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Old December 12th, 2019 #42
steven clark
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Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,277
Default favorite retro tv-series

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Hans Gudegast (Colossus) was a good German actor, and changed his name to Eric Braeden because of anti-German feelings. He's on some soap opera now, and always did good work. He was also on Rat Patrol, and insisted his character, A German officer, be played with dignity and fairness. He refused to wear an eyepatch, which was what the show wanted, and he was always thoughtful and correct. None of the master race stuff. He was a soldier doing his duty.

Contrast that with the Jews on Hogan's Heroes playing Nazis.

I liked Anne Francis in Honey West. It was ahead of its time. She's always fun to watch. Also, quite fond of Forbidden Planet, although a novel written based on the movie is much better. Far deeper characterization and fairly good science as well as psychology, also told through first-person by three characters. Read it if you can find a copy.

Fireball XL5. Wow, I used to watch it all the time, and there were other shows like that by the same group. One was Supercar, with Mike Mercury flying a guess what? Also there was another rocketship show, not Thunderbirds.
I note all these shows had to do with rocketships and travel...probably the easiest way to sell a kid's show, and also easy to do with marionettes. I noticed the cast was always very small...imagine doing crowd scenes with forty marionettes. Need a lot of hands for that.

Fireball also had a geezer kind of professor, and Venus had some kind of humanoid pet. He only said 'welcome home' in a tinny voice. I still like to say that to myself.

I remember some trade mag of the era wondered why, if Steve Zodiac had Venus, why didn't Mike Mercury have a girlfriend? He had a kid sidekick, a monkey named Mitch, and the inevitable team of fuddy-duddy scientists, but that isn't enough.

In the mid-sixties, these things mattered.
And yes, what a lovely, all white world.