Captain Midnight

Captain Midnight was based on a WWII era Radio Show of the same name (just updated for TV). The Radio show and the original TV Airing was sponsored by Ovaltine which marketed "Secret Decoder Ring" and Badge tie-ins during the Radio show (and I think the TV Show). There was also a fan club that allowed you to be a member of Captain Midnight's "Secret Squadron". They owned the character name. When the show went into syndication, they were no longer the sponsor so the syndicated versions had to have the name altered (to Jet Jackson). One of the changes that was made in the TV Show (from the Radio Version) was the alteration of the Secret Squadron serial numbers from SS-X (Captain Midnight was of course SS-1) to SQ-X due to the SS reference being in poor taste due to WWII Nazi associations.

CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT had been a popular kids' adventure program which started in 1938 and ran locally in Chicago, in Syndication and in varying times on the NBC, Blue, Mutual and ABC Radio Networks. It was long-lived and very popular; surviving the waning years of Great Depression Years as well as World War II. The series had undergone a continuous metamorphosis in scheduling, time slots, sponsor and ownership.

With the rights of the show being owned by Ovaltine, the series was adapted to Television in 1954. It was a production of Screen Gems, the Television Subsidiary of Columbia Pictures Corporation. By this time, the origin and identity was get just a little long in the tooth and the series underwent some cosmetic surgery, in order that he will seem a little more up to date.

For one thing, the name of "Captain Midnight" was hung on the hero following a desperate mission he completed in The World War (as the European Conflict of 1914-1918 was called prior to 1939.). In this engagement with the enemy, the hero left for his appointment with destiny at the very stoke of 12 Midnight. 12 Midnight, Captain Midnight; hmmmm, they're clever, these Americans! In "modernizing" a character, a lot must be jettisoned away from the character and the core elements of the story line. Hence, we had a mountain top secret headquarters and a newly updated Jet Aircraft, dubbed 'The Silver Dart. Supporting characters resident Scientist Aristotle "Tut" Jones and side-kick/airplane mechanic Ichabod "Ikky"Mudd were portrayed by Olan Soule and Sid Melton, respectively.

Tall and tan, young and lovely, with an excellent speaking voice and excellent acting credentials, athletic Richard Webb garnered the title role of the good Captain. I can well remember thinking that Mr. Webb would have made an excellent choice to portray the DC Super Hero, Green Lantern (Silver Age); but before we knew it, he was off and portraying Chief Don Jagger on BORDER PATROL TV Series.

Our "modernized" fighting team had gone through the same sort of revamping that is oh so common in the Comic Book business does all the time. Be it at DC or over at Marvel, they are all big on keeping their charges up to date. And after all, be it a Comic Book, Pulp Magazine Character or Radio/TV/Motion Pictures, they are all pretty much alike.

The TV series did not have any sightings of old nemesis of the Captain's, the evil Ivan Shark. Nor were there any continuities in story requiring continued story lines as we always saw in the Movie Serials.* Because of the rights to the Captain Name, likeness and all related material was in the hands of the Ovaltine people, Columbia/Screen Gems could do nothing to put the old series episodes into syndication. So we saw another case of celluloid, not plastic, surgery. All they did at Screen Gems was to change the name of the character and the show to "JET JACKSON and they were in business.

They got the series out in syndication, but it had the worst case of obvious dubbing in the history of sound film. It was so obvious and jerky when for example, Mr. Webb would sign off mouthing "This is Captain Midnight", but the dubbed sound said, "This is Jet Jackson" that is was laughable, even to us dumb kids.

NOTE * Yes there was a cliffhanger serial of CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT (Columbia, 1942)starring stuntman-actor Dave O'Brien in the title role.

As an Australian baby boomer kid in the early 1960s, Jet Jackson was eagerly watched after school on Channel 9. Yes, we too noticed how the actors' lips were out of sync whenever they said, "Jet Jackson". The myth sprang up that this was because it was too close to the 19th Century Australian bushranger (outlaw), Captain Moonlight. Now we now the truth - all about ownership rights to the original name after the show lost its original sponsor.

Now of course, Jet Jackson's adventures would be a great source of amusement,with its ra-ra Cold War rhetoric, and its earnest hand-on-heart patriotism that amuses us irreverent Aussies. Well maybe irreverent Americans too - I'm sure Jet Jackson inspired that great cartoon satire, Roger Ramjet. Jet had the Secret Squadron; Roger had the American Legion.

Jet Jackson's plane was definitely called The Silver Dart, and one of the oft-repeated lines was, "Icky, warm up the Silver Dart!" Sometimes they headed for the jungle but it was never shown quite how Ickabod Mudd (with two Ds) and Jet Jackson landed their jet/rocket powered plane in aforesaid jungle. Nor was it ever explained how just three people, Jet Jackson, the comic relief Ickabod Mudd and Tutt, the nerdy, bespectacled scientist, were able to run their secret base high on a lonely hill, nor what business or legacy allowed Jet Jackson to be the mega-wealthy, patriotic citizen defending our freedom against the enemies of America and the Free World. Same as how the Daily Planet, "a great metropolitan daily newspaper", was run by just four people: Clarke, Lois, Jimmy the kid,and cranky old editor Perry White.

Some Jet Jackson scenes will remain with me forever: I remember that the word "Russia" was taboo. In one scene, Jet Jackson was warning his listeners at a meeting that they were under grave threat from "a certain country, and I don't have to tell you what that country is." Lichtenstein? Burkina-Faso? Costa Rica? Of course, no one at the meeting says, "Oh, you don't mean Russia?"

In another scene, the baddies have Jet trapped in an ice works, and he is flapping around, desperately staving off freezing to death. He notices that blocks of ice are being dispensed by a vending machine outside. He takes out some wire and breaks it into pieces. What on earth is our hero doing? (Is this what inspired McGyver?)He fashions these into three characters, "SQ1", his code sign (naturally No. 1) in the Secret Squadron, and places it on the ice block. Outside, a little old lady who looks like Tweedie Pie's mother puts her nickel into the machine. To her astonishment, the ice block comes out with "SQ1" on it. Then she whips out her mini radio, and pulls out the aerial. You see, Granny is also a member of the Secret Squadron! Putting 2 and 2 together, (or rather S and Q and 1), like a trooper, she barks out,"SQ674 (or similar) calling SQ3!" SQ3 is Tutt and the old girl saves Jet, and Icky too, I think.There were no problems with coverage in those pre-transistor days.

It got a bit racist too. In one episode, Jet is flying in the Silver Dart next to his passenger, a Chinese gent whom our hero trusts as a freedom loving ally. However, it turns out that he is a dirty Commie who pulls out a gun and demands Jet fly him to his dirty Commie masters. Jet then pushes the stick forward and puts the Silver Dart into a vertical dive. The gun-toting Commie rat, either by virtue of his Commieness or Chineseness, or perhaps both, goes into overacting panic, then conveniently has a massive heart attack and dies. What a woos. Jet literally scares the yellow, spineless rat to death. The steely jawed Jet then pulls the Silver Dart out of the dive, a victor in this game of playing Chicken with the Dirty Commies, and thus demonstrating his moral, physical and perhaps racial superiority. Heady stuff.

The star Richard Webb certainly took himself very seriously. I wasn't surprised to learn that many years later, he had a bit too much to drink on an airliner and insisted to the flight crew that one of the other passengers was a Commie agent and must be arrested. Poor old Dickie was restrained and taken off the plane by police. "This way, Mr Webb. Those dirty Commies won't bother you any more!" Even as a kid, I got the impression that the actors who played Icky and Tutt must have found him difficult to work with. They were there for, respectively, comic relief and scientific credibility. Like the Professor in Gilligan's Island, Tutt was there to give a scientific explanation when needed. Perhaps he added credibility as well: "See Mum and Dad, this show IS educational! It's not just about flogging Ovaltine."

Poor old Tutt must have been lonely, with good old Jet and Icky being away most of the time saving the world. What did this white-coated boffin get up to when he wasn't beavering away in the lab? A jet base high atop a mountain can be a lonely place, especially at night. And no internet.

With Icky, I could never figure out why Jet chose this Lou Costello character to be his trusted right-hand man, nor how Icky had the wherewithal to maintain and co-pilot a piece of hi-tech kit like the Silver Dart. Maybe Jet wanted someone who was just smart enough to be useful but not too smart to threaten his job as Supreme Leader of the SS (Secret Squadron, of course.) Or maybe he picked him for his dress sense: dark tweed jacket,bow-tie and one-liners.

If anything, "Jet Jackson" or "Captain Midnight" is ample proof that brainwashing and marketing to kids while entertaining them is not just the preserve of one side of the political fence. It wasn't alone then, nor is it now.

Captain Midnight was a crime fighter, a jet pilot, a scientist and a super role model for kids. He gave me an early desire to become a jet pilot when I grew up. I never did though, become a jet pilot I mean. I was a fan from the beginning of the TV series and never missed an episode when we lived in Los Angeles. I had a secret squadron decoder ring too. If I remember it right, I sent in the paper seal on the inside of the cap of a bottle of Ovaltine plus 25 cents and I got the ring in the mail. Pretty cheesy little gadget that fell apart quickly but it was a symbol of the show and I liked having it. I believe he had a slick special car too to go along with the streamlined theme of the base and the jet. Yeah, really good entertainment for kids of the day IMHO.

-bm

Does anybody remember what kind of plane Captain Midnight flew in the 50's show? They used to identify it in the closing credits--as I recall it was a Douglas aircraft. I barely remember the show from it's run as "Captain Midnight". I watched it quite a bit when it was syndicated as "Jet Jackson".

Looking back, the convenient appearances of Secret Squadron members whenever and wherever Captain Midnight got into trouble was pretty contrived. I remember an episode where the Captain and Icky were locked in a basement. A sweet little old lady was toddling by, saw them through the window, reached into her little bag, and pulled out her Squadron communicator to call SQ 3. From the perspective of the paranoid 21sr century it seems sort of creepy. Loved it at the time, though.