Space Academy - The Complete Series!

Space Academy is an old Filmation live-action TV show that I have some minor memory of. Jonathan Harris is the "star" of this one-season series, and he's surrounded by a bevy of young actors. The premise is pretty simple. Space Academy trains youngsters to work in space, and has organized them into teams, each with a color designation. 

The focus of the show is the "Blue Team" led by Chris Gentry and his sister Laura Gentry. This brother-sister act have various mental powers, mostly when they hold hands and work together. They can use telepathy, generate astral projections, and even use telekinesis before the show runs its course. Also on the team is Adrian Pryce-Jones who is mostly Chris's love interest though little comes of this side plot by season's end. She doesn't seem to have any special talents beyond adding a bit of sexy to the show, especially when they adopt a mini-skirt uniform mid-season. Tee Gar Soom is an Asian who is super-strong and a medical expert, and who from time to time seems to show some martial arts training. Paul Jerome is the tough black kid from the wrong side of the solar system, with giant smarts and chip on his shoulder, but this personality is too dropped by the middle of the season. 

Jonathan Harris plays "Isaac Gampu", the 300-year-old mentor for these kids and the one they go to for wisdom and guidance. He is especially close to Loki, an alien they discover in the first show, an orphan apparently who has blue hair and is played by a nine-year old kid. He can teleport and has various sorts of special eyesight powers. His best buddy is a half-pint robot named "Peepo", who is less annoying than most of these creations from this period. 

The show started out as somewhat of a harder edged science fiction tale, but as most of these things go unfortunately became more of a fantasy driven thing by season's end. It's all in the scripts and TV sci-fi shows seem always to end up with writers who talk down to their audience, and who seem not to have much real science knowledge. A story about these reasonably interesting kids facing real science-based threats would've been a neat show, and likely was the premise. But it fell into the Lost in Space-goofy mode or close to it, by the end of the run. That said, it's still a better show than I expected based on the glimmers of memory I had. 

The unfolding story of each Academy member is set up to offer real potential, but unfortunately that gets abandoned for a rotation of guest-stars, each increasingly offbeat. The special effects, done by the same guys who did Star Wars, are better than you'd expect and when adjusted for the time, are really great for kiddie television. Space Academy is a fun show, but just not one that lives up to some interesting potential. I got a mild Legion of Superheroes vibe off the very early episodes, with each youngster possessed of powers and skills, each unique. But sadly, little is made of this, and the kids all blend into an indistinct mob by the end. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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Ark II - The Complete Series!

Ark II is a 1976 series about a trio of young multi-ethnic scientists who along with their super-intelligent chimp joyride across the bleak landscape of 2500 A.D. helping humans who live in an arid world wrought by overpopulation and especially pollution. It's really pretty heady stuff for Saturday morning when you think about it. The world is demolished, and mankind is scraping a hunter-gatherer existence from the remains. If this were animation okay, but making it live action gives it a potency it might lack otherwise. I'm not objecting to it, but just noting that this is pretty serious stuff for a kid's entertainment. The Ark II is a giant truck really that looks like the space shuttle on wheels, and it is a rolling laboratory from which Jonah, Ruth, Samuel, and Adam (the talking chimp) perform experiments and missions to assist mankind on the brink. They are pretty sleek looking in their mostly red, white, and blue outfits, and contrast mightily with the rabble left on the Earth who wear mostly rags if not skins.

Filmmation prodded by the success of Captain Marvel wanted another live-action show and this was it. It's got some sound effects from Star Trek and Robby the Robot shows up in an episode. One character who shows up twice is a rascal named Fagan played by Jonathan Harris. There are some pretty interesting actors on this thing, attracted it's noted by the chance to play something their kids might actually see. 

The show was shot in one summer mostly in and around the Fox ranch which also saw production of The Planet of the Apes movies, and a few of those sets show up. There is a lot of outdoors material here, a really rugged look by and large. And most of the stories are actually pretty good, with sharp sci-fi twists, though alls well in the end and a moral ends each episode. That's okay, it feels like Star Trek lite in the beginning, but by the end with episodes that feature "Robin Hood" and "Don Quixote" the show has more of a Lost in Space quality, which isn't an improvement. I rather found I enjoyed this show, not remembering it at all from the 70's. I might've seen one, but it's certainly nothing I recollect. But I found them to be pretty entertaining, smart and creative with a tiny budget. The need to shoot exclusively in the daytime really gave the show a special tone, the actors looking rather beaten in the sun. 

Terry Lester who played the lead Jonah could be very odd looking in the sun with his unusually bright blond hair, almost giving him a bestial or alien effect. Contrasted with the gorgeous Jean Marie Hon who played Ruth, a much darker toned woman, really made for a compelling visual image when the two stood close together. One neat thing is the rocket pack, which is used pretty much every episode. It's real apparently as Filmation hired a real guy with a rocket pack to fly around in brief three-minute flights for one day, and shot him from dozens of angles. These shots are used throughout the series, and I have to confess don't really get all that static. It's a neat thing when you realize this is for real. The DVD comes with a few commentaries and an obligatory documentary, which are okay, but a bit too chatty and not really rich with information. The disk claims to have pdf versions of the scripts, but I haven't checked those out yet. Those could be good fun to read actually. I got mine for small money, so it's been large entertainment for a very nice price. I'd recommend regardless. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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Raquel Welch - Long Live The Queen!

She was the Queen! Of course, the glorious Ms. Welch would make any listing of vivacious dames from science fiction and fantasy films. Welch's most famous image is as "Luana" in the infamous fur bikini from 1,000,000 B.C.  She muddled the mind of many a young lad with all sorts of outlandish notions, this lad included. 

She was a knockout pure and simple and awesome. Raquel was also in Fantastic Voyage, a movie in which she was "required" to wear a delightfully indiscreet scuba outfit. She went on to star in many other films such as 100 Rifles, Myra Breckenridge, and The Three Musketeers. 

 The most amazing thing about Welch is that despite her mind-boggling glamour, she seems in her deportment to be unaware of it. That makes it all the more effective.

She dazzles me to this day. 

Here are some of her classic films.

The Queen is dead! Long live the Queen!

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Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - The Movie!

This movie was a major disappointment for me when I first saw it and still is upon a more recent viewing. Most likely it's because I have already seen the television series and that is imprinted on my mind as the "correct" visual interpretation of the story. But it's not just limited to that. Frankly the biggest problem this movie has is there just not enough of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the movie which wears that title. The movie seems to be afraid to interrupt its apparent momentum to offer up the satirical asides the Guide provides. But that's just what the original play was like, and that's just what the television show was like. The plot was not the point, but in this movie it is. 

Also, they felt the need to add a full-blown romance to the storyline, and a fulfilled one at that. Nothing could be further from the essence of the original source material than the idea of "true love". Arthur (Martin Freeman) and Trillian (Zooey Deschanel) are not meant to be lovers in this story. Arthur is too dense, and Trillian is a woman who makes her own decisions about love and sex, and it hurts to see the characters shoehorned into the trite Hollywood romance duo. Both the actors are great, but their material was misguided. Marvin is not well developed as well. 

While I rather like the style of the animation used to represent the Guide, I must say there was much less of it than expected. Again, they creators were stranded on their classic expectations of a story and so eschewed the interruptions which are very essence of what makes the original gleam so brightly. Mos Def as Ford Prefect is a fail, not because he's black but because he's rather dull. Making the character black was an improvement, as it points out his "alien" nature before he's actually revealed to be one. (Shades of Brother from Another Planet) But the moviemakers seem not to be aware of his or seem to not want to take advantage of it. Sam Rockwell is quite good as Zaphod, though the two head problem still exists. Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast was delightful, ideal casting. 

All in all, this is the least presentation of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when we all hoped it might be the finest. 

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Life, The Universe And Everything!

Douglas Adams wrote a conclusion to the Hitchhiker's Guide to Universe series with Life, the Universe and Everything in 1982. This story has an origin unlike any of the other Hitchhiker novels in that it began as a Doctor Who adventure titled "Doctor Who and the  Krikkitmen". When that didn't develop the elements of this story were then translated into the third Hitchhiker yarn. As such this novel has much more plot than its two predecessors which are more gambols than true novels given a radio play origin. One can tell from the get-go that this book knows where its heading, though as with any Adams work it is possible it might not get there. 

Our heroes Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are gathered together from Earth's prehistoric past by Slartibartfast to confront the menace of the Krikkit robots who are gathering various items from across space to combine into a great key which will unlock a pocket universe in which live the people of the planet Krikkit. These chaps are properly mad, who having seen evidence of life outside their world for the first time proceed to eradicate all such life in a jihad of sorts across the whole of the universe. To that end they develop a weapon that can end all life but are locked up before they can use it. We follow Arthur Dent when he is cut off from his allies and must confront the lifeform which once inhabited the bowl of petunias destroyed in the first novel, among other things. Eventually all the protagonists are gathered together as they lose the effort stop the Krikkit robots but then it is up to Trillian to save the day.

 

I'm being a bit more vague about this story because unlike the previous two yarns, the plot does actually matter. The loveliness of the original story is that we know all along that the events are in and of themselves meaningless, which speaks to the nihilism of the book, though that is ultimately rejected. What you do in the Hitchhiker universe doesn't really matter, because things only make sense rhetorically. This novel is different in that the events must happen as they do for any of the story the work. As it turns out of course this third part of the trilogy is hardly the end. Part four is looming next time. 

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Showcase Corner - Adventures On Other Worlds!

Adam Strange is one of DC's most exquisite creations. He's an Earthman who is regularly transported to the planet of Rann where he is faced relentlessly with menaces to defeat. The difference between Adam Strange and other heroes, is that he uses his brain to defeat the enemy. His wits and understanding of science are the weapons with which he defends the hapless people of Rann. He's motivated to continually solve their problems because his gorgeous girlfriend Alanna lives there. Adam goes to Rann, which is a planet 25 trillion miles away circling the sun Alpha Centaui by means of the Zeta Beam which was first sent to Earth as a desperate means of communication. My favorite parts of the stories are always at the beginning when Adam is scheming to intersect the beam which never hits the same place twice and only hits Earth in the Southern Hemisphere. Once he gets to Rann, he plants a big kiss on Alanna and then gets to work doing his hero stuff. 

Adam Strange debuted in the pages of Showcase with Mike Sekowsky and Frank Giacoia handling the artwork. Gil Kane supplied some fantastic covers for the series. Adam is an archeologist but soon proves to be a polymath, knowing whatever he needs to know to battle the menace at hand. 

Adam Strange then took up residence in Mystery in Space with Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella handling the art. Infantino's vision of the future is so sleek and inviting that he's an ideal artist for his series. The stories are nine pages, just enough space for Adam to get to Rann, kiss Alanna, discover the menace and scheme a solution. Nice and neat, the stories resonate with the comfort that many Silver Age stories accomplished. 

With the seventy-first issue the feature was expanded to seventeen pages and later still to even more pages. For this reader, more proved to be less. Gardner Fox is a writer for his time, creating puzzles which the reader was invited to solve along with Adam. With the additional page count came more and more complications making the momentum of the stories lose steam. It did give Infantino more pages to let his artwork open up and that's a good thing, but sadly it was in service to stories that often lost me by the middle of the story. Murphy Anderson also began to ink some of the stories and he was Infantino's ideal inker. 

A milestone was the seventy-fifth issue in which Adam comes into contact with the Justice League of America and they help him defeat the JLA villain Kanjar Ro. 

The series does have a memory with villains recurring. Adam battled the Dust Devil three times, the third time is the last issue in this volume of Showcase Presents. These are delightful stories in any format, but in the case of Adam Strange bright colors are a definite asset. These are stories told in bright daylight and the colors shine. But I'm happy to have read these classics in any format. Highly recommended. 

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