SALVAGE 1 (1979) TV Guide Ad

"I want to build a spaceship, go to the moon, salvage all the junk that's up there, bring it back and sell it."

The TV movie, Salvage 1, starring Andy Griffith, Joel Higgins and Trish Stewart, debuted on ABC on January 20th, 1979. The telefilm, which chronicled a salvage expert's attempt to build a spaceship and travel to the moon (to salvage all the stuff NASA's Apollo astronauts left behind, as noted above), was a surprise ratings smash.

The weekend it aired, I was staying at my cousins' house while my folks were on a snowmobiling excursion in Canada. I vividly recall commandeering the TV set and forcing everyone to watch the movie, which I, as I remember, I found incredibly engrossing. The characters were likable, the junkyard spaceship - named The Vulture - was oddly believable and the actual trip to Luna seemed entirely possible (Isaac Asimov, according to his own autobiography, was a scientific advisor). I haven't seen it since, though, so I have no idea how it would play today.

The ratings success of the telefilm led to a 20 episode (although only 13 were aired in its network run) Salvage 1 weekly series. I only saw a few of those, and I remember them being a real letdown, with mostly earthbound stories, and The Vulture being used only sparingly.

As far as I can tell, just two of the episodes are available as Manufacture-On-Demand DVDs from Sony, and neither is the pilot film. The titles available are "Golden Orbit" and "Hard Water," both of which originally aired as two-parters.

Countdown: this is Space: 1970 post #996...

Captain's bLog: 1125.13

• It's been a long time since I've posted anything here - over a month, in fact - and this is the first post I've made in November... and that's nearly over. I even missed marking Space: 1970's fourth anniversary on the 1st. Really rather embarrassed about that.

I have no good excuse. November's just been a bad month for me overall, writing-wise, and this site has suffered from that unfortunate (and frustrating) motivational drought along with all my other writing projects.

But that doesn't entirely account for the reduced posting here since the Summer. I've kinda been feeling like it's getting harder to find cool images to post, and the more involved articles - essays, film and DVD reviews, "Fave Episodes," "Fave Fives," "Hall of Fame," etc . - well, it's always been difficult for me to make the time to really do them up properly. And that's always been frustrating, because, for me, anyway, those are the most personal and satisfying posts to write.

Another factor in my Space: 1970 ennui is that due to recent changes in my state's tax laws, I no longer receive any kickbacks from Amazon's affiliate program. Don't get me wrong - this site was never about making money, and it never amounted to much anyway, but the couple hundred bucks a year at least helped me justify to myself the time and effort I put into Space: 1970, and it did allow me to buy more cool 70s sci-fi stuff (videos, books) for my collection. (I do still have the Paypal button over in the right-hand sidebar, but nobody's donated anything in over a year.)

Now, I know this all sounds pretty grim, but I'm not about to abandon this blog. My passion for disco-era sci-fi (and sci-fi disco, for that matter) hasn't diminished one iota. I'm just going through an extended  low-energy phase (or as they're referred to around here, a "funk"), and with a little luck, I'll be back up to speed soon. In the meantime, I'll try to scrape up a few more interesting photos over the next few weeks so the site doesn't go completely fallow. I appreciate your patience.

•  I did pick up the Hanna-Barbara series Space Stars on DVD from Warner Archive, and will try to post a review here soon. I will say now that the transfers are surprisingly good, and Warners has included some fun additional content that was not included in their original network airings. If you're a fan, it's a great package.

In upcoming video releases, I'm definitely still looking forward to the imminent release of 1980's Stanley Donen sci-fi gothic, Saturn 3, on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory, which goes on sale on December 3rd.

I'm somewhat less excited about Sony's new manufactured-on-demand Salvage 1discs - I'm deeply annoyed that the studio has chosen to release only a couple of random episodes on standalone (expensive) discs, rather than assemble a complete series package. Also, my interest in the show diminished after the moonshot pilot, so I have little incentive to pick up these releases. If you're interested, TV Shows On DVD has the release info and packaging pics.

• Friend of the blog/Star Kid Paul Quinn recently sent me some cool stuff - all but one of the Beyond Westworld episodes and the 1983 Roger Corman flick Space Raiders, along with a complete run of Starlog magazine on DVD-ROM. This kind of "audience participation" certainly helps motivate me to keep plugging away at Space: 1970, and I wanted to publicly thank him for his generosity.

• Finally, I'm still working on my sci-fi adventure webcomic, Perils On Planet X, which is illustrated by the talented Gene Gonzales, and colored by the equally-talented Ian Sokoliwski. It runs a page a week, with a new one posted every Friday, and it's absolutely free. We're about halfway through the second chapter now, and the story is moving along like a rocket, packed with Flash Gordon-styled pulp thrills. I hope you'll check it out, if you haven't already.

Captain's bLog: Supplemental

A few quick notes....

•  With a little luck, my new DVD of The Black Hole will arrive in the mail today or tomorrow. With the passing of co-star Ernest Borgnine over the weekend, I'm particularly eager to revisit the film. I've always felt that the cast was one of the genuine joys of the movie, and Borgnine's reporter, Harry Booth, was a somewhat unusual character for a space-based film. I always wondered how he was filing his articles...

•  We also saw the passing of actor Andy Griffith last week, which put me in mind of his Space: 1970-era genre television series, 1979's Salvage 1. Griffith played salvage expert Harry Broderick, who, with the aide of a couple of ex-NASA experts (Joel Higgins and Trish Stewart) built a spaceship (the Vulture) out of junkyard scraps and traveled to the moon to salvage all the equipment left there after the Apollo space missions.

I remember being really excited about the original TV movie/pilot that January, and forcing my cousins to watch it since I was staying over at their house that weekend. Once it went to series (a very short-lived series), I found it much less compelling as the subsequent stories were considerably more Earthbound. Still, it has stuck in my memory, and I probably should have mentioned it here earlier.

As for Griffith, he was as charming and amiable in Salvage 1 as he was in most of the other productions he appeared in. He wasn't the sort of actor generally cast in genre shows, but he did have a memorable role in the first season Bionic Woman episode, "Angel of Mercy."

• Well, a couple of days ago, I went ahead and ordered the Region 2 DVDs of the 1975 British-German series Star Maidens with some early birthday cash I received from my generous mother-in-law. I've only seen one episode - on YouTube - but it was enough to let me know that, aesthetically anyway, the show is right up my alley. Pure. Seventies. Style.

Hopefully, the DVDs will be here in a week or so. I'm looking forward to reviewing it here, too.

• Blu-ray.com has posted an advance review of Warners' forthcoming Outland Blu-ray disc. From the sound of it, it is a quantum leap in quality over the old, and sub-par even for its age, DVD. Apparently, there's a very informative audio commentary track by writer/director Peter Hyams, as well, who reportedly acknowledges the film's debt to Ridley Scott's Alien in its look and feel. I've always said that it didn't take much to pretend that Outland and Alien took place in the same universe...

•  I did recently get my hands on an affordable "previously-viewed" set of the Star Wars "Original Trilogy" Blu-rays. While I - like many first-generation SW fans - am more than a little annoyed at the fact that George Lucas didn't choose to make the original cuts of the films available on the discs alongside the Special Edition versions (and also made additional digital alterations to those!), I have to admit, that it's very nice to see those characters (and spaceships, etc.) in nigh-flawless high definition.

•  Oh, and I finally finished watching The Invisible Man DVDs! Look for a review here later this week.