Aucbvax.1469
fa.sf-lovers
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!JPM@MIT-AI
Mon Jun 1 05:16:22 1981
SF-LOVERS Digest V3 #135
SF-LOVERS PM Digest Saturday, 30 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 135
Today's Topics:
SF Fandom - James H. Schmitz,
SF Movies - Outland, SF TV - Twilight Zone Mini-Fest &
Gerry Anderson Productions (UFO and Space: 1999 and The Protectors),
SF Topics - Children's TV (Gerry Anderson Productions and Supercar and
Fireball XL5 and Stingray and Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet)
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Date: 26 May 1981 at 0314-CDT
From: hjjh at UTEXAS-11
Subject: Our Loss...
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| ______________________________________________________ |
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|| James H. Schmitz ||
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|| 1911-1981 ||
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Date: 26 May 1981 1056-PDT
From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE
Subject: more on Outland
First, technical nits. Putting a mine on Io strikes me as a bad idea
to begin with. Not only do you have lift the stuff out of the moon's
gravity well, but you have to get it out of Jupiter's as well. And Io
makes ordinary space look like the Riviera; not only does the crust
shift from week to week but the radiation levels are incredibly high.
One of locals with experiments on the Pioneer probe gave a seminar
here and I asked him how long you could live without rad shielding on
the surface of Io. He said, "About a minute". Mining the asteroids
would be far easier, though you wouldn't get that spectacular view of
Jupiter.
Second, a thematic nit. Alan Ladd's excuse for setting what is
essentially a Western out in space is that he wanted to show that the
frontier is still going to be the same whether it's in Arizona or the
outer solar system. Well, building the transcontinental railway
wasn't much like building the Alaska pipeline (whaddaya mean we've got
to delay this ten billion dollar project because of the caribou?) or
even much like building the Panama canal. Mining Io two hundred years
from now will not be like mining Colorado in the 1880s because mining
Colorado today is not like mining it in the 1880s.
------------------------------
Date: 29 May 1981 12:55 PDT
From: Newman.ES at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Twilight Zone Mini-Fest at UCLA, June 1
For Twilight Zone fans in the LA area:
Three half-hour episodes will be shown at UCLA's Melnitz Hall
auditorium on Monday, June 1 at 5:30 p.m. Titles of the episodes are
"Escape Clause", "Steel", and "Mirror Image".
/Ron
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Date: 30 May 1981 1153-EDT
From: MLEASE at BBNC (Michael V. Lease)
Subject: Tom Swift on George of the Jungle?
Isn't that Tom SLICK???
Mikey
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Date: 30 May 1981 1408-PDT
From: Friedland at SUMEX-AIM
Subject: answers to some SF TV shows questions
1. The racecar driver cartoon that appeared with George, George,
George of the Jungle, friend to you and me ..... was Tom SLICK, not
Tom Swift.
2. The Supermarionation show about a family that lived on an island
and rescued people was "Thunderbirds" who ran a group called
International Rescue, and had five vehicles, named Thunderbirds 1 - 5.
3. Some information about SF TV is documented in a book called
"Fantastic Television". This mostly covers adult SF TV (like Twilight
Zone, Outer Limits, Voyage to See What's on the Bottom, etc.), but
does mention some of the "kid" TV shows. IT certainly does cover Tom
Corbett and Video Rangers, etc.
4. Glad to hear someone else verifies Gidney and Cloyd--it was the
answer that won my team the 1978 Stanford Trivia Bowl Championship.
Peter
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 0357-PDT (Tuesday)
From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: Gerry Anderson and Television SF
This digest's ongoing discussion of television SF has now passed
through arenas ranging from the mundane to the simply bizarre. There
are still some gaping holes, one of which I will attempt to fill at
this time!
In a past digest, brief mention was made of the "puppet" programs.
Let's look more closely at the truly unique variety of programming
that has appeared under the banner of "supermarionation" (or some
similar spelling ...)
A substantial line of programs featuring marionettes appeared during
the 60's and 70's. All of these programs placed the very human-like
puppets in "high-tech" situations of various sorts; situations which
frequently involved adventure, intrigue, and, quite frequently,
massive explosions! The marionettes "lived" in perfectly scaled
worlds, spoke with lip-sync, and generally were so well controlled
that the viewer was led to forget that he or she was not watching
actual human actors.
That all of these programs had major similarities (including musical
style) should not be surprising, since all were created and produced
by the same man -- Gerry Anderson -- under the auspices of the ITC
releasing company. What were these programs, you ask?
Supercar -- starring Mike Mercury, the "Supercar" was actually a
flying vehicle chock full of tricks and special abilities.
Mike and the rest of his "team" spent each half hour
episode saving all sorts of dire situations and generally
doing good deeds for mankind. This program brought us
the immortal words, "Open Roof Doors", several times in
each program, as Mike entered or left the "hanger" where
the supercar was kept.
Fireball XL5 -- A "space"-oriented program, with our heroes flying
around to various planets and whatnot, to save dire
situations in each episode (sound familiar?) "I wish
I were a fireball..."
Stingray -- Sort of a "Supercar" -- underwater. The usual dire
situations.
Thunderbirds -- This program represented pretty much the culmination
of the marionette business in this area, and was by far
the most elaborate and dramatic. Consisting of both half
hour and hour programs, Thunderbirds involved an
organization known as "International Rescue", which
operated out of a privately owned island. International
Rescue had a vast variety of vehicles for use in the air,
in space, and underwater, and specialized in getting
people out of impossible situations when all hope was
lost. Actually a very fine program. Amazing gizmos and
technology abounded, and even the usual explosions, fires,
and other disasters were performed with extra care and
quality.
[ Thanks also to Barry Margolin <MARGOLIN AT MIT-MULTICS>
for a description of the Thunderbirds. -- Jim ]
By the way, it appears that a couple of existing
Thunderbirds episodes have recently been re-edited into a
feature film, "Thunderbirds Are Go", which will shortly be
making the rounds in the pay-tv circuits around the
country -- try to catch it if you have a chance.
This brings us to the end of the "puppet" programs, but Gerry Anderson
did not stop here. He moved on into live action programming, most of
which maintained the high-technology "SF" theme, and which continued
to use his classic style of miniatures in effex sequences, with the
same style of musical scoring throughout. These programs were also
all released by ITC, and included:
UFO -- A very unusual program, to say the least. The premise was
that aliens are in the process of attacking Earth and,
among other things, abducting people for use as transplant
donors. The general public, however, is not aware of what
is going on ... all incidents involving "ufos" (pronounced
U-FOES) are kept secret, and other "explanations" are
created for these incidents. The ufos are fought by an
organization known as SHADO, which is headquartered under
a film studio in England. They possess an impressive
array of land, sea, and space equipment (much of which
looks very similar to that from "Thunderbirds"!), and even
have a secret moonbase. The show is probably best taken
with a grain of salt -- frequently technical accuracy
takes a back seat to character conflicts and relationships.
There is a very active fanclub for this program (which,
I believe, also includes a number of Gerry Anderson's
other programs). In fact, one of the primary officials
of this club reads this very digest [and you know who
you are!] I will respect their privacy and allow them
to remain anonymous -- perhaps they will see fit to
unmask themselves on their own -- maybe to correct any
inaccuracies (horrors!) in this message!
All in all, UFO can truly be described as "unique".
Watch a few and see what I mean; they can be rather
enjoyable if viewed in the proper spirit. They still
show up sometimes as half hour fillers at random times...
Space: 1999 -- This is practically contemporary, so I won't say much
about it. A nuclear waste dump on the moon explodes,
sending the entire moon (and Moonbase Alpha) off through
space on a series of adventures involving a variety of
planets, aliens, and things that go bump in the night.
There were actually two versions of this program: most
of the cast was changed, as well as portions of the
"format", between two seasons.
The program was indeed notable for the starring roles of
Martin Landau and Barbara Baines -- the husband/wife team
back together on a program for the first time since
"Mission: Impossible".
The Protectors -- This one is obscure, and was not at all SF. It
involved a group of British, well, "detectives", who
were involved in (you guessed it!) a variety of dire
situations. Most of the time they were busy "protecting"
people -- but since the people would often disappear
anyway, it took considerable detective work to find them
again!
I believe there was at least one other live-action program from
Anderson. It may have been the program that starred Gene Barry as an
actor who was a part-time "detective" -- "The Adventurer"? I'm not
certain. I may even have missed some obscure marionette programs from
Anderson, though I know I've covered the main ones.
Gerry Anderson's productions through the 60's, 70's, (and, may we
presume, the 80's?) have represented an innovative style that stands
alone amidst the otherwise often "oatmealy" sameness of television.
His programs might well be vulnerable to criticism on various levels,
but they were frequently, on a technological and production basis,
truly at the forefront of the art of true television "creation".
--Lauren--
------------------------------
Date: 30 May 1981 1706-PDT
From: CSD.BOTHNER at SU-SCORE
Subject: More nostalgia (Anderson puppet films; The "uncle" books)
Gerry and Sylvie Anderson produced in the sixties a whole slew of
puppet animation series for children. I think Stingray and Fireball
XL-5 were among them. The ones I've seem most of though were
Thunderbirds (Geoff@SRI-KL's "unknown") and Captain Scarlet. I saw
most of the episodes for both while I was in England. (The Andersons
were later responsible for UFO and Space:1999.)
Thunderbirds was one of my favorite TV series. A secret organization
(International Rescue) lived on a South Sea island. An american
millionaire widower (Tracy) was the head, and his 5 (?) grownup sons
each had the responsibility of piloting a rocket, named Thunderbird 1
though ... 5. All these ships were hidden below the island, and I
still (almost) remember the theme music as, say, the swimming pool
slid aside to allow one of the Thunderbirds to take off. The most
interesting characters were the English agent, the aristocratic Lady
Penelopy, and her devoted cockney ex-con schauffeur and assistant
Parker. A couple of feature films were made.
I think the full title of Captain Scarlet was "... and the Mysterons",
where "Mysterons" was the names given to his Martian adversaries.
Scarlet was the head agent of the Mysteron-fighting Spectrum, which
had its headquarters in the clouds, borne up by powerful (and
energy-thirsty?) jets. One of the Mystersons' main powers was the
ability to resurrect someone they had killed and take them over. Their
best agent was a resurrected spectrum agent, Captain Black.
(Spectrum's boss was Colonel White which presumably was meant to
suggest both his age and his stature as a good guy.)
On another topic: A series of books I read which I don't suppose have
been exported to America were the "Uncle" books by J.P.Martin. Uncle
was a fabulously rich elephant who owned a gigantic castle where all
sorts of things were wont to happen. His secretary was a chimp,
otherwise most of the characters were human. I enjoyed the books a lot
(I think there were about 4, including "U. and the Treacle Vat", and
"U. and his Detective"), but even at the tender age of 12(?) I found
the social and economic philosophy simplistic. For example there was
little mention of where U. got his wealth, except that fabulous gifts
were always pouring in from admirers around the world. And the
ruffians who were always plotting against U's money were obviously
Martin's picture of the dirty communists plotting against us honest
capitalists.
--In re nostalgia, Per Bothner
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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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