Johnny Jupiter

I've seen the episodes 'Duckweather's TV Shop' and 'The Professor' from the second ABC series. Although the stories are simple and don't hold much interest for adults, it's interesting to see an early fantasy sitcom that has many of the elements that later shows like 'I Dream of Jeannie' and 'Bewitched' would later follow. The plots are thin, the acting poor, and there's little sense of consistent logic. I've read about this show from other sources and some reviewers seem to think that 'Johnny Jupiter' contains some manner of educational content for young viewers. The only things I learned are that if you're a bumbling Jerry Lewis wannabee then you shouldn't open a TV repair shop, the planet Jupiter has it's own television stations and inane cardboard robots, and oh yeah- M&M's are a tasty treat that can't be beat!

What a busy, if spotty, career 'Ernest Duckweather' had. Check him out. He spanned 50 years. The opening jingle was catchy, the robot was amazingly crude, and watching the video tape that I bought on e-bay brought back fond memories from 50 years ago.

Would still like to find episodes of Flash Gordon, Kukla Fran and Ollie and would welcome memories of additional shows from this time period to research.

Winky Dink is another one.

Watched these shows at my grandmothers house as she had a early form of cable and could get ABC.

Believe me - This early-1950s TV show for kids was utter garbage.

Yep. I really did try to cut this show some serious slack due to its super-low production values and the time-frame of when it was first broadcast.

But - Nope - "Johnny Jupiter" repeatedly scraped the absolute bottom of the barrel on all counts.

From its idiotic stabs at humor, to the annoying, hammy performances of its actors, to its dimwitted puppets, and to everything else beyond - "Johnny Jupiter" (with its irksome, in-your-face product plugs) was the ultimate nadir of lousy vintage SyFy TV shows, bar none.

I saw Johnny Jupiter on my grandmother's TV also, however it was on the DuMont TV network and the year was 1953. Ironically, my grandparents had a DuMont brand TV cabinet set that included radio and record player. Dallas had ABC (chan.8), NBC (chan.5) and CBS (chan.4) stations and I was significantly older before independent KFJZ (channel 11--now KTVT) started up. Therefore Slam Bang Theater with Micky&Amanda and Icky Twerp or Nightmare with Gorgon are very clear memories from 4-5 years later.

I never saw Johnny Jupiter again after 1953 so my memories of the show are quite fuzzy. I certainly don't remember the Robot being as crude as the pictures I found on the internet earlier today. I always thought that it was unlikely copies of the show could be found since only Kinescopes were possible in 1953. However, other things like Your Show of Shows have turned up, primarily in the Sid Caesar DVDs. Although I've been looking for evidence of Johnny Jupiter being available somewhere, it was only today that I found some guy who lists availability of that 1953 season. I hope to buy it after pay day at end of the month.

Unfortunately, I tend to mix characters from Johnny Jupiter with those from Howdy Doody, but I do know that Johnny's robot "Reject" was generally helpful to Duckweather, while "Deject" came across as his evil twin.

To review this as an adult I think is somewhat unfair. This worked for me and others my age when we were young. It was fun and we laughed. Ernest P. Duckweather discovers builds a tv set and discovers he can contact Jupiter and they will help him when he needs it and he needs it a lot He was an incredible klutz. It was a simpler age and we were far more easily entertained, something we loose as we get older. The plots were beyond simple, the robots so stupid and clumsy and the sets so corny and cardboard and we had no CGI back then. This was aimed for innocent 5 and 6 year olds and on that level it works.