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...

Guest Post: THE TOMORROW PEOPLE: "Into The Unknown"

Here's our first Guest Post on Space: 1970, from Star Kid Venger Satanis. 

I'm not personally familiar with The Tomorrow People at all - it aired in the UK from 1973 to 1979, and while it was syndicated in some U.S. markets (and on Nickelodeon in the 80s), it never played anywhere I could see it. It dealt with the "next stage in human evolution," and centered on a group of young people with a range of mutant psionic powers. Sounds like the X-Men to me! It's been remade twice - in the 1990s, and most recently, for the CW in 2013.

I used to watch the mid-seventies British TV show, The Tomorrow People when I was a kid.  This was in the U.S. during the 80s.  I remember seeing various episodes more than once, so Nickelodeon must have replayed the episodes over and over again.  Lots of interesting sci-fi ideas and adventures that could only be fully appreciated by a 10 year old boy.

Today, I'd like to write about one story in particular.  I already looked on the internet and couldn't find more than one review of the four episodes comprising this tale, and the reviewer wasn't complimentary.  He thought it was boring.

However, what "Into the Unknown" lacks in action, it makes up for in cosmic horror.  Not the kind of cosmic horror you'd find in that Space: 1999 episode with the Lovecraftian monster lurks at the center of that starship graveyard, but another kind.  This cosmic horror is a slow and subtle dread.  A haunted house in space that brushes its inhabitants up against the unknown.  As Lovecraft stated, fear of the unknown is the greatest of all human fears.

So, this Tomorrow People story is well named.  Why is the title apt?  

There's a hole in space.  It's black, but it's not a black hole.  It's not really identified or identifiable at all, except for the aforementioned description.  By the time the viewer reaches episode three, the main characters find themselves journeying through that space hole.

It reminded me of the 1963 film The Haunting.  Isolating, dark,unexplained, vulnerable... the characters are at the mercy of forces they don't understand.  We, the audience, don't understand them either.  The starless void is clearly not where human beings are supposed to be.  It seems actively hostile - or ambivalent, at the very least - as the characters' ship travels onward.

Little things like losing control, the ship speeding up or slowing down on its own, the darkness and then light.  No one knows exactly what the Hell is going on.  Such weirdness would be merely a novelty if the characters didn't have any agency.  Thankfully, they do.  In fact, they have to make a major decision that will affect the outcome.  This decision point has to be made without much to go on, being in the midst of an alien phenomenon.  The lack of clarity only makes it more terrifying.  The characters can either trust their instincts or the supernatural, neither of which is particularly reassuring.

And in the end, we never get a full account of what that hole in space was.  Oh sure, there are subjective interpretations - a sort of circularity, perhaps - but nothing concrete, nothing official, nothing we can point to that will comfort our fear of the unknown.

I won't spoil the thing by going through every detail with a fine-toothed comb, but wanted to give you enough information so you could judge whether to watch it for yourself.  As a 10 year old boy, I was fascinated by this story's feeling of dread.  Re-watching it last week, the impression is nearly as strong as it was three decades ago; however, I can better appreciate what the writer was trying to convey.

Who am I?  Venger Satanis, of course!  If you have any interest in paper & pencil roleplaying games, check out my site:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/

The Origins Of The Cylons

After the cancellation of the original Battlestar Galactica, Universal re-edited the episodes into two-hour movies and offered them to independent stations as a syndication package.

At least one of these, the "Experiment In Terra" telefilm, included a prologue that showed American astronauts discovering the Battlestar Galactica's log book floating in space. Within it, Adama details the origins of the Cylon race as reptilians who were ultimately conquered by their own cybernetic creations.

Since those telefilms were not released on home video, nor aired anywhere that I ever lived, I never saw this footage until today. Check it out!

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1977)

On this day in 1977, CBS aired Kenneth Johnson's first Incredible Hulk television movie, which led to a five year, 82 episode weekly series. My thirteen year-old mind was blown... and I've never been quite right since.

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?

STARSTRUCK (1979)

I have literally been looking for evidence of the existence of this 1979 failed sci-fi sitcom pilot ever since I started this blog. Couldn't find a reference to it anywhere online. Wasn't even listed on the IMDb.

Then, yesterday afternoon, Star Kid Traie Payne posted to the Space: 1970 Facebook page a link to an A.V. Club article that not only confirmed my 35 year-old memories, but even included video of the entire show - which aired only once, on CBS in June of 1979. Thankfully, Chuck Cirino, who worked on Starstruck as an effects technician, saved his tape of the show and uploaded it to YouTube for posterity. (And, coincidentally, to save my sanity.)

The half-hour show told the story of the Earth-born McAllisters and their family-run restaurant and hotel in space, catering to an intergalactic clientele of bizarre aliens, robots and other space travelers. I remember watching it when it aired, and it stuck in my head, even though I never found any reference to it after that original viewing. Watching it now, I can see that it's not particularly funny, so it's no surprise that it didn't go to series. But the effects, production design and make-up effects/monster masks, are all pretty good for the time.

Anyone else remember this one?

Happy (Belated) Life Day!

Yesterday marked the 36th (!) anniversary of the much-derided Star Wars Holiday Special, which aired on CBS in 1978. Sure, I've kicked the bizarre variety special around some myself over the years, but I admit that I was watching it that night, sitting on the floor about two feet from the tube, and fourteen year-old me enjoyed the hell out of it. And if truth be told, whenever I pop in my bootleg DVD to torture the wife each holiday season, I still enjoy it.

Well, parts of it, anyway.

That awesomely strange cartoon, of course, introducing to the universe the intriguing Boba Fett. Some (very little, admittedly) of the domestic wookiee stuff. (And the Stan Winston wookie suits are fantastic and full of character.) Mark Hamill's heavy makeup. Harrison Ford, trying to stay in character and keep a straight face amid the nonsense. And I genuinely enjoy Bea Arthur's musical number - and whoever thought I'd admit that?

The less said about Carrie Fisher's singing, on the other hand, the better.

When the only Star Wars was Star Wars, (and the Marvel comics) even this bizarro Seventies artifact was something to look forward to and even celebrate. Have yourselves a happy (belated) Life Day and may the Force be with you, Star Kids!

News: BEYOND WESTWORLD (1980) on DVD

The complete, short-lived 1980 television series, Beyond Westworld, is now available on DVD from the fine folks at Warner Archive. This series was a sequel to/continuation of the 1973 Michael Crichton film, Westworld, and posited that after the meltdown at the infamous Delos resort, a scientist (James Wainright) absconded with a bunch of the lifelike androids and planned to use them to conquer the world. Delos Security agents John Moore (Jim McMullen) and Pamela Williams (Connie Selleca) are tasked with hunting him down and foiling his evil schemes.

The show only had five episodes (and was cancelled after three). The pilot film was included on the semi-recent Westworld Blu-ray a couple years back, but this marks the first time that the complete series has been available on home video in the U.S.  At the moment, the DVDs are only available from the Warner websites, but it should be available through Amazon in a couple of weeks. 

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978) on the ABC Sunday Night Movie

Here's the ABC Sunday Night Movie intro for their repeat broadcast of Phillip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, starring Leonard Nimoy and Donald Sutherland. For me, this was the scariest sci-fi flick of the Seventies, even edging out Alien. And, because (unlike Alien) Invasion was rated PG instead of R, I actually got to see it unaccompanied by parental units... which probably added to the fright factor. Of course, I also got to see Brooke Adams topless, so it balanced out.

Needless to say, the version that aired on ABC used an alternate, "clothed" take of that scene.

CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERHEROES (1979) TV Guide Ad

In January of 1979, Adam West and Burt Ward returned to the television roles that they had made famous in 1966 - DC Comics super-heroes Batman & Robin - for a prime time comedy special - The Challenge Of The Superheroes! This live-action NBC "event," produced by Hanna-Barbara Productions (producers of the Saturday morning animated series, Super Friends, for ABC), pitted eight DC heroes against seven super villains, and was the first (and in some cases, only) live-action appearances of many of them.

Aside from West and Ward, the cast included Garrett Craig as Captain Marvel, Howard Murphy as the Green Lantern, Bill Nuckols as Hawkman, Barbara Joyce as The Huntress, Rod Haase as The Flash, Alfie Wise as The Atom, Danuta Rylko Soderman as the Black Canary, and William Schallert as "Scarlet Cyclone/Retired Man." Superman was unavailble to the producers as he was currently headlining his own theatrical film series. Likewise, Wonder Woman was not included as she was starring in her own series for rival network CBS at the time.

This special was followed soon thereafter with a parody of the Dean Martin Roasts, called (logically enough) The Superhero Roast, and featured the same cast. Collectively, these two programs are known as The Legends Of The Superheroes, and for decades, were popular bootleg videos at comic book conventions. These days, they're legally available on MOD DVD from Warner Archive.

CLIFFHANGERS! (1979) NBC Promo

A year or more back, I shared a rare TV spot for 1979's Kenneth Johnson-produced NBC genre oddity, Cliffhangers!, but that vid has since been removed from YouTube (and thus this site, as well). Fortunately, I stumbled across a different, one-minute network promo today, and here it is - for as long as it stays available.

Cliffhangers! was a modern "take" on the theatrical movie serials of the 30s and 40s, composed of three, 15-minute chapters of three different ongoing stories in each episode.

The one that most fit in with the Space: 1970 aesthetic was "The Secret Empire," an update/rip-off of the 1935 Gene Autry vehicle, The Phantom Empire. Both dealt with cowboys battling the inhabitants of secret underground scientific super-cities. In the Cliffhangers! version, the leader of the villains was portrayed by none other than Mark Lenard of Star Trek and the Planet Of the Apes television series, and the cowboy hero didn't sing a song in each installment.

SPACE STARS (1981) DVD Art Revealed

As noted back in July, the manufacture-on-demand wing of Warner Home Video, Warner Archive, plans to bring the 1981 Hanna-Barbara Saturday-morning animated series, Space Stars, to DVD this Fall. The DVD key art above has recently appeared online, so I thought I'd share it here.

With this show, Hanna-Barbara and NBC jumped on the post-Star Wars boom by reviving and repackaging the studio's 60s outer space heroes Space Ghost and The Herculoids (mixing both classic episodes and newly-made installments) with two other space-themed cartoons - The Teen Force and Astro (from The Jetsons) & The Space Mutts - for an hour-long programming block.

Hmmm. I wonder why The Galaxy Trio didn't make the roster?

UPDATE: According to TV Shows On DVD, Space Stars will be released next Tuesday, on October 8th. Warner Archive is accepting pre-orders on the set now through their site. Price is $29.95.

Irwin Allen's CITY BENEATH THE SEA (1971)

It's kind of interesting that the producer who dominated sci-fi television programming in the Sixties couldn't seem to get a genre show on the air in the following decade. Prolific producer Irwin Allen, whose creations Lost In Space, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Time Tunnel, and Land Of The Giants were staples of late-60s network TV, found his particular brand of genre fare out of step in the 1970s. Like Gene Roddenberry, he pitched a few sci-fi pilots that aired as TV movies, but none of them went to series. Among these failed attempts were 1976's Time Travelers, 1978's The Amazing Captain Nemo, and 1971's City Beneath The Sea.

Stuart Whitman is Admiral Michael Matthews, who is ordered by the President of the United States to retake command of Pacifica, a large, underwater scientific research facility. Upon his arrival at the city beneath the sea, he is besieged by crises, including sabotage, espionage, various disgruntled colleagues, and a rogue comet that is going to collide with Earth right above his sub-oceanic seabase! In addition, Pacifica is in the process of receiving the U.S.' entire gold reserve from Fort Knox (shipped by rocket!) and a group of thieves (including Matthews' own brother - played by Robert Wagner) have an elaborate scheme in place for stealing all of it! 

City Beneath The Sea is vintage Allen, with the same Cold War-tinged plotting, colorful production design, and Old School miniature effects that had been the hallmarks of his 60s productions; in fact, he re-used some of the models and sets from his earlier shows (most notably, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea's "flying sub"). A lot of familiar faces from those shows appear, too - James Darren, Robert Colbert  and Whit Bissell from Time Tunnel and Richard Basehart from Voyage, among others.

I don't recall seeing City Beneath The Sea on television in '71 (I was only six), nor did I catch it on TV in the years between then and now. Fortunately for me, it is available as part of the Warner Archive Collection, both as a manufactured-on-demand DVD and on their online streaming service, which is where I finally caught up with it. I enjoyed it considerably (as you probably guessed), but then, I'm a big fan of the Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea series and Allen's other 60s shows. I'll definitely be adding the DVD to my 70s sci-fi library one of these days.

As for Irwin Allen, he may not have sold City Beneath The Sea as a weekly series, but he continued to do pretty well as a producer of theatrical films (and TV movies) during the decade, becoming the king of 70s disaster epics, with such hits as The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, The Swarm, and others.

Robby The Robot STARLOG 1978 TV Commercial

I've been looking for this clip for a long time, and thanks to a head's up from Jerome Wybon (of the Forgotten Silver blog), I can now share it here with the rest of you Star Kids!

I dimly recall that I saw this rare Starlog TV commercial just once, and I believe it was during the 1978 airing of the Saturn Awards show. Amazingly, the Saturn Sci-fi Movie Awards, presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, actually aired on one of our local television stations (WCSH) for two years during the height of the Space: 1970 era - in 1978 and '79. If I recall correctly, the 1978 awards were co-hosted by Mark Hamill and Caroline Munro! (The '79 show was hosted by William Shatner, and his performance of "Rocket Man" has since become legendary!)

Anyway, here's the great Robby the Robot pitching a subscription to Starlog magazine - the periodic Star Kid bible - in its late 70s prime!

SPFX: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) TV Special

Before exhaustive DVD/Blu-ray bonus features and entire television channels devoted to peeling back the behind-the-scenes process of filmmaking, the only glimpses fans had into the real-world of movie special effects was through occasional Starlog features and other magazine articles, and the rare prime-time network television special - such as this 1980 TV event designed to promote the first Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. Hosted by Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, we were given a full hour of lovingly photographed miniature spaceships, stop-motion Tauntauns (and Imperial Walkers), and so much more.

A genre fan himself, Hamill brought a lot of natural enthusiasm to his hosting duty on this documentary special.

I'm pretty sure (though not 100% certain - I couldn't find a scan of the tape box) that this special got an 80's VHS videotape release along with the Star Wars and Return Of The Jedi TV promotional specials.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF WONDER WOMAN (1977) TV Spot

Here's a 1977 CBS television preview for the revamped, "updated" version of the Lynda Carter superheroine series, The New Adventures Of Wonder Woman. Unless I'm very much mistaken, though (and the way I'm feeling today, it's possible I am), most - or at least many - of those clips are from the previous, World War II-set, ABC incarnation of the show!

V (1983) or Not To V?

I've been on the fence about whether or not to include the two V television miniseries and subsequent weekly series here at Space: 1970. The original V mini ran in late 1983, which is pretty much my cut-off point here at the site, with the follow-up miniseries and weekly show airing the following year. I know it's my site, and realistically, I can write about anything I want - but man, the e-mails/comments I get when I step outside my self-imposed boundaries! It's amazing how quick people will jump on any opportunity to try and knock others down.

The show certainly feels like a 70s sci-fi show, with its ham-fisted social commentary, dystopian themes, Old School miniature effects, and broadly-drawn but appealing characters, and, frankly, I honestly enjoy most of the run in a way much like that of the shows I do cover here - unlike most 80s-90s genre efforts. A lot of this is probably attributable to the early creative influence of Kenneth Johnson, who originated the property and produced the first mini. Johnson was one of the most genre-savvy television producers of the era, with credits like The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk - and, later, Alien Nation - to his name. He was always pretty canny about making outlandish sci-fi ideas work for mainstream television audiences (and networks/sponsors).

Of course, it also has that humungous 80s hair. 

Anyway, I will continue to ponder whether V can be squeezed into my already-elongated timeframe... what do you folks think?

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1978) TV Guide Cover

I might as well go on record here: The Incredible Hulk is my favorite of the comic-based television series/specials of the 1970s. Oh, I loved Wonder Woman, Isis, and Shazam!, and even the Spider-Man and Captain America shows, but The Incredible Hulk was (in my opinion) the best of them all.

As developed by Kenneth Johnson (one of the more genre-savvy producers of the era), Hulk was a science fiction show first, with storylines designed to appeal to both adolescent and adult audiences. The format was borrowed from The Fugitive (and a few dozen other shows), but the characterization and pseudo-science of Banner's transformation gave the show a distinct identity, and it ended up running longer than any of the other "superhero" shows, garnering strong ratings for much of its run.

Veteran television actor Bill Bixby was a compelling, sympathetic lead, bringing remarkable humanity to his role and always taking it seriously... without ever being grim. Lou Ferrigno's Hulk was a monster in the vein of the Universal Monster films of the 30s and 40s, a misunderstood and persecuted brute that, even through the rage, retained a spark of humanity and compassion.

Comic book purists may bitch and complain about the Hulk's scaled down strength, or the changing of Banner's first name, but frankly, that's all irrelevant bullshit. Comic book fans - moreso than most - should understand and forgive different interpretations of their favorite characters, and if they can't, they should rationalize and accept that the TV Hulk simply existed in a parallel universe from his four color cousin.

The changes wrought on The Incredible Hulk to make it sustainable as a prime time 70s television series were all sound and well-considered, and I believe resulted in a genuinely "classic" TV series.

THE ALIENS ARE COMING (1980)

I have very little memory of this Quinn Martin-produced (one of his last, I believe) TV movie/pilot film from March of 1980, but I did watch it, and clipped this TV Guide ad for my scrapbook. The eclectic cast which includes Melinda Fee from The Invisible Man and Escape from The Planet Of the Apes' Eric Braeden, certainly looks intriguing. Any other Star Kids remember this one? Hopefully better than I do?

Oddly, The Aliens Are Coming did get a VHS release from budget label Goodtimes in the 80s, and I'm thinking I might try and get my hands on a copy one of these days so I can review it for Space: 1970.

News: KORG: 70,000 B.C. (1974) On DVD

Not strictly sci-fi, but close enough for my blog, Korg: 70,000 B.C. was a 1974 live-action Saturday morning children's series revolving around the day-to-day struggle for survival of a family of  (English-speaking) Neanderthals.

Created by Fred Frieberger (producer of Star Trek Season 3 and Space: 1999 Year 2), the show was a rare foray into live-action by Hanna-Barbara and starred Jim Malinda as Korg.

A plaintive hunting horn, heard over a ruddy sunrise, signaled the start of something different on Saturday mornings in the mid-seventies. Clan Korg had arrived to take kids and kids at heart on a series of live-action anthropological adventures across the dangerous terrain of prehistory. Aided by consultants from both New York's American Museum of Natural History and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Korg ditched battling dinos and discovering fire for a more mature focus on the dawn of cooperation and compassion amongst our Neanderthal brethren as personified by it's pre-nuclear family. Korg is the patriarch of the clan, which includes Mara, his mate; Bok, Korg's younger brother; and Korg's three offspring: Tana, 15; Ree, 12; and Tar, 11. Together, they brave opposing tribes, cave bears and fire while discovering the roots of art, diplomacy and commerce in the world of 70,000 BC. Burgess Meredith narrates.

 I'm not quite sure how I missed it, as I usually try to stay on top of releases from Warner Archive, but I guess they released the complete series of Korg earlier in December as a 2-disc Manufactured-On-Demand DVD set containing all 16 episodes.

I can't say I remember the show well; I rarely watched it, preferring the more fantastic primeval thrills of the Land of The Lost. But I do know that it had its fans among the era's Star Kids.

The discs can be ordered directly from Warner Archive or through Amazon: Korg: 70,000 B.C.