this section pertains to the physical aspects, that means sight and sound, that made up part of the "look and feel" of Space Patrol. This is relevent becuase of its age and makeup. You will be stepping into a situation which, if you are under 45, you have no real idea of what it was like. Even I, who watched it faithfully for two and a half years, was somewhat suprised by what I saw this time around. Space Patrol was a certain kind of television program that was made at a certain period in time. It was a space adventure, done live and not pre-filmed or recorded and was made in the infancy of television. These facts mean that there were certain needs and constraints that we just don't have today. These are things you must understand to evaluate it correctly and make an informed decision since it would be unfair, false and self-defeating to try and evealuate Space Patrol in terms of what it was and is not.
Please bear in mind, the videoes are beased on Kinnescopes or "kinnies". These were made by focusing a movie camera on a televsion monitor upon which the television camera is displaying the image and filming. The qualities of kinnies is a notch or three above mediocre at best, as anyone who has watched reruns of The Honeymooners know. The kinnies used here are in the half-century old range. So we know two things. Space Patrol was done live and the films made of these performances are half-century old flims taken from a monitor. There are a few glitches in the video, some of which are rather cool. I like the ones where the picture, fading to black goes through yellow and blue. The glitches are very short in endurance and few and far between The last track on tape 31 does have a strong blue tinge so kill your color and that will fix it. The bigger "problem" is brightness. This is no big deal. Just let your fingers do the walking on the contrast and brightness controls and you're OK. The only time there was a long term video problem was with the first two parts of the "Space Spider" story. However, I remember the original broadcast and that was there then so that is not in the making of the vid but was part of the original presentation. Don't let the glitches deter you from these tapes and get ready to use some video control. If I can handle the visuals, then you should have no problem. One result of the Kinnescope process that is annoying is that in some scenes what were like flecks of light like sparks flashing across the screen that represented the stars in the backgroind became large round lighted areas due to frame strobing, the same process that occurs on film that makes wagon wheels appear to be turning backwards. At least I never so these light blobs back then.
Space Patrol was science fiction-fantasy. Set in the thirtieth century, it was a thousand years in the future. I suspect that this was to out-buck rogers Buck Rogers. As such it had to look like it was different. Also space travel stories are fundamentally different from ordinary stories, While all dramatic presentations relied on effects, there is a difference between a cop show and a space show, The cop or cowboy show uses effects, such as shooting guns and car scenes that make perfect sense and not too hard to do, even live. Sci-Fi of the kind I am talking about relies on simulations of things that have no counterparts outside of fiction, such as rockets flying in space, ray guns, strange electronic devices and things like persons walking through walls. This is why there was a difference between Effects or FX and Special Effects, or Sp/FX. In science fitction the Sp/FX, becuase they are so crucial to telling the story, become part of the story. Did I say that Space Patrol was done live? That means that there was no layers of media between the viewer and the events occurring on stage, such as stop-motion animation or double-exposure. what you saw was what was there. Much of what was relied on was called "in camera". Space Patrol gave me the worst and best scene I have ever seen on early television--and within two minutes of each other!. While not in this tape series they were about the Terra 5 going into, and pulling out of a powerdive toward the moom. This first scene was the ship going from horizontal to vertical. the image of the ship seemed to band like a snake as it did this. The best scene was the ship pulling out of the dive. It started with just the moom's surface and space. Then the ship came from the upper left heading down, right and towards the viewer. It levelled in the center and appeared to fly overhead and to the right in about a second; and it was booking, too.
The "look" was, in a word, fantastic; very art deco. Costuming is varied from the (for the time) sleek Space Patrol "uniforms" to the costumes of the supporting characters, which ranged from tunics and trousers, cowl neck pullover shirts, very western looking, to robes to just about anything. It is more like the Buck Rogers serial than either Flash Gordon or Tom Corbett: Space Cadet. The only time you saw one shirt, tie and jacket was in the episodes that had the crew back in the twentieth century. The uniforms were not really uniforms in the sense that they consisted of a waist-length "tunic" (light jacket), trousers, belt, boots and a rather goofy hat, which, thankfully, they got rid of later on. The only insignia was the huge emblem in front. Why it was not a true uniform was that there were no rank, unit and other "decorations" that make up the typical military dress. The female uniform is a short skirted art deco jumper over a white blouse. Short skirts and dresses, long a staple of sci-fi are de rigeur for all female characters. Everything was first-rate here, The space suits were the same ones used in Destination Moon until they switched to the more space opera-compatable fishbowl or "bubble" helmet when these came out on the market. When I was a kid, I thought the uniforms were light medium blue on a dark blue background with white emblems. Well, I had the emblems right. they are, according to Ed Kemmer, who played the head honcho of Space Patrol, Buzz Corry, "subdued red on spruce green". The subdued red is a kind of dull cherry.
The sets are pretty rich. the cockpits of the ships are aircraft-like and for good reason. You could get your mudhooks on instrument panels for cheap money. Offices are well-stocked and look like the real thing. Outside sets are well-done; jungles are rich and lush, wastlands are barren, wooded and forested areas are lifelike, craggy areas are stark. The trained eye can tell that much of this is indoors and it does sometimes get a bit claustrophobic and a bit cluttered, but they hit the jackpot to have the large set studios and they used them well. Of the live shot shows, this is among the best. Perspective does break down but not by much and the well stockedness of the sets covers that up fairly well. The only set problem I had was with the ice region of Planet X where Corry and Baccaratti were chasing each other around, the vertical parts looked like man-made structures. Otherwise, the look compares well to videotaped shows like Dr. Who.
the effects, minatures and other visual parts were first rate. The only things I had a probem with were the intership docking tubes which just seemed to be lines of light, and the baby Ice Demon that came out of its egg. Some of the animated props were a bit unreal but did I tell you that Space Patrol was done live and in the early '50's? The spece scenes were good. The scale was a bit off but, they told the story. the visual aspect of the acting was very competent. When a person was walking on the hull of a ship in a space suit, he or she projected the care that one would take moving in such a situation. The movements were slow and well timed and very up-to-date as to what it was believed such movemets would be like in real life. The show actually won awards for fight scenes. The only one that looked phony was in "The Energy Thief" episode. The angle was from behind the guy and slightly left that Corry was hitting and I could see that the punch missed. There is a scene in "Marooned in Space" where Corry looks like he really is trying to kill the guy who chucked Carol and Tonga out into space. So much so that at a screening that I was at in Williamsburg VA in 2003 a late arriver said that he looked like Captain Kirk (it was a negative comment made out of context). In fact, the visuals were so good that there were many scenes lasting from 1-1/2 to 3 minutes with no dialogue and the only sound was the music; brought off rather well. There were several underwater scenes that were very good and they didn't chintz on the rocket shots. they had them from several angles and they had plenty of different rockets, too. and often, two ships in the same shot
As a kid I was totally taken in, Now, I am very impressed with the visual presentation. And the tape, if you know what your are doing, does it justice. Overall the visuals get a B and for the type and kind, an A-. In short, given what they had at the time, they pull it off very well thank you and the visuals are as good as any live broadcast drama. I saw Philco Theatre and Goodyear Playhouse Both major Sunday night live darama, I saw Alfred Bester's Fondly Farenheit, a sceince fiction story presented on prime time Sunday night in 1958 or 9 and Space Patrol is as good. With rare exception, their Sp/FX compared to film and get a B+. They get an A- in choreography and FX and Sp/FX taken as a whole. The choreography gets an outright A.
The evil men do lives on after them but the good is oft interred with their bones-Mark Antony Julius Ceasar
When there is talk of bloopers the name of Space Patrol is always mentioned. Over the years, as this is repeated and the rest is not, you would think that the show was wall-to-wall Snafu City: Totally untrue. To put it all in perspective, SP was broadcast live and Kinnied in the process of broadcast. Now understand that this was in the 1950 to '55 timeframe. Now let's consider the look of the show
MUSIC:
Space Patrol was done live. Beyond that, it had to sound exotic and adventuresome. At this they did very well. The music was extremely varied. Many of the episodes that I saw, I was seeing for the first time. Among the things I heard were what I would hear for the first time 3 years after this episode was made as the theme from Atom Squad. I would also hear some music that I would associate with Superman but this was well before that show started. There were other pieces, too, one was a kind of chord held for a good long time on an organ. "Lost City of th Carnacans" had a scene where there was no dialogue for a couple of minutes, and it was juxt Corry and Happy roaming about the lost city and the musuc was right out of "Forbidden Planet". There were other pieces that I did not recognize at all. The most musically artistic piece was the one that ran through "The Aztecs".
QUALITY:
This varied both for the music and the effects. Some of these were very crisp and some was a bit muffled (what you might call a bit "squashed". Tthose of us who play with synthesizers have terms that you would not understand, like "cutoff frequency", "dB rolloff" and "emphasis" or "filter resonance". An extreme case of this is someone talking with his mouth in a drinking glass). some of the rocket sounds suffered from this, particularly the launch of the Cosmic missiles, and the Superman/Atom Squad music (which, apparently was here first) was kind of muffled. Also a bit beaten up was the teletype sounds in Buzz Corry's office, but no worse than on film. The jungle sounds were a bit loud. However, you must remember that the audio systems for most radios and televisions of the time were in no way high fidelity and it was not as noticeable then as it is now and it got the point across. To be sure there are some glithces and warblies here and there because you're dealing with 50 year +/- old material that has been through at least 2 "generations" of reproduction.
MATCH:
Space Patrol had a tough row to hoe in some ways, they had to mix common sounds with things the sounds of which could only be imagined. The jungle scenes sounded like jungles (I would swear that some of those were the same sounds as used in Ramar of the Jungle). The spaceport had the sounds of jets overflying the area standing in for rockets (synthesized?), the manitenance area sounded like a heavy machine shop. The only things that did not match was the sound of the "jet-car"; they sounded like some kind of piston engine. The communications areas sounded like the radio sounds used in the radio shows. Buzz Corry's office sounded like a teletype room. In some cases, and not a small number, there were scenes that told their part of the story with just visual acting and music and these were entire one and a half to three minute scenes. The sound quality was a bit higher than the radio dramas like A Man Called X. The only whack job in the whole deal wias that there were sounds in some of the outer space scenes. like when Corry and Happy are walkin on the outside of the ship or when the ships are travelling in space. Space is a vacuum so you would not hear anything out there. However, I have to give them a pass on this. For one thing that is standard fare in almost all but the most rigorously accurate space presentations (in fact, the TIE fighters in Star Wars sounded like some kinds of animals' attack cries wihich was deliberate). The second reason is that we are creatures with five senses, one of which is hearing, and the primary goal of a televized fictional show is to tell a story.
The sum and substance of the visual and audio presentations are a major part of what is called production values. Now bear in mind two things, this was in the absolute infancy of television and this was an exotic program. As such it had to pioneer both FX and Sp/FX. It had to have a "look" to it and a sound AND the whole thing had to be coordinated AND the thing had to work the first time. Well, It would not hold up to film standards but then again, for thses shows there was no such thing as "Cut...Reshoot" Overall, the space shows did marvelous things. The scenes of Space Patrols ran from deserts, to jungles to underwater to the insides of bank offices, weird electronics labs, rocketship cockpits and compartments, even a telephone swithcboard, not to mention rockets, planets and even flowing water in outer space. Also, persons materializing and dematerializing (this latter effect doubled as walking through walls). and the sound had to go along with this --- Good luck! If these folks were "having fun", I'd hate to see what they thought hard work was.
"Challenging" would put it mildly. Yet they came through. I would love to know what technologies they must have invented to do some of the things they did. I must rate the production values at the top of the scale. Not at all the blooper-ridden thing that legend has. While it is true that it does not look as good as it did "back in the day", I can not attribute that to the tapes but to the differences in technology between 1955 and the present, and the age of the source materials from which the tapes were copied. To be sure, it is probably possible to bring the episodes' video and audio up to modern standarts by digital means, it is also possilbe to colorize them as well but who wants to pay the freight for that? At the price and with a little effort, you will get a good deal. It will just seem a bit strange at first if you are used to film or color videocasts.
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