertheless, a FULL FIVE STARS to Jean-Noel Bassior and "Space Patrol."