CAPTAIN VIDEO

   1. US tv serial (1949-53 and 1955-6). DuMont. Prod Larry Menkin. DuMont was a New York tv company; in the early years of tv many programmes came from New York. CV, a 30min children's programme that went out 5 nights a week, was the first sf on tv. Written by Maurice Brockhauser, it starred Richard Coogan (replaced in 1950 by Al Hodge) as Captain Video, who 300 years from now, with the aid of his Video Rangers, battled various threats from outer space. Many early scripts were written by Damon KNIGHT, C.M. KORNBLUTH and Robert SHECKLEY.CV was shot live in a small studio and on a low budget, with the result that much of the spectacle had to be provided by the imaginations of young viewers; it also incorporated filmed material, such as short Westerns and cartoons, which were introduced by the Captain himself. In 1953 the serial format was dropped; CV was retitled The Secret Files of Captain Video and became a weekly adventure with self-contained stories, but it folded that same year. In 1955 Hodge returned as Captain Video in a weekly 60min children's show, which he also produced. Though still wearing his uniform, which looked like a cross between a marine's and a bus driver's, he merely acted as the show's host, introducing stock adventure-film footage and undemanding shorts of an "educational" nature which he would then discuss with the studio audience of children. In 1956 CV ended his career with Captain Video's Cartoons, the Master of Time and Space reduced to announcing the funnies. There was a comic book based on CV.

   2. In 1951 Sam Katzman produced a cinema serial of 15 parts based on the tv serial. Dir Spencer Bennet, Wallace A. Grissell, written by Royal K. Cole, Sherman L. Lowe, Joseph F. Poland, George H. Plympton, it starred Judd Holdren in the title role and contained robots.

   JB