Tom Corbett, Space Cadet

Long before the advent of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, there was "Tom Corbett Space Cadet." And the camaraderie's of fiction characters that we came to know and adsorb so well in "Star Trek" in 1966, was successfully captured here first in the early 1950's.

Tom Corbett (Frankie Thomas), the wise cracking Roger (Jan Merlin) and the Venusian, Astro (??) . I didn't know of a single kid on my block or in my grade school who didn't use the character Roger's famous term - "Aw go blast your jets!" It was a great show for its time and, in many ways, ahead of its time.

Long live the crew of the Polaris!

My memory of the show is too vague to offer specific comment, but I recall watching and liking it at ages 3-4. Albert Aley, who wrote a number of episodes, was a distant cousin, and arranged for my family and I to attend the filming of an episode. I was 4 at the time, so it would have been 1955. The cast were all very nice to us. Astro in particular, horsing around (post shoot) with my brother and I, and letting me sit and climb on some of the props.

Of course, at that age I remember the occasion a lot better than the show itself. And, by reading this imdb description of the show, I just learned that Frank Sutton, Sgt. Carter from Gomer Pyle, was one of the space cadets. An unexpected connection from the earliest days of TV. Live and learn!

I do recall that the cadets were all straight arrow, level headed types which was standard for 50's television heroes. Pretty ironic that the term "space cadet" has come to mean a drug addled or simply absentminded person.

Of the three classic 1950s space adventure TV programs, TOM CORBETT SPACE CADET was the most realistic, and SPACE PATROL the most fantastic, with CAPTAIN VIDEO AND HIS VIDEO RANGERS somewhere in the middle. The great appeal of the TCSC series to teenagers and pre-teenagers was that the main characters were students, just like us! Tom, Roger and Astro had problems we could all identify with. And when they weren't sweating out grades or exams, they could take off for a jaunt through the solar system, even hyperdrive voyages to nearby stars, in the mighty rocket cruiser Polaris, as long as academic advisor Captain Steve Strong was along!

I was a mere lad in single digit years when Tom Corbett Space Cadet was on television. Making a lot of allowances for the fact that this was primitive TV even comparing it to something like Star Trek prime makes it pale by degrees. Not unlike comparing the original Star Trek to any of its successors.

One thing that Tom Corbett borrowed from the big screen was the trio concept that you would see in westerns, most prominently in Hopalong Cassidy and the 3 Mesquiteers. Corbett and his two sidekicks are on a training ship, the Polaris and they were training to join the Solar Patrol. Tom was played by 30 year old Frankie Thomas who was an All American teen heartthrob in the Nancy Drew series before World War II. Thomas still looked youthful enough to carry off the part.

The others are Al Markim who went the entire series run with Thomas and Jan Merlin who was replaced halfway through the series by Jack Grimes. Substitute the space dialog for sagebrush talk and this could have been a western.

Tom Corbett like so many other science fiction films seemed not to anticipate the computer. That fact in and of itself fascinates me. As the show was aimed for a kid's audience maybe the producers felt the concept was over the heads of 50s era children.

Shows like Tom Corbett, sincerely made and acted for a variety of reasons have not worn well over the years. It's a museum piece and a lot of indulgence has to be given by a modern audience.

"The series' concept was based on Robert Heinlein's book Space Cadet." It was not. It was based on Joseph Greene's books.