Captain Video

Captain Video and His Video Rangers was the first of the American outer space television shows, beginning on the DuMont network on June 27, 1949. Set in the 24th century, which

Related Topics:
American - Outer space - Television show - DuMont - 1949 - 24th century

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looked amazingly like 1950, the series followed the adventures of a group of fighters for truth and justice, the Video Rangers, led by Captain Video. The Rangers operated from a secret base on a mountain top. Their uniforms resembled US Army surplus with lightning bolts sewn on.

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The Captain had a teenaged sidekick who was always called The Video Ranger.

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A bit like Batman, Captain Video took his orders from the Commissioner

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of Public Safety, whose responsibilities seemingly took in the entire solar system as well as human colonies around other stars.

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The series was broadcast live five or six days a week and was extremely popular with children. The show was always hampered by a very low budget, and the Captain did not originally have a space ship of his own. Until 1953, Captain Video's live adventures occupied about 15 minutes of each day's 30 minute running time. To fill in the rest, a Video Ranger communications officer, acting as a typical small-town children's show master of ceremonies, showed about 15 minutes of old theatrical films; specifically, old cowboy movies. These were described by the communications officer, Ranger Rogers, as the adventures of Captain Video's undercover agents on Earth.

Related Topics:
Children's show - Master of ceremonies - Cowboy movies - Earth

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Captain Video's early opponent was Dr. Pauli, an inventor who wore

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gangster-style pinstripe suits but who spoke like a Nazi or Soviet. Like the last few theatrical serials, the TV series' plots often involved wildly implausible inventions created by scientific genius Captain Video or evil genius Dr. Pauli, but obviously made from hardware store odds and ends, with much circumstantial double talk regarding their use. As the series was originally broadcast from a studio located in the building occupied by the Wanamaker's department store, when props were needed, the crew would simply go downstairs for them, often just minutes before the show went on the air.

Related Topics:
Nazi - Soviet - Serial - Double talk - Wanamaker's - Department store

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However, some of the scripts after 1952 were written by major science fiction writers of the time, including Damon Knight, James Blish,

Related Topics:
Science fiction - Damon Knight - James Blish

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Jack Vance and Arthur C. Clarke; these displayed rather more intelligence, discipline and imagination than most of the other children's sci-fi series scripts.

Related Topics:
Jack Vance - Arthur C. Clarke

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Eventually Captain Video got himself a spaceship, the Galaxy. The control room of this ship at first had the crew on tilted bunk beds and on their elbows, a posture based perhaps upon some space-travel theories of the time. The show was the first of three contemporary early live space-adventure programs, between which there was much plot-borrowing, even within the very same week. However, as Captain Video was performed in New York City, its guest stars often were better (if not better known) actors than those appearing in series produced in California on similarly small budgets. Al Hodge, who had created the role of

Related Topics:
Bunk bed - New York City - California

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The Green Hornet on the radio, was the best remembered actor to play Captain Video (1951-55); the Video Ranger was played during the entire (1949-55) run of the series by young Don Hastings, who went on to be a

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The Green Hornet - Don Hastings

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Soap opera star.

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Many premiums were offered by sponsors of the show, including space helmets, secret code guns, flying saucer rings, decoder badges, photo-printing rings, and Viking rockets complete with launchers.

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The show's theme song was Richard Wagner's Overture to The Flying Dutchman (Der Fliegende Hollaender).

Related Topics:
Theme song - Richard Wagner - The Flying Dutchman

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Columbia also made a theatrical serial under the name Captain Video, Master of the Stratosphere (1951) and it displayed only marginally better sets and props. Though most are lost, some kinescopes of the television show itself survive; a few of these are commercially available. The series is also mentioned in the first episode of the 39 independent episodes of The Honeymooners. Six issues of a Captain Video comic book were published by Fawcett in 1951. The rival space adventure programs Tom Corbett and Space Patrol shortly thereafter had their own comic books as well.

Related Topics:
Columbia - Kinescope - The Honeymooners - Tom Corbett

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