Le avventure di Jet Jackson

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.

One of my favorite shows from my youth, in the 1980s I was bought some tapes of it, watching them took me back 30 years. I note the plane was the Doulgas Skyrocket, not the Bell X-1, even as a 5-7 year old I recognized it. I have an older brother who built a model of it, and we had a neighbor who was a pilot and knew the various aircraft. No, I never did get my decoder ring, the show premiered in September, 1954, I had just turned 5, that was a little above my head. And yes I was puzzled when I few years later I saw an episode of "Jet Jackson" and was puzzled as to why the program I knew as "Captain Midnight" was being aired under another name. Richard Webb said that was the strangest syndication deal in TV. The programs hold up, like most quality children's entertainment, it tries to introduce its young viewers to adult (in the older sense of that word) concepts, in my favorite episode "The Secret Room" the Captain plays along with a phony medium, telling Ikky "He's a crook. And a very clever one. I want to find out what he's really up to."

I would rush home from school to watch Jet Jackson. I loved it. He always had the best fist fights (actually his stunt double looked like a real boxer) - Icky was also a treat in these fights as well ! Now I'm trying to collect videos of the series (can anyone help out there ??). Watching the episodes now seems almost as satisfying as 40 years ago - it takes me back to more simpler times when : landing a jet plane on a flat stretch of beach was easy, anything scientific was fabulous and atomic power was the next big thing. There was even an episode where Jet takes a traumatised young boy into his bedroom for the night. The Captain Midnight episodes are a real eye-opener from the point of view of the pervasive use of advertising (Ovaltine). "Be the first in your gang to have a Secret Squadron Emblem" (courtesy of a jar of Ovaltine). I can't get enough of Jet Jackson

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.