Life, Writing, Weirdness

Some of the series TV watching I do is for nostalgia purposes, recapturing just a taste of that excitement and wonder from when I was a kid and seeing things for the first time. Note that I’m not young, if I’m not exactly old yet, but what I count as my childhood was mostly the 1970s.

I recently finished a watch through of all 15 episodes of Space Academy, which I remember watching when I was 7 or 8 years old. The way things were recycled on Saturday morning kids’ TV at the time, I doubt I saw them in any kind of order, but I can reasonably say I say it was first-ish run since they basically played in a continuous loop in one time slot or another for two years.

Space Academy was a Filmation production, obvious almost from the opening sequence before you got to see the logo. Recycled is a good word. Some of the props and most of the sound effects were recycled from previous Filmation shows, live action and animated, most notably Ark II (which I’ve just started watching) and Star Trek: The Animated Series (which I’ve seen many times and own on Blue Ray).

It’s happy and fun, calling back to what in my head at least was a simpler time. Saturday morning TV wasn’t just about toys (although the commercials still did a good job of getting those in front of my eyes) but keeping the kids entertained enough that their parents could sleep in for a little while. The storytelling isn’t all that sophisticated and the special effects weren’t exactly top of the line at the time, but they mostly looked real enough to add to the story. Contrived plots for artificial tension and a lot of handwaving for the technological magic they were using. It’s also funny at times, though not always intentionally, and the acting is often a little over the top.

I’m linking the first episode, “The Survivors of Zalon”, from YouTube and want to draw attention to a particular point in the opening, 20 seconds in. With the opening narration delivered by Jonathon Harris (of Lost in Space fame), under cover of catchy music we move from an exterior shot of the Academy to doors sliding opening on the operations centre to display our main characters entering.

On camera during the opening of a kids’ SF TV show that played on Saturday morning in the 1970s, A female extra walks by in front of the handsome lead character as he enters the set. He checks out the fit of her uniform for well over a second before his eyes and head snap back to where they’re supposed to be.

And they left it in.

Makes me laugh every time.

Original air date on this episode was 10 September 1977 which feels like a long time ago, now. Blue Team (our heroes) is sent to a planet that’s going to explode in a few hours and manages to (eventually) rescue a boy who can teleport short distances and who’s been raised by energy beings. Not nearly as dark a view or outcome as Charlie X, though.

The main cast members were mostly gone from the cameras by the end of the 1980s, with the exception of Brian Tochi, Tee Gar on the show, who appears to have moved to voice work and continued his career, and two of the young (in 1977) actors, Ty Henderson and Maggie Cooper, left us far too young.

I do think it’s worth noting that, while this happened a decade after Star Trek TOS premiered and on Saturday morning television, fully half of the heroes (and I’m counting Commander Gampu, played by Jonathan Harris, as a supporting character here) weren’t Caucasian. Hardly a scientific opinion, but I remember TV still being pretty white at the time, and yet it only stands out to me looking at it now. As a kid, I didn’t think about it at all.

But somewhere, someone of a different sociopolitical bent has just figured out the same thing and is crying about it.

Be well, everyone.