ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Let's discuss a trio of fictional adventures!

~ Four brave explorers and a delicious duck make a journey which doesn't do around the world or out into space — the head straight down towards the center of the Earth!

~ Then there's globe-hopping hero who travels in a supersonic jet, knows more about science than Carl Sagan, and lives in mountain-top base with a runway that looks like a diving board!

~ And finally there's the most bizarre adventure of all, in which a friendly farmer meets and ungrateful alien who badly needs lesson in southern hospitality.





Would you believe that I created the photo above by combining four different images; the farm house, the barn, the surrounding field, and the cloud-filled sky! It took several hours, but I enjoyed it!
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Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

IMDB has 21 trivia items for this movie, some of which I posted on page one of this thread but didn't include any "notes from me". Here’s a few of the other ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text.
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~ Gertrude the duck won a PATSY Award

Note from me:And just what IS a Patsy Award? I looked it up.

"The PATSY Award was originated by the Hollywood office of the American Humane Association in 1939. They decided to honor animal performers after a horse was killed in an on-set accident during the filming of the Tyrone Power film Jesse James"

~ Many of the people in the crowd scenes were students ofc.

Note from me: Interviewer: So, young man, where do you go to school?

Young Man: I'm a student at Edinburgh University.

Interviewer: And what role did you play in this movie?

Young Man: A student at Edinburgh University. I graduate this year.

Interviewer: Aren't you afraid you'll be type cast?

Young Man: Oh, no sir. Next year I'm appearing in another movie.

Interviewer: Wonderful! What role will you be playing?

Young Man: A graduate of Edinburgh University.

~ The "Dimetrodons" in the movie were played by a large type of lizard called a rhinoceros iguana. It is about 3-6 ft. long and is kept as a pet in many places. Dimetrodon in real life was a type of Synapsid reptile. It reached about 12 feet in size, and lived in Western North America.

Note from me: Interesting. Dimetrodons were only six feet longer than rhinoceros iguana. That means two of them working together could win a fight with a dimetrodon!

~ Each animal star needs several doubles, so there were a total of four "Gertrudes".

Note from me: Fascinating! So, there was "Gertrude the actor", "Gertrude the stand-in", "Gertrude the stunt double", and finally . . . "Gertrude, the one the cast ate at the wrap party."

~ Gertrude was supposed to be an Eider duck from Canada but Ralph Helfer couldn't get one into the United States because the USDA insisted that a permit be issued before one could enter so he decided to make his own Eider duck.

Note from me: Ah-ha. The old Hollywood adage: It's not WHAT you know that gets you into the movies, it's WHO you know. But even with connections, if the critics don't eat you alive . . . the characters will.

~ While Alec is lost, he travels through awesome studio sets, well lit for dramatic effect. In reality, Alec's attempt to find his way back by the light of a single coil lamp would have been a deadly, nightmarish experience.

Note from me: As an experienced spelunking myself, I can verify that statement. But of course, if they'd tried to shoot the scene that way it would have been an unpleasant experience . . . for the audience.

~ The skeleton hand of 'The Great Arnie Sacmussen' points the explorers to the escape tunnel using his middle finger. Everybody else would have used their first finger. Possibly a subtle reminder that Arnie had the last laugh.

Note from me: Perhaps Arnie was not saying, "I'm dying, but I can help you escape." He was actually saying, "I'm dying. Screw you, cruel world!"
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Captain Midnight (1954 - 1956)

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The link below is to one of the better episodes, complete with the commercials!
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______ Captain Midnight S2E02 Mission to Mexico


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I used to have a box set created by a dedicated fan named Trevor Scptt, an Australian bloke who operated a site called DownunderDVD.com, but his site is no long in operation, and I can't find my box set for some reason.

However, Trevor included this card and an actual Captain Midnight patch (a beautiful recreation), with the box set.


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One very appealing aspect of the show was Captain Midnight’s “Secret Squadron”, the nationwide network of kids who all had small communicators on which the Captain could contact them from his base, or even when he was on a mission!

If he needed information about the area where the kids lived, or when he’d had to issue a general call to be on the lookout for specific bad guys, he'd just pull out his own trim little communicator from the forearm pocket in the jacket and call up one of the kids!

There were great scenes demonstrating this cool aspect of series, like one with a young body in his driveway working on his bike when he gets a call from Captain Midnight! The Captain says he's landing in the boy's area and needs his help!

Imagine what that was like for the kids who watched the show! They'd dream of having their own communicator and getting important messages from their hero.

The series couldn't very well provide communicators for all the kids who watched the series, but the producers did mail out those decoder badges to the kids who sent in "proof of purchase" for Ovaltine (one of the show's sponsors). And that allowed Captain Midnight to make "an important announcement about next week's exciting adventure!"

Then he'd tell the kids what setting to put the decoders on so they could decipher the message which appeared on screen and get a clue about the next story.

Very cool.







Captain Midnight even had a custom car he used when operating in the area near his awesome mountain top base.

(Sorry I don't have a better picture . . . )


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Here's an interesting detail about the show. The dramatic announcer at the beginning and during all the classic commercials for Ovaltine and Kix is the legendary Art Gilmore, the man who did many of the voice-overs for the trailers we love from 1950s.

And guys, get this!

Just before I was about to submit this post I was delighted to discover a YouTube member who offers 17 of the 39 total episodes! Here's the link to the first on the member's list, with the other episodes listed along the right side.

I think I'll spend the rest this lovely sunny Sunday in North Carolina binge watching Captain Midnight!


_______________ Captain Midnight - TV Series


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Hog Heaven ~ by Bruce Cook



Lester Hollow was just a big, jovial, simple guy.

Now, the word “simple” in this case doesn’t mean studid. In fact, Lester’s intelligence was easy to underestimate, because he looked like the perfect example of an overall-wearing, cornfed redneck who tilled the soil of the heartland states.

Lester was massively built — especially around the midsection — and he had a face that featured two large chins, one small nose, a pair of steel-rimmed glasses, and short-cropped hair that hadn’t needed combing since he was nine years old.

He was now forty-six and balding on top.

Lester talked easily with strangers, smiled at the drop of a hat, and was generous to a fault. People often thought that all Lester’s opinions were positive and optimistic, but in truth Lester just didn’t dump his negative opinions on other folks, and he wasn’t the sort of guy who liked to talk about his troubles.

Actually, Lester didn’t have many troubles, so he tried to stay jovial and smiling and patient with all those folks who were less fortunate than he was. Without sarcasm, he could truly be called Good Old Lester. He was a humble man, but he considered himself capable of handling almost any situation that arose.

However, helping a shipwrecked alien creature was just about the last situation Lester ever expected to face.

“What ‘ta hell was that?” Skeeter Jones exclaimed, standing next to Lester on a balmy evening just outside Lester’s big barn.

“Meteor, I reckon,” Lester said mildly. “It was a big ‘un though, huh?”





Lester knew full well that Skeeter Jones had seen dozens of falling stars in his life, but he also knew that Skeeter tended to ask useless questions. Still, it had been quite a meteor.

“Hey, Lester, I think that one came down right on your property! It looked mighty close!”

Lester understood Skeeter’s urgent desire for something new and interesting to happen in their quiet little community, but he didn’t want the old fellow to drive around the countryside looking for meteor craters that didn’t exist. So, Lester gazed up at the starry night sky, stuck his hands in his overall pockets, and offered a diplomatic reply.

“We’da heard an explosion if it had hit close to us, wouldn’t we? No, I think it must’ve looked closer than it really was.”

“Maybe it didn’t hit too hard,” suggested Skeeter.

Lester held back the snort of laughter that threatened to burst out. He decided there was no point in explaining how fast meteors traveled. Skeeter would just think Lester was being pompous, or he'd accuse him of believing what he read in comic books when he was a kid. So Lester just grinned in the darkness and spoke in a jovial tone.

“Maybe I’ll look around some, tomorrow.” Then Lester reached into his overall pocket and pulled out the pocket watch his wife had given him years ago. He made a show of studying the watch in the dim starlight, even though he couldn’t really see what it said.

“Gee, Skeeter, I didn’t mean to keep you out so late!”

Skeeter grinned at his friend as he said, “Aw, ha-ell. What ‘er friends for? That hog of yours would-a busted right outta his pen iffin’ you didn’t do something about his belly ache!”

Lester started walking slowly towards Skeeter’s battered old pickup truck which was parked nearby. Skeeter took the hint and followed along, but he continued to lecture Lester on the proper care of hogs. Lester just nodded and listened politely until Skeeter finally ran down. The moment Skeeter gave him an opening, Lester jumped right in.

“By gum, you’re absolutely right, Skeeter. But sometimes I think that hog was born with a stomach ache! He eats anything he can chew, even though he ends up regretting it about half the time."

“Hogs is thataway, I reckon,” Skeeter said philosophically.

“Thanks again for bringing over that medicine.”

“Thaz what neighbors is for,” Skeeter said for the second time. Lester was tired of hearing it, but he just nodded and smiled.

Lester opened the door of Skeeter’s truck and made himself smile so wide his cheeks hurt. The wirey old man climbed slowly into the truck, and Lester closed the door. Skeeter propped his elbow on the edge of the door and fixed his squinty-eyed gaze on Lester for a long moment. Finally he said, “When will Marcy be back from Galveston?”

“Saturday week.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Every day,” Lester replied. Skeeter was asking useless questions again.

“Miss her cookin’, I’ll betcha.”

“Oh heck, I miss that between meals!”

Lester filled the crickety night with his easy laughter. Skeeter joined in with a raspy cackle that sounded like dry leaves being rustled by the wind.

Lester seized the opportunity to launch into a big, friendly goodbye routine while backing away slowly before Skeeter could catch his breath. Skeeter was only able to nod vigorously while his lungs collapsed.

Lester continued to back away — still waving — until Skeeter finally cranked his ancient truck and gunned it a few times to get it running. White smoke belched from the tailpipe and sent all the chickens fleeing in search of breathable air. He roared off with an excess of spinning tires on the bare dirt of Lester’s back yard. As the truck sped away, Lester noticed the burned-out taillight that nobody had the nerve to tell Skeeter about for fear of having to endure ten minutes of grumbling complaints about the state of the American auto industry.

As Lester made his way towards the empty house, he glanced over in the direction of the meteor that had caught he's and Skeeter's attention when it disappeared behind the distant trees. But what Lester saw made him freeze in his tracks.

A tiny spark of light streaked upward from the horizon, shooting into the sky until it vanished from sight. Total elapsed time: about four seconds.





Lester didn’t know much about meteors, but he did know they could not change their minds about coming down and just head back up towards the starry heavens. Lester didn’t bother considering any of the standard explanations for what he’d seen; it wasn’t swamp gas, because the nearest swamp was a hundred miles away, even if he were fool enough to believe such malarkey. He knew it hadn’t been an airplane or a satellite or the planet Venus.

But the thing that bothered Lester the most was that Skeeter Jones had been right. The meteor had disappeared behind the trees at the exact point from which the spark of had arisen. And somehow Lester knew that the distance was not great.

~ Read the rest of this amusing sci-fi story at the link above.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)