Sci Fi TV Flashback: Looking back at notable sci fi and fantasy television entries from years past.
What Is It? This series follows the adventures of three astronauts who work for the Earth Bureau of Investigation’s Interplanetary Space Force on board the spaceship Starduster. Scott McCloud, aka Space Angel, is the captain of the ship and he is assisted by Electronics and Communications expert Crystal Mace along with Gunner/Engineer Taurus. They patrol the solar system and help keep it safe from threats both alien and human.
Aired: Syndication, 1962-64, 2 Seasons Totaling 260 Episodes (52 Stories)
Starring: Ned Lefebver, Margaret Kerry, Hal Smith
Created By: Dick Darley
Is It Must-Watch Sci Fi? Not necessarily, but it is a good animated sci fi entry from its time that holds up better than expected.
The Skinny: This animated series came from the same production company that brought us the action/adventure entry Clutch Cargo, and it relied on budget-friendly, limited-movement animation. It also employed the Synchro-Vox technique of super-imposing the actor’s mouth onto the animated character when they were talking. This kept costs down because it required less work from the animators and made the show more affordable for television. Each story was also broken up into five four-minute parts that could be inserted daily into children’s programming to tell a serialized adventure airing each weekday.
Clutch Cargo was more of an Indiana Jones-style adventure and very kid-friendly. Space Angel also appealed to a younger audience, but it took its science more seriously and tried to present as realistic of space series as it could based on the knowledge of the time. It did take plenty of liberties, but it still managed to deliver some decent sci fi stories that could appeal to kids and adults alike. Comics legend Alex Toth provided the character designs and still artwork that lent to the visuals despite the limited animation. And this was the closest thing that young viewers had to an epic space adventure on television in the 1960s, certainly inspiring the imagination of many burgeoning sci fi fans. The Synchro-Vox technique can seem a bit creepy from a modern perspective, with a human mouth hovering over an animated face, but Space Angel seemed to have improved the process so that it was a little bit smoother than what appeared on the earlier Clutch Cargo series. And while it may not quite count as a sci fi TV classic, Space Angel is still a notable entry from the early decades of genre television that was remembered by many for years to follow.
Cancelled Too Soon? No. Animated shows like this and Clutch Cargo would produce a set number of episodes that would then live on in syndicated reruns for many years. The latter series tended to get more airtime, but Space Angel was still a fixture in syndication into the ’70s and ’80s.
Should It Be Rebooted? Certainly. A reboot could be a fun retro-series that could possibly re-do some of the original episodes with more modern animation (no more creepy human lips, please) and carry on beyond that. I believe the property is in the public domain, and it is definitely ripe for a revival.
Interesting Facts: The series was created by Dick Darley who was no stranger to early sci fi television. He created the 1950 classic live-action series Space Patrol which would have considerable influence over the genre in the ’50s and ’60s. (You can read more about that one at this link.) Hal Smith provided the heavy Scottish accent for Engineer Taurus years before James Doohan brought a Scottish brogue to Lt. Montgomery Scott (aka Scotty) on Star Trek: The Original series. Smith is better known to television audiences as town-drunk Otis Campbell from The Andy Griffith Show.
Where Can You Watch It?: Even though this show appears to be in the public domain, it has never had a DVD release beyond a few eps appearing on budget discs. Amazon does have some episodes available to purchase VOD, and TubiTV has several episodes combined into a four-hour block. The entire series is also available on YouTube.
Read More About the Show: Wikipedia | IMDb.com.
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