A lot of the early episodes of Captain Video were directed by Charlie Polacheck, the late father of a friend of mine. Charlie also used to play guitar and sing at union rallies with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger back in the day. I met Charlie in Austin several years ago while he was still alive. What a life!
Those 2 YouTube episodes are amazing - everything I remember (vaguely) from the show and more clearly from the Captain TVideo MAD parody. Non-stop product plugging (Powerhouse candy bars & Sugar Crisps), decoder ring promotions, and cheesy sets. What I had forgotten was that the story stops dead mid-episode as the Captain or one of his Rangers "tunes in" a report from one of their "Western operatives", and we get about 10 minutes of a B-western! One stars Buster Crabbe & Fuzzy StJohn, the other Raymond Hatton & Ken Maynard (I think). Buster turns in an Oscar-worthy drunk scene. Back in space, the overacting and "comic" accents on the part of various mad scientists and henchmen have to be seen to be believed.
Odd how many people want to discount the National Educational Television network, and of course PBS which supplanted it, as the obvious continuing fourth network...though it was also the sixth, after the foundation of DuMont, ABC and the never too robust Paramount Television Network. And when DuMont and PTN gave up the ghosts (and snow) in 1955, the NTA Film Network leapt into that vacuum (tube) for a six or so year run as another not robust network (but more visible than PTN had been, and with more surviving programming than DuMont). These quite aside from such more stillborn and extremely limited network attempts as the United Network, the Kaiser Broadcasting System and Howard Hughes's network, which did network sports programming for a several-year stretch.
It also amuses me that Paramount, or former divisions of Paramount, have now been a corporate partner/investor (not solely a program provider) for six networks over the decades: DuMont, ABC, PTN, UPN, the CW and now exists as basically a division of CBS.
5 comments:
I have the Captain Video serial in my collection, and enjoyed it. Never saw the TV series.
A lot of the early episodes of Captain Video were directed by Charlie Polacheck, the late father of a friend of mine. Charlie also used to play guitar and sing at union rallies with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger back in the day. I met Charlie in Austin several years ago while he was still alive. What a life!
Those 2 YouTube episodes are amazing - everything I remember (vaguely) from the show and more clearly from the Captain TVideo MAD parody. Non-stop product plugging (Powerhouse candy bars & Sugar Crisps), decoder ring promotions, and cheesy sets. What I had forgotten was that the story stops dead mid-episode as the Captain or one of his Rangers "tunes in" a report from one of their "Western operatives", and we get about 10 minutes of a B-western! One stars Buster Crabbe & Fuzzy StJohn, the other Raymond Hatton & Ken Maynard (I think). Buster turns in an Oscar-worthy drunk scene. Back in space, the overacting and "comic" accents on the part of various mad scientists and henchmen have to be seen to be believed.
Classic stuff!
Odd how many people want to discount the National Educational Television network, and of course PBS which supplanted it, as the obvious continuing fourth network...though it was also the sixth, after the foundation of DuMont, ABC and the never too robust Paramount Television Network. And when DuMont and PTN gave up the ghosts (and snow) in 1955, the NTA Film Network leapt into that vacuum (tube) for a six or so year run as another not robust network (but more visible than PTN had been, and with more surviving programming than DuMont). These quite aside from such more stillborn and extremely limited network attempts as the United Network, the Kaiser Broadcasting System and Howard Hughes's network, which did network sports programming for a several-year stretch.
It also amuses me that Paramount, or former divisions of Paramount, have now been a corporate partner/investor (not solely a program provider) for six networks over the decades: DuMont, ABC, PTN, UPN, the CW and now exists as basically a division of CBS.
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