Jason of Star Command

I remember watching this Saturday morning kids show and being impressed with the special effects. Being a science fiction fan, any show about space, & stuff like, that I'd watch. This show had quite a large budget for being a Saturday morning "kids" show. I loved the asteroid that was "Star Command" and all the space ships. I was in my late 20's when this show aired, not really a kid, but I was when I watched. Wish I could find it again!!

This show was a great kids show. Sure it maybe wasn't the most original serial type show, but look at how well the classic movie 'Star Wars' did by copying the standard serial action adventure theme. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century continued the concept and even used names like 'Twiki' for a robot, where JOSC had already used the name WIKKI as a flying mini robot gadget. Like most posts this show was a fun show, Dragos was one of the greatest bad guys in any kids show.

Jason of Star Command is one of my favorite shows. As a young teenager, I had already enjoyed earlier related Filmation shows, Tarzan, and Space Academy both of which were great stuff. When Jason came out as part of the whole Tarzan and the Super 7 package, the whole 90 minutes worth of action just about blew me out of the water, and Jason was one of my favorite segments.

Jason was packed to the gills with great special effects produced on a shoestring budget. The whole production moved along at a brisk, sledgehammer pace, with solid stories, and reasonably good performances, in particular those of Charlie Dell (as Professor E.J. Parsafoot) and Sid Haig (Dragos), both of whom obviously had a great time filling their roles.

The whole thing was reminiscent of the old science fiction movie serials of the 40s, such as Undersea Kingdom and the Phantom Empire, as well as its contemporary serial like films Flesh Gordon and Starcrash.

The show (deservedly) earned its own half-hour time slot, but faded all to quickly, for my money.

Filmation did two other fine science fiction serials, both animated, in 1979, following Jason: Mighty Mouse: The Great Space Chase (as part of the New Adventures of Mighty Mouse, and later repackaged inaccurately for home video as Mighty Mouse's first "feature legnth movie") which was camped up to the hilt, and the beautifully animated (New Adventures of) Flash Gordon.

I remember this show as a throwback to the days of the serial. This did the cliff hanger bit at the end and while this isn't Shakespeare, I would rather watch it than any of today's Saturday morning kids fare or any of the things on Disney channel. As for it trying to capitalize on the Star Wars phenomena, things on television tend to go in cycles. During most of the 1950's, Westerns were hot just like during the 1970's,detective shows were the thing. It was great seeing James Doohan again. Sid Haig always was a great villain. It was fun seeing Julie Newmar on a kids show. It was supposed to be a fun Sci-Fi show and it delivered. Charlie Dell was a great choice to play the scientist, he character was unique.

Perhaps the biggest budget 1970s Saturday morning series. And set in space.

Without Youtube, it is hard to find this series today, what was it like? Despite Star Trek's James Doohan being present in the first season, it is actually the second season (when he is gone) that the show really comes together.

The whole series is partly damaged by a constantly laughing villain - Sid Haig as "Dragos" - who acts like he is in a High School play. Thankfully, he seems to get less screen time in season two and we have newly introduced characters in the second year to focus on (blue faced John Russell as The Commander and "Samantha").

The second season also has the episodes expanded to 25 minutes but still in the serial format. You can totally follow year two without seeing year one, so if you don't wish to invest time into watching the whole series - I would just jump right into the second year.