PROJECT U.F.O. (1978) TV Guide Ad

Here's NBC's TV Guide advertisement for the premiere episode of legendary producer Jack Webb's Project U.F.O. (and if you remember the program being called anything else, you're mistaken. Trust me, we've investigated it exhaustively.)

I'm thinking of maybe publishing episode-by-episode capsule reviews of the show (and, possibly, The Fantastic Journey, as well). Is there any interest in that?

Captain's bLog: 1129.12

•   Thanks to a couple of generous Star Kids who donated to the Space: 1970 fund, I've finally picked up the Universal DVD of 1972's Silent Running and scored a complete set of Project U.F.O. episodes. It's hard to believe that I didn't already have a copy of Silent Running in my vast video collection... but that oversight has now been rectified. One of these days, I'll get around to writing an article/review.

The unauthorized Project U.F.O. discs I have acquired are sourced from 80's Australian television airings (on the TV1 network), and all carry the original title. While a commenter has promised to send me screen captures to prove that the show did air as Project Blue Book in its second season in England... I'm still waiting. And that U.K. exception wouldn't explain why North American viewers remember it under that alternate title.  After watching nearly the whole series again, I'm convinced that people are simply misremembering - the characters in the show use the phrase "Project Blue Book" extensively, and I suspect that constant verbal reinforcement is what imprinted on young viewers' minds.

As for the show itself, the multi-generational bootleg copies I have look terrible - which is unfortunate because I can't really enjoy Brick Price's terrific spaceship miniatures - but the stories are far more engaging than I expected. I prefer first season lead William Jordan over the second season's Edward Winter - I think it's because I can't shake the image of Winter's M*A*S*H character, Colonel Flagg out of my head. I just find him "insincere." Jordan, on the other hand, is both warm and authoritative, and very convincing as an open-minded but rational investigator. Second lead Caskey Swaim is all Southern good 'ol boy charm, and it's a shame he didn't have much of a film/television career.

The writing is formulaic, typically dry Jack Webb-styled stuff, and the production is often remarkably sloppy, with bad editorial match-up of live-action and effects footage, and some of the worst day-for-night photography ever seen. There's a lot of terrific guest stars, though, including Space: 1970 vets Anne Lockhart (Battlestar Galactica), Jared Martin (The Fantastic Journey), Malachi Throne, Booth Coleman (Planet Of The Apes TV series), Barbara Luna (Star Trek, Buck Rogers), Eric Braeden (Escape From The Planet Of The Apes), Morgan Woodward (Battle Beyond The Stars), Craig Stevens (The Invisible Man), Tiiu Leek (Starship Invasions), James Olsen (Moon Zero Two) Pamelyn Ferdin (Star Trek, Space Academy) and many more, including Richard O'Brien (Rocky Horror, Flash Gordon) & Angus Scrimm (Phantasm) as faux MIBs!

•  Other Projects Of Interest: Aside from blogging about old TV shows and movies, I occasionally write comic books. For a number of years now, one of the comic book projects I've been trying to get off the ground is a space opera graphic novel called Perils On Planet X.

While it owes a great deal to the interplanetary swashbucklers of Edgar Rice Burroughs (specifically, the John Carter of Mars stories) and his imitators (like Lin Carter, Otis Adelbert Kline, et al) it also incorporates plenty of influences from the sci-fi shows and movies of the Space: 1970 era, especially Flash Gordon (animated series and feature film), Blackstar, Buck Rogers, etc. The artist of Perils On Planet X is the very talented Gene Gonzales.

It is been in the works for a long time (several years, in fact), and it's roughly half finished. The current plan is to serialize it online in 2013 and perhaps try a Kickstarter campaign to finance a print edition. It's an action-packed adventure with rayguns, jetpacks, sexy space princesses, sexy alien pirate queens, and monstrous reptilian monsters. When it's ready to launch, I'll be sure to post the news here on the blog.

•  Blatant Cross-Promotion: And here's my usual shameless plug: anyone who enjoys my writing and the DVD reviews on this blog  should check out my DVD Late Show site, where I have been reviewing B-movies, cult films and genre television shows on DVD and Blu-ray disc since 2005. Among the over 700 reviews on the site are plenty of Space: 1970-era favorites, like Battle Beyond The Stars, Damnation Alley, Starcrash, The Starlost, the Space: 1999 Blu-rays, and many more.

The PROJECT U.F.O. (1978) Mystery

Was the 1978 Jack Webb-created series Project U.F.O. ever aired under the alternate title, Project Blue Book?

I have assumed, that since so many commenters here (and on the IMDb) have insisted that they remember that title, that the "Blue Book" alternate title was used in syndication or some markets, and yes, I have even stated that here in previous posts. But, the more I look into it, the truth is I haven't actually seen any definitive evidence that it was ever called anything other than Project U.F.O. on television.

In  fact, despite the fact that the IMDb and Wikipedia (both of which make use of user-submitted data and are thus subject to faulty memories or repeating of erroneous information) both make the claim that the "Blue Book" name was used in some television markets, I can find no concrete evidence anywhere - aside from the 34 year-old memories of people who saw it as children - that it was ever called Project Blue Book. No vintage TV Guide ads, no newspaper or magazine articles, or even YouTube videos of the opening credits with the "Blue Book" title.

I'm beginning to suspect that, at least here in the U.S., the "Blue Book" title was never used. However, the phrase, "Project Blue Book" was used extensively on the program, and I think that it may have had a powerful influence on youthful memories, so much so that people misremember the title of the show. These kinds of "false memories" are common, especially when erroneous information is repeated and repeated without verification.

Can anyone out there provide me with anything other than anecdotal evidence that the Project Blue Book title was ever used? A scan of a TV listing or advertisement? The most convincing evidence, of course, would be a video of the opening titles incorporating the "Blue Book" name.

I would really like to clear this up and would really appreciate any help in doing so. To borrow an expression from another, much later (and more popular) show about the U.F.O. phenomenon, "The truth is out there..."

UPDATE 10/23:  Well, a popular theory in the comments here and at the IMDb is that perhaps the pilot episode of the series was called Project Blue Book and that it was changed when the show went to series. No evidence seems to exist to support that theory, but even if it was true, why would people remember the show by the name of the pilot - which aired only once - rather than by the title shown at the beginning of the twenty-five subsequent episodes? Doesn't seem very likely, does it? More like grasping at straws.

Unless someone comes up with concrete evidence to the contrary - I think I'm going to continue to run with the "false memory" theory.

PROJECT U.F.O. (1978) TV Guide Ad

It's not easy finding much memorabilia for the Jack Webb-produced, NBC television series, Project U.F.O. online - so here, scanned from my own scrapbook, is a vintage TV Guide advertisement for the October 28th, 1978 episode.

According to the IMDb, alongside series regulars Edward Winter and Caskey Swaim, this episode guest starred Jared Martin, late of The Fantastic Journey. I wonder who currently owns the rights to this series? It's one of the few genre shows of the decade still not available on home video - and unlike most of them, this one was actually successful enough to last two (albeit 13-episode) seasons!

Behind-The-Scenes Pix #16: PROJECT: U.F.O.

Modelmaker Brick Price (at least, I think it's him) poses with one of the multitude of alien spacecraft that his company created over the 2-season run of Jack Webb's Project U.F.O. back in 1978-79.

Yeah, March has turned out as bad as February for me in terms of staying on top of this blog. I can't really say why, except that maybe I'm a little burned out and other stuff has been getting my attention and focus these last couple months. That said, I'm going to try to get back to regular posting very soon. There's still a lot of cool crap that I want to write about. Thanks for your patience, Star Kids....

PROJECT UFO (1978) Promo

Another video rarity discovered on YouTube: a static network promo for NBC's Jack Webb-produced series Project UFO, from 1978, that, from the music at the beginning, sounds like it aired right after an episode of Saturday Night Live!

PROJECT: U.F.O. (1978)

"Ezekiel saw the wheel. This is the wheel he said he saw. These are unidentified flying objects that people say they are seeing now. Are they proof that we are being visited by civilizations from other stars? Or just what are they? The United States Air Force began an investigation of this high strangeness in a search for the truth. What you are about to see is part of that 20-year search." 

 Project: U.F.O. aired for two 13-episode seasons on NBC, in 1978 and '79. Produced by Dragnet creator Jack Webb, the show exploited, like Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the high interest in U.F.O.s among the general public in the 70s. But, being a Jack Webb production, it hewed to the Dragnet (and Adam-12) formula, of straight-forward, matter-of-fact dramatizations of allegedly "true" cases of U.FO. sightings and extraterrestrial encounters.

In each episode, two officers of the United States Air Force - in the first season, Major Jake Gatlin (William Jordan) and Staff Sergeant harry Fitz (Caskey Swaim), in Year 2, the Gatlin character was replaced by Captain Ben Ryan (Edward Winter) - would investigate  two or three alleged sightings and encounters (all supposedly based on the Air Force's "Project Blue Book" files), which would be dramatized for the audience. This called for a huge number of miniature spaceship models (created by Brick Price), as well as some imaginative alien creations... and some less-than-imaginative ones; this is another 70s genre show (Ark II, Space Academy, Mork & Mindy) that rented out Bill Malone's Robby the Robot replica for an episode.

 My memories of the show are somewhat vague; I do recall watching it every week, although I was mostly interested in seeing all the cool spaceship models. Because they had several "encounters" to dramatize each week, the show went through more spaceship designs than any other TV show of its era, except maybe Space: 1999.  I suspect that it was the cost of all these special effects sequences that led NBC to cancel it once the ratings began to dip.

Other problems were that the main characters were given virtually no depth of personality, and there was no humor on the show to speak of. Everything was presented dryly and straight-faced, and while some of the dramatizations were genuinely creepy, the show's format required that the investigators ended up explaining a way a certain percentage of the sightings as hoaxes or mistakes.  While this may have reflected the Air Force's actual Blue Book findings, I think viewers might have been turned off by that. I know that I preferred it on the few occasions when they decided they couldn't just dismiss a U.F.O. event with some dull, mundane explanation. I wanted those aliens to be real!

Anyway, I haven't seen Project: U.F.O. in years, so I have no idea how the show holds up - if at all. I'd like to see it again, though - if only for all the alien spaceships!

And yes - this show was called Project Blue Book in syndication and in some international markets. But it was officially Project: U.F.O. when it aired in its original network run, so please don't tell me I got the name wrong - you can check out the opening titles for both seasons HERE.

PROJECT U.F.O. (1978-79) Opening Titles

In 1978, Jack Webb, creator of Dragnet and Adam-12, brought Project U.F.O. to television. The show, which dryly dramatized unidentified flying object sightings culled from the declassified files of the United States Air Force's Project Blue Book investigations (in fact, the show was reportedly called Project Blue Book in syndication, in some markets) ran for two seasons on NBC.

It was not "science fiction" - at least, it wasn't supposed to be. But, as a space-obsessed 14 year-old, it was still must-see TV, if only for the plethora of cool spaceship models that appeared in every episode. I'm not certain, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that they were created by Brick Price's outfit. Whoever created them, they were awesome. (At least, I remember them that way.)