Space Patrol (1950 TV series)

Space Patrol is a science fiction adventure series that was originally aimed at juvenile audiences of the early 1950s via television, radio, and comic books. However, it soon developed a sizable adult audience such that by 1954, the program consistently ranked in the top 10 shows broadcast on a Saturday.

Broadcasting background

The Space Patrol television show began broadcasting March 9, 1950, starting as a daily 15-minute show on a local Los Angeles station. However, on December 30, 1950, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) added the show as a new half-hour program to its Saturday schedule. It became an overnight sensation such that the new weekly show broadcast and the 15-minute shows continued daily on a local basis, and was seen via kinescope in other cities. A 1953 30-minute episode was the subject of the first U.S. experimental 3D television broadcast on April 29 in Los Angeles on ABC affiliate KECA-TV.

The series also made history by being the first regular live West Coast morning network program beamed to the East Coast. In modern times, there is a tendency to take national broadcast events for granted, but at the time, it took an intricate network of cable and relay stations to accomplish this enormous task.

Space Patrol

Space Patrol has been the title of several science fiction works:

Space Patrol (1962 TV series)

Space Patrol is a science-fiction television series featuring marionettes that was produced in the United Kingdom in 1962 and broadcast beginning in 1963. It was written and produced by Roberta Leigh in association with the Associated British Corporation.

Summary

The series features the vocal talents of Dick Vosburgh, Ronnie Stevens, Libby Morris, Murray Kash and Ysanne Churchman, and comprises 39 half-hour episodes. This series is also known by its US title Planet Patrol to avoid confusion with the 1950s American live-action series of the same name. The marionettes used in the series incorporated some elements of Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation technique - specifically their mouths would move in synch with dialogue.

The series is set in the year 2100, by which time the indigenous and autonomous civilizations on Earth, Mars and Venus have banded together to form the United Galactic Organization (UGO). Space Patrol is the UGO's military wing, and the series follows the actions of this interplanetary force, focusing on the missions of a tiny unit led by the heroic, bearded Captain Larry Dart. The humanoids in his crew consist of the elfin Slim from Venus, and the stocky, ravenously sausage-mad Husky from the Red Planet, Mars. The imperfect Slavic accent variants and six-pointed star chest emblems of these two may have been a sly nod to the Jewish-Russian heritage of the English series creator/writer. These men would regularly use one of two interplanetary space vehicles, the Galasphere 347 and the Galasphere 024.

List of Choose Your Own Adventure books

This is a list of books in the Choose Your Own Adventure gamebook series and its various spin-off series.

Books published by Bantam Books (1979-1998)

Choose Your Own Adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure for Younger Readers (Bantam-Skylark)

These books were written for a simpler reading level than the main series and had less severe "bad endings".

Choose Your Own Adventure: Walt Disney Series

These books involve the worlds of the many different Disney films and featurettes.

Choose Your Own Super Adventure

These books were longer and more complex than the books in the regular series.

Choose Your Own Adventure: Passport

This series is more educational and casts the reader as a member of a globe-trotting news team.