Space Patrol

Although for children the content is quite watchable by any age. This series sticks in my mind as one of the best thought out scifi TV programs of the sixties. OK so we know Mars and Venus have no life as such but don't let this spoil your enjoyment. Exceptional animation at times and dialogue thats usually non PC. This is a true treasure that shows what can be done on a budget.

I think Gerry Anderson used some ideas for what followed. Fireball XL5 although had a bigger budget didn't come anywhere near Space Patrols story lines.

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I don't remember this first time round but it's just started to be shown on Talking Pictures TV in the UK (As Space Patrol) so get over there quick!

Looks like a mid 1950s effort rather than ten years later but I love it. A few gadgets used so far, including "the plasticiser" and I can't wait to see lots more. A very nice model city but the cars don't half whizz along the roads a bit too quickly for the scale of it, but as it's set in 2100 they may be Tesla's Model 30, or nuclear powered is more probable.

Great fun which even the young may enjoy now but there is no colour which might spoil it a bit for them.

Space Patrol is a series that has stayed vividly in the memory so it must have had something special about it. I loved it almost as much as I loved Fireball XL5. It was quirkier somehow and the characters were lively and varied. I remember giant leeks for aliens and the robots that patrolled the ship while the crew were in suspended animation were a treat. It was a show packed with original ideas. I hadn't realised it ran to three series. What I remember most was the immortal catchphrase used every time a voyage was about to begin and the ship had to be powered up - 'Gamma rays on. Yobba rays on'. The series deserved an award simply for coming up with the idea of yobba rays!

"Space Patrol" (a.k.a. "Planet Patrol" for U.S. release) was a children's cartoon show with puppet marionettes. The concept was an interplanetary organization of men and women from Earth, Mars and Venus, patrolling the Solar System to maintain the peace in the year 2100.

What distinguished this series from others of its ilk was the thought that went into it. The characters had real personalities. The futuristic Headquarters City was well done despite the cheap budget, with individual personal vehicles traveling thru transparent tubes to be automatically guided to their final destination. The spaceship wasn't the usual rocket ship, but something innovative: a "Galasphere" that looked vaguely like a kid's gyroscope toy, that made weird humming sounds as it sailed thru space. (Those humming sounds became the theme song for the TV series.)

The plots and sets were surprisingly dark for a children's show, in the style of "Outer Limits." One plot concerned aliens from Neptune (I think) conspiring to take over the minds of Earthlings and eventually "conquer the Earth leaders". Another dealt with a plot to subvert Earth's currency by counterfeiting huge quantities of Earth money. Even the backdrops were dark--the sky over the Headquarters City was usually dark, dreary overcast rather than bright and sunny.

Could have been a great show with a bigger budget.

I never even heard of Space Patrol until a couple weeks ago when we went out for a movie and one of my friends gave me a disc of episodes, saying I had to watch it. It was definitely a lot of fun! It was not a very good show and definitely looks and feels very old, I'm not sure how much people would have enjoyed it back in the fifties or sixties when it was first on television but it's very campy with bad production values and hammy acting, and you definitely don't want to miss the puppetry, but the show is still a lot of fun. I know it's mostly laugh at it not with it kind of fun but still worth checking out if you can track it down.