The Man and the Challenge

I, too, watched this series as a pre-teen and loved it. What new jet would George Nader fly, what new car would he test - one week he learned "body surfing" from notes left by a researcher who had died in the attempt - thus proving the concept and reinstating the reputation of the dead man. I guess they hired Nader for the way he looked in a T-shirt - biceps and pecs galore. It certainly wasn't for his acting skills. Various biographers place him as one of Rock Hudson's early Hollywood boy friends. If he'd stayed with it, like Hudson, maybe he would've improved on his acting.

I was in my late teens when this program aired and I watched it every week with my older brother. To me it was an inspiring series that seemed to show that man could go beyond his previous limitations and do what had theretofore been considered impossible. One incident comes to mind to serve as an example: The George Nader character is in an elevator with several other people when the elevator begins to fall out of control. Somehow they have to find a way to survive. Because of Nader's quick thinking and resourcefulness, they are able to transcend their human limitations and survive the fall, although in retrospect it stretches one's credibility. Even at that, though, it inspired me to strive to go beyond my own limitations and to try for seemingly impossible goals.

I watched The Man And The Challenge when it was first on in 1960 and was intrigued. I was born destined to become an electrical engineer so this program presented a scientific challenge each episode that challenged my future knowledge of physics. Finally a show that wasn't complete fluff like a talking horse or a guy married to a witch. A thinking adult man who was drastically challenged each week and had to save himself or the situation using scientific principles. I wanted to learn so bad! And I wanted to solve the puzzles before the show revealed the solution. This show has never been publicized since, but I always remembered it all these years, and could stump most everybody else who had never ever heard of it. I'd love to see a show today to see how it matches my recollections.

My father was a career Air Force man. So when Col. John P Stapp's famous rocket sled images appeared in the opening credits of THE MAN AND THE CHALLENGE in 1959 I, as a 14-year-old, was immediately hooked.

...and George Nader was the perfectly-cast star. I loved the stories. It didn't matter they were off-center from science-reality, as we knew it then - in my mind, they were 'possible.' The ideas just fascinated me. That it was possible to live through an elevator fall - or that one could survive a marooning at sea by drinking the base nutrients from a raw fish squeezed through a torqued towel, made absolute sense in my young, formative mind - they still do.

I've often reflected on that series over the years, and now realize what a huge impression it made on my ultimate enrollment in the aerospace industry.

I appreciate what all of you have written in remembrance of George Nader and this wonderful TV series. Yes, the film world often brings heroes - but much more than that; 'ideas of quality' can shape and determine one's entire future. It certainly did mine - may you all have been so blessed.

I've remembered the opening sequence of this show for quite some time, but no one I mentioned it to could ever come up with the show's title. Finally I found it with a properly worded Google search - amazing tools we have today.

I remember a specific episode where there was a crazed driver who was tormenting the motorcycle cops by speeding through their speed traps and - once the motorcycles were in pursuit - releasing numerous logs out of his rigged trunk and the poor policemen would wreck their bikes after running over the logs. Yeah, far-fetched, but it got worse.

The hero of the show then took some sort of mind-altering drug and demonstrated in the lab that - under the drug's influence - he was capable of amazing feats of concentration and dexterity. He grabbed speeding arrows out of the air effortlessly.

So after the lab tests, the cops were given the drug and were then capable of driving their bikes around the logs and catching the demonic motorist.

With some 50 years of retrospection, I'm wondering now if that magic drug might have been LSD? It was a more innocent time...

Anyway, it was a favorite show of my 7-year-old self. That and "The Troubleshooters" and "Rescue 8".