So here it is: Episode 1 as it were...
First, lets start with a random geek moment.
I drive for a living. For hours at a time. And one of the things I like to do when I drive, other than listening to podcasts, is eat. I like to eat, like food, and as a result I eat a lot. One of the things I like to eat is carrots. I know I know, not exactly an exciting food but I like the way they snap. Anyway, after some hours of driving I get a little loopy and my mind starts to wander especially when things slow down, like when I am sitting at a stop light. One of my favorite things to do at a stop light is to take a half eaten carrot, close one eye and hold it up against a car somewhere in the distance and pretend that it is the planet killer from the "Doomsday Machine" episode of Star Trek TOS, complete with dramatic music and slow motion consumption of the automobile in question. Oh yes I do.
Oh, The photo you see of Captain Video being filmed above is courtesy of The Chuck Pharis Web Page, a historical television and radio website. The original can be found here. Thanks Chuck!
Monday, Day 1: TV
Premiered June 27, 1949; Bowed April 1, 1955 Created by James Caddigan. Produced by the Dumont Television Network. Broadcast on the Dumont Television Network.
Capitalizing on the public’s fascination with space and the new television medium Captain Video was the first, and for some years the longest running, science fiction series to air on network television. Broadcast live on the Dumont Television Network five to six days a week and using what was at the time the cutting edge special effects of superimposition and dissolves the show was extremely popular with both children and adults. Lasting some 1500 episodes Captain Video would inspire a spate of similar offerings in the coming months and years including TV versions of Tom Corbett, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Because of the large adult audience, the broadcast time was 7 to 7:30 p.m. EST, leading off the “prime evening” time-block. The production was always challenged by a very low budget at roughly $25 a show, to the point that the Captain did not initially have a space ship of his own.
Played first by actor Richard Coogan and then by Al Hodge (best known as radio’s Green Hornet) Captain Video was a technological genius who would invent a variety of special gadgets to help him in his exploits including the Opticon Scillometer, a long-range, X-ray machine used to see through walls; the Discatron, a portable television screen which served as an intercom; and the Radio Scillograph, a palm-sized, two-way radio. Captain Video’s weapons were never lethal, intended instead to capture his opponents, a Cosmic Ray Vibrator for example, a static beam of electricity able to paralyze its target or the Electronic Strait Jacket, which placed captives in invisible restraints. The Video Ranger communications officer was played by young Don Hastings, who would later go on to be a soap opera star. The adventures followed a common theme of moralistic story telling but with a twist; while messages on other children’s programs would focus on children’s issues such as safely crossing the street, Ranger Messages dealt with more global issues such as freedom, the Golden Rule, and nondiscrimination.
Captain Video’s live adventures lasted about 20 minutes of each 30-minute program. To allow for set changes the Video Ranger would show about 7 minutes of old films, usually a cowboy flick, described by the communications officer, as “the adventures of Captain Video’s undercover agents on Earth.” During the 1953-1954 broadcast season, there was also a spinoff series, The Secret Files of Captain Video which aired September 5 1953 to May 29 1954. It alternated every other Saturday with Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.
Captain Video pulled in some real heavy hitters in scifi literature at time. Writers for the series included many of the big names in science fiction, James Blish, Arthur C. Clarke, Damon Knight, Cyril M. Kornbluth, J.T. McIntosh, Robert Sheckley, Jack Vance and Issac Asimov among others.
Adding to its firsts this series inspired the first TV to game license with The Captain Video Space Game, and the first TV-to-Hollywood spin-off in the form of a 15-chapter serial from Columbia Pictures called Captain Video, Master of the Stratosphere (1951) which ran with a different cast. Also, Fawcett Comics published six issues of a Captain Video comic book in 1951.
Look for a young Ernest Borgnine as Norgola, one of the Captain’s many villains.
Captain Video was ranked #25 in TV Guide’s August 1, 2004 list of the “25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends.”
Podcast:
New York Times best-selling author, ground breaking podcaster and all around stand up guy Scott Sigler is the mastermind behind INFECTED (in pre-production as a major motion picture by Rogue Pictures) and CONTAGIOUS, hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing and currently THE ROOKIE. Scott is as of this writing on his THE ROOKIE Tailgate Tour.
Before being published, Scott built a large and ravenous online following by giving away his self-recorded audiobooks as free, serialized podcasts. His fans have named themselves “Junkies,” and have downloaded over seven million individual episodes of his stories, interacting daily with both Scott and each other in the social media spaces of Twitter, Facebook, and Scott's own website to name a few.
Scott helped start a revolution in the book publishing industry when he released EARTHCORE as the world's first "podcast-only" novel. Released over the internet in twenty weekly episodes, or "podcasts", EARTHCORE was a nod to the days of serialized radio fiction, a throwback to the edge of your seat cliffhangers of the radio era with a decidely modern horror twist. Siglers innovative use of technology has easily put him at the forefront of modern-day publishing and has garnered brand-name exposure among hundreds of thousands of fiction fans and technology buffs even garnering him the attention of such esteemed tech news sites as TechNation.
Scott has been covered in Time Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, The Huffington Post, Business Week and Fangoria. He also blogs regularly for AMC TV.
Monday, Day 1: TV
Captain Video and his Video Rangers
Premiered June 27, 1949; Bowed April 1, 1955 Created by James Caddigan. Produced by the Dumont Television Network. Broadcast on the Dumont Television Network.
Capitalizing on the public’s fascination with space and the new television medium Captain Video was the first, and for some years the longest running, science fiction series to air on network television. Broadcast live on the Dumont Television Network five to six days a week and using what was at the time the cutting edge special effects of superimposition and dissolves the show was extremely popular with both children and adults. Lasting some 1500 episodes Captain Video would inspire a spate of similar offerings in the coming months and years including TV versions of Tom Corbett, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Because of the large adult audience, the broadcast time was 7 to 7:30 p.m. EST, leading off the “prime evening” time-block. The production was always challenged by a very low budget at roughly $25 a show, to the point that the Captain did not initially have a space ship of his own.
Played first by actor Richard Coogan and then by Al Hodge (best known as radio’s Green Hornet) Captain Video was a technological genius who would invent a variety of special gadgets to help him in his exploits including the Opticon Scillometer, a long-range, X-ray machine used to see through walls; the Discatron, a portable television screen which served as an intercom; and the Radio Scillograph, a palm-sized, two-way radio. Captain Video’s weapons were never lethal, intended instead to capture his opponents, a Cosmic Ray Vibrator for example, a static beam of electricity able to paralyze its target or the Electronic Strait Jacket, which placed captives in invisible restraints. The Video Ranger communications officer was played by young Don Hastings, who would later go on to be a soap opera star. The adventures followed a common theme of moralistic story telling but with a twist; while messages on other children’s programs would focus on children’s issues such as safely crossing the street, Ranger Messages dealt with more global issues such as freedom, the Golden Rule, and nondiscrimination.
Captain Video’s live adventures lasted about 20 minutes of each 30-minute program. To allow for set changes the Video Ranger would show about 7 minutes of old films, usually a cowboy flick, described by the communications officer, as “the adventures of Captain Video’s undercover agents on Earth.” During the 1953-1954 broadcast season, there was also a spinoff series, The Secret Files of Captain Video which aired September 5 1953 to May 29 1954. It alternated every other Saturday with Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.
Captain Video pulled in some real heavy hitters in scifi literature at time. Writers for the series included many of the big names in science fiction, James Blish, Arthur C. Clarke, Damon Knight, Cyril M. Kornbluth, J.T. McIntosh, Robert Sheckley, Jack Vance and Issac Asimov among others.
Adding to its firsts this series inspired the first TV to game license with The Captain Video Space Game, and the first TV-to-Hollywood spin-off in the form of a 15-chapter serial from Columbia Pictures called Captain Video, Master of the Stratosphere (1951) which ran with a different cast. Also, Fawcett Comics published six issues of a Captain Video comic book in 1951.
Look for a young Ernest Borgnine as Norgola, one of the Captain’s many villains.
Captain Video was ranked #25 in TV Guide’s August 1, 2004 list of the “25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends.”
Podcast:
Scott Sigler; horror and science fiction author extraordinaire.
New York Times best-selling author, ground breaking podcaster and all around stand up guy Scott Sigler is the mastermind behind INFECTED (in pre-production as a major motion picture by Rogue Pictures) and CONTAGIOUS, hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing and currently THE ROOKIE. Scott is as of this writing on his THE ROOKIE Tailgate Tour.
Before being published, Scott built a large and ravenous online following by giving away his self-recorded audiobooks as free, serialized podcasts. His fans have named themselves “Junkies,” and have downloaded over seven million individual episodes of his stories, interacting daily with both Scott and each other in the social media spaces of Twitter, Facebook, and Scott's own website to name a few.
Scott helped start a revolution in the book publishing industry when he released EARTHCORE as the world's first "podcast-only" novel. Released over the internet in twenty weekly episodes, or "podcasts", EARTHCORE was a nod to the days of serialized radio fiction, a throwback to the edge of your seat cliffhangers of the radio era with a decidely modern horror twist. Siglers innovative use of technology has easily put him at the forefront of modern-day publishing and has garnered brand-name exposure among hundreds of thousands of fiction fans and technology buffs even garnering him the attention of such esteemed tech news sites as TechNation.
Scott has been covered in Time Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, Publisher's Weekly, The Huffington Post, Business Week and Fangoria. He also blogs regularly for AMC TV.
Scott was kind enough to include my little burg on his THE ROOKIE Tailgate Tour and he was an absolute gentleman. He managed to be gracious, genuine and professional all at once. If you get the opportunity to meet the man or enjoy his work dont pass it up! Scott still records his own audiobooks and gives away every story – for free – to his Junkies at www.ScottSigler.com.
And thats that. Like it? Dont like it? Comments? Suggestions? Ideas? Let me know and stay tuned for the next installment coming next week!
scifi365@gmail.com
writefast on Twitter
Peace and Live long and prosper my friends!
Edward. Out.
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