Captain Video and His Video Rangers

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Television series
Original title Captain Video and His Video Rangers
Captain Video title card.JPG
Country of production United States
original language English
Year (s) 1949-1955
length 15-30 minutes
Episodes about 1200
genre Science fiction
Theme music The Flying Dutchman
idea James Caddigan
First broadcast June 27, 1949 on DuMont
occupation

Captain Video and His Video Rangers was the first science fiction - television series of the world and was broadcast on 27 June 1949 to April 1, 1955 in an estimated 1,200 episodes. She was the model for the series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet , Space Patrol and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger . Each broadcast began with an opening credits , underlined by the overture to the opera Der Fliegende Holländer :

Fighting for law and order, Captain Video operates from a mountain retreat, with secret agents at all points of the globe! Possessing scientific secrets and secret weapons, Captain Video asks no quarter, and gives none to the forces of evil.

Captain Video Atomic Rifle

Technical specifications

The series was produced by the television station DuMont ; the idea came from program director James Caddigan.

It was broadcast live five to six times a week. The episodes initially had a length of 30 minutes, from 1953 15 minutes, and were broadcast between 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Although designed for children and teenagers, the series also enjoyed great popularity with adults.

The series was financed by advertising and each program was interrupted by advertising blocks. Within the advertising blocks, there were special video ranger messages in which, among other things, merchandising items from the series were advertised, such as space helmets.

Characters of the plot

Captain video

Captain Video , according to Der Spiegel "a mixture of Buffalo Bill and Golem ", is the leader of the Video Rangers , an organization that operates in 2254 and fights for truth and justice. Captain Video receives his orders from the Commissioner of Public Safety . The character was played by Richard Coogan in 1949/50 and then by Al Hodge until 1955 . Hodge was so identified with the character that after the end of the series he found no employment as an actor and worked, among other things, as a security guard.

Captain Video owes its name to the opticon scillometer , an X-ray device with the help of which it is able to observe any place on earth. This device is preferably used to monitor its globally active agents. These act in excerpts from old western films that have no relation to the plot. This not only saved DuMont production time, but also gave the live actors and the camera technology time for new arrangements within the programs, for example changing the camera position or the costumes .

The video ranger

The Video Ranger is the assistant of Captain Video ; an unnamed teenager played by Don Hastings .

Other subordinates of the captain are Ranger Rogers , the communications officer , and Ranger Gallagher .

The robot: I Tobor

I TOBOR was the first robot to appear in a television series. The model of the robot was later used for the feature film Tobor, the Great (USA 1954, director: Lee Sholem) and for the pilot episode of the television series Here Comes Tobor (USA 1957, director: Duke Goldstone).

Dr. Pauli

Dr. Pauli is the captain's most important opponent. He's a brilliant inventor who uses his latest achievements against the captain. Although he had already been pronounced dead by the scriptwriters and therefore removed from the plot, he had to be reintroduced into the series due to massive audience protests.

Flight technique

The video rangers originally had the X-9 as operational equipment, which was later replaced by the X-10. However, these devices were not suitable for flight in space. With the Galaxy and Galaxy II , the rangers were also able to operate in space.

The model of the "Galaxy" was based on the model of the V2 rocket and cost $ 12,000 at the time. The idea came from Arthur C. Clarke , who was friends with the producer Olga Druce .

Authors

The first author of the series, Maurice Brockhauser, was overwhelmed with the design of the scripts and was dismissed in 1951 under pressure from the newly hired producer Olga Druce. In 1952/53 she succeeded in winning popular science fiction authors for the series, including Damon Knight , James Blish , Jack Vance , Arthur C. Clarke , Isaac Asimov , Cyril M. Kornbluth and Robert Sheckley . As a result, the quality of the series, which until then had more of the character of an illustrated radio play , increased considerably. To this Olga Druce:

“They were very happy to be on TV and to learn the form. They all worked very hard and very seriously. For all of them it was the first time they had written for television. But they wrote for Galaxy and Astounding Science Fiction . "

- Quoted from David Weinstein, Forgotten Network, p. 84.

Production backgrounds

Like Space Patrol , the series was a purely commercial venture, funded through advertising and, later, merchandising . Due to the originally tight budget, the animation technique was extremely primitive compared to the animation technique in feature films . The uniforms of the video rangers were contemporary uniforms of the US Army , on which only embroidered lightning bolts had been sewn.

In September 1952, two trick technicians, Russell and Haberstroh, were hired, who from this point on produced quite elaborate models for the series. The trick sequences were recorded on 16 mm film so that they could be used in the live broadcasts as required.

Follow-up productions in other media

Columbia Pictures produced the 1951 film series Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere with Judd Holdren in the lead role.

Also in 1951 was a comic book version of the Fawcett Comics series. In contrast to the competing series Tom Corbett and Space Patrol , which were broadcast in parallel, Captain Video did not release a radio play version .

Captain Video and the Cold War

The zeitgeist of the Cold War is clearly reflected in the series. The youthful viewers were prepared for an uncertain future:

“Every day for nearly six years, 'Captain Video' gave children thrills by showing them a universe, in as much graphic detail as 1950s standards would allow, filled with nefarious and crazy outlaws of all types: from brilliant scientists bent on destroying the world , to cool dictators who ban religion and enslave the masses. Despite the show's reassuring messages about American physical, moral, and technological superiority, 'Captain Video''s world was not very safe. Captain Video was one of the first TV programs, for kids or adults, to dramatize, and occasionally exploit, the perilous world situation. Kids saw a thrilling and scary future fraught with dangers beyond the control of even Captain Video. The hero could only act as an itinerant freedom fighter, traveling to horrible troubled spots throughout the universe, hoping to contain dammage until viewers tuned the next day. Still, as children pondered their own daily battles with dangers ranging from schoolyard bullies to communists at home and abroad, Captain Video provided a model of moral rectitude, tolerance, and ingenuity. "

- David Weinstein : Forgotten Network, p. 89.

The American author Donald A. Wollheim criticized the strong attachment of young fans to science fiction television series in a satirical form in 1969 in his short story Order for the Space Grenadiers , in which Captain Video , Tom Corbett and Space Patrol can easily be recognized.

The end, whereabouts

The series had to be discontinued in 1955, as the advertising revenues were constantly falling and DuMont was generally no longer competitive with other stations. In addition, the science fiction genre of American television had reached saturation by this point. The series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and Space Patrol , which were broadcast in parallel, were also discontinued in 1955.

However, unlike Space Patrol , the series wasn't re-broadcast, at least in the 1950s. From Captain Video few episodes have been preserved, although much of the live broadcasts by kinescope on 16-mm film footage had been recorded. DuMont's film archive was destroyed in the 1970s by the new owner Metromedia for reasons unknown until now; possibly due to a lack of storage space and a lack of prospect of re-marketing.

Only a few episodes are available on the market in various video editions and on DVD . The UCLA Film and Television Archive reportedly has 24 episodes.

See also

literature

  • Donald F. Glut , Jim Harmon: The Great Television Heroes , New York 1975.
  • Chapter 5: Captain Video: Protector of the Free World and the DuMont Network , in: David Weinstein: The Forgotten Network. DuMont and the Birth of American Television , Philadelphia 2004, pp. 69-92.
  • Donald A. Wollheim : Order for the Space Grenadiers ( LAST STAND OF A SPACE GRENADIER ), in: Ders .: How far is it to Babylon? TWO DOZEN DRAGON EGGS. Utopian-technical stories , Munich 1972, pp. 139–147.

Documentation

Excerpts from Captain Video were shown in the television documentary TV Guide Looks at Science Fiction (USA 1997), which was co-designed by William Shatner .

Web links