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How the Cancelled UFO Series 2 Became Space:1999


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Anybody wanna chew on any of this?  I always remember Space: 1999 fondly from my youth -- not sure if that was when it first ran, or slightly later (still in syndication).

Also -- even as a kid!! -- I always LOVED Mission Impossible, especially because so much of the story was told in each episode without dialog (or very little).  Not saying Space: 1999 and Mission Impossible were terribly similar, aesthetically (though some of the same actors being on both certainly made a connection for me).  But then again, the kinda-sorta "international"-ish casts -- and/or vaguely international settings (in the case of MI) -- that is another similarity, in my mind (and the impression I was left with watching them both as a teen, or even pre-teen maybe (I forget exactly when I really got into both).

Anyway, I just stumbled on this -- and I have to say I've never even heard of UFO before -- and all the marionet shows that same production company did (in the 60's, as shown early on in the video below) -- I like have almost ZERO recollection of ever having seen any of that before.  I was born in '69, so if it wasn't in syndication (or in reruns on syndication, after the fact), I would have never seen those in semi-real-time, meaning within a decade of their first release.  And then by the time I got to college in 1987, I rarely saw all that much TV (and never cable) until my then future-wife and I finally got cable in around 1997 or '98 when we moved in together (she HAD to have ESPN, to see her beloved KU Jayhawks basketball).

ANYWAY, take a gander at this...  It's 27 minutes long, but well put together, and fast moving.  Kinda temps me to see if I could score a cheap copy of the entire run of Space: 1999 on DVD somehow, if such a thing weren't too pricy.  Haven't even looked -- those sorts of things are either dirt cheap, or stupid expensive, all depending on supply and demand at the current moment.

 

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I watched three of the puppet shows, Thunderbirds, Stingray, and Fireball XL-5, as a kid.  Loved 'em.

I watched Space:1999 at the time and have the DVD set for the first season.  I think there is a consensus that the second season is not as good.  I remember thinking that the shows were more "cerebral" than those of Star Trek, but I was only a kid.  I haven't spent enough time with the DVD set to form an opinion as an adult.

Incidentally, all of the shows I mentioned were scored by a British composer named Barry Gray.  The scores are fantastic.  I have several on CD, and the season 1 Space:1999 scores in particular are amazing.

 

 

 

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I actually was at the right time/place to watch Fireball XL5 on Saturday mornings, NBC.. I thought it was at once super-weird, super-corny, and kinda fun anyway (mostly because of the closing theme)...the whole thing was like Johny Quest in space with puppets and women, all of whom's heads were too big to take seriously as anything but freaking puppets. NOT cartoons, definitely NOT.

Like if Brian Wilson had gotten some Saturn 45s on his turntable in his formative years, before he got deeper into harmony, maybe if Mike Love had gotten those Saturn 45s, but would that be one of those When Worlds Collide things that negate all history, past/present/future?

Hey Cover Band Project Yet To Happen - , here ya' go, do the Fireball XL5 theme with these instrument sounds!

 

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