Space Patrol

When Kit Cory disappeared on a secret mission to Plannet "X:", his younger brother Buzz took over the fight for right in Space. The Actor who played Kit Corey is my father Franklin Mullen. He is still alive and well in Las Vegas Nevada. He was using the Acting name "Glen Dennings" back then. I guess his agents thought that was better? I wasn't born till 1953 but I remember seeing reruns on TV. Too funny with rockets on wires with sparklers on the back against a painting of space in the background. The show I believe was the actual, first series in the Kiniscope period of Television and the old spools they kept them on were easily corruptible. The show was shot live. My father was in many old westerns and war movies too including Battle Cry and Command Decision. He was a good looking Jeffery Hunter type who my mother had dated too. But Dad won her over. BTW, My mother Rosemary was one of Jeffrey;'s last friends before his death. My father left Hollywood to do Theater at the Pheonix little Theater in Scottsdale Arizona and became a successful pool Contractor. He survived a plane crash where the Cesna wrapped around a Cable on a landing pattern. Later he was a Pioneer in the Stero Industry and moved back to Brentwood Calif. He has always been my hero and still is. As I write this he is 79 years old and I hope he'll be around a good while longer. I tried Acting myself but lost interest. I am currently developing a TV production company in Central America. I wish my dad had grabbed a bunch of the old Ray Guns. They're great collector Items.

I grew up in Las Vegas NV, where there was no television until 1954. I was in the 4th grade, and it changed life for us kids quite dramatically.

Having listened to the likes of Superman and The Lone Ranger on the radio, and developing a mental picture of what the characters were "sposta" look like, it was sometimes a letdown to see "impostors", even though the voices were the same.

"Space Patrol" never was televised in Vegas, as far as I can remember. I was a faithful follower of the Saturday morning radio show, however: "High adventure in the wild, vast reaches of space! Missions of daring in the name of interplanetary justice! Travel into the future with BUZZ CORY, Commander-in-Chief of the SPAAAAACE PATROL!"

If you craved thrills and action with not much science fiction underpinning, and an unabashedly total lack of realism, this was the early 1950s space adventure program for you. Square-jawed, intelligent and courageous Commander Buzz Corry and his comical sidekick Cadet Happy faced certain death in nearly every once-a-week Saturday morning broadcast. Done live, with very impressive sets, and a wide variety of Hollywood character actors as villains, this was almost always worth tuning in to. Almost all the programs survived on 16 mm and 35 mm kinescopes, and are readily available today from video retail sources.

The headline of that month was of Ernest Hemingway and a short version of The Old Man and the Sea.

It explained that a WWII fighter pilot had thought the whole thing up while flying raids in the Pacific during the War. He and two other writers were cranking out 85,000 words a week to keep the show running. It had a lot of the behind the scenes stories of the actors, etc. Some of the actors in this series died from Cancer at relatively early ages, and some were destitute. Nina Bara, from Argentina, was one of them. She had been married to Dwight Eisenhower's golf pro (also a relatively obscure actor himself) from Austraila for about five years...until Ike was out of power, then his popularity as an actor waned quickly. I understand he's still alive. She died in poverty.

And yes -- I actually saw it "live" on TV. Sponsored by Ralston. I vividly remember Commander Corey and Cadet Happy happily plugging "Wheat Chex", "Rice Chex", and "Instant Ralston" when they weren't pursuing or being pursued by the bad guys. How many of us remember the name of the man who heralded "Travel into the future with BUZZ CORY, Commander-in-Chief of the SPAAAAACE PATROL!"? That was Jack Narz, who later went on to fame as the host of the scandal-ridden game show "Dotto"!! The live sets, the music, and the miniatures (quite imaginative for the time) were all done with such care. I would like to thank the other contributors to this thread who remember and love this show as much as I do, especially "IsleManage" (such an interesting story about your father (mother too) -- thanks for sharing), "mmore98" who gave us insight to the conception of the series, and the unfortunate demise of "Tonga" -- my first recollection of, shall we say, a "hottie". How sad. But most of all, I would like to thank the late Ed Kemmer and the late Lyn Osborn for providing me with role models worthy of remembering and looking up to. I love you and I miss you both!!