ALL SCI-FI Forum Index ALL SCI-FI
The place to “find your people”.
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Fantastic Voyage (1968~'69)

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi on Television from 1950 to 1969
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2020 7:39 pm    Post subject: Fantastic Voyage (1968~'69) Reply with quote

"Fantastic Voyage" was a Filmation Associates production animated television series.

The half-hour animated TV show originally was broadcast on ABC from September 14, 1969~January 4, 1969 for a total of 17 episodes.

Based upon the 1966 hit live action sci-fi film with the same name.

Premise: The Combined Miniature Defense Force is a secret United States government agency that combats enemies both foreign and domestic who are against America.

Method : Utilizing the specially designed C.M.D.F. craft known as Voyager, a carefully chosen four-person team enters the Voyager. Then, via a highly classified technology, the Voyager as well as the mission specialists are miniaturized.

The miniaturization process lasts for a total of twelve-hours for each assignment.

Professor Carter aka ''Chief'' gives the team their missions.

C.M.D.F. Team Members : Commander Jonathan Kidd, United States Navy and expert frogman.

Dr.Erica Lane is a medical physician, biologist, and astronaut.

Busby Birdwell is a brilliant engineer and scientist and designer of the Voyager.

Guru is from Tibet and a 'master of mysterious powers.'

The advantage of being able to shrink the team and the Voyager gives them the covert ability to infiltrate an enemy stronghold and technology in order to stop them.

The Voyager team can also investigate and analyze any threats which are also on a microscopic scale.

Well, if you enjoy the sci~fi premise dealing with miniaturization of humans and placing them in dangerous situations (and I do) then you might get a kick out of this animated series.

The animation is typical TV animation from the 1960s, so don't hold your breath waiting for stunning visuals.

They probably did the best that they could back then given the show's budget, shooting schedule, and the animation technology existing at that time.

The Voyager ship design is completely different from the 1966 FV live action film's cool looking Proteus.

Darned if the Voyager is a sharp looking craft in its own right.

Some of the plots are clever; some not.

The Guru character appears to be magic-based with his abilities and therefore seems out of place in what is otherwise a sci~fi based show.

I'm not a fan of sci~fi shows that mix in magic with their premise. Combining the two genres never has really worked for me because they are jarringly at odds to each other.

I also realize that novels, films, and television shows dealing with miniaturization really stretches the willing suspension of disbelief.

Noted author Isaac Asimov gave a perfect explanation as to why shrinking humans is scientifically impossible to achieve.

However, if you enjoy such a gimmick as the basis of a novel, film, or TV show it can still be fun.

For a 60s cartoon though, FV can be entertaining for what it is.


Last edited by Pow on Wed Dec 22, 2021 1:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Krel
Guest





PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2020 8:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't remember the show that well, but I did like it back then. Aurora Models made a kit of the Voyager from the show. A few years back Moebius models remade the model, including a version in glow in the dark plastic.

David.
Back to top
trekriffic
Starship Navigator


Joined: 19 Feb 2015
Posts: 593

PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2020 11:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
I don't remember the show that well, but I did like it back then. Aurora Models made a kit of the Voyager from the show. A few years back Moebius models remade the model, including a version in glow in the dark plastic.

David.

I built the Aurora kit as a kid and the Moebius reissue as an adult at which time I added lights. I always liked the design, despite the lack of any obvious flight control surfaces which would have made it extremely difficult to maneuver:


Voyager by Steve J, on Flickr
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Krel
Guest





PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 12:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

trekriffic wrote:
I always liked the design, despite the lack of any obvious flight control surfaces which would have made it extremely difficult to maneuver.

Well. they say that with enough thrust you can make a brick fly. So, how does the Voyager maneuver? Really, REALLY powerful engines. Laughing

David.
Back to top
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17018
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 2:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

David, you are bang on target! Very Happy

Modern fighter planes have "thrust vectoring" — movable nozzles which swivel around to do much more to maneuver an aircraft than control surfaces ever could. It makes the aircraft move like a puppet on a string!

Below is a 1:19 video to demonstrate the technology. It's amazing! (The audio is silent). Note that the rear horizontal stabilizers don't just have "flaps", the entire stabilizer moves up and down!

Welcome to the 21st Century! Cool


________________________ Thrust Vectoring


___________

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
trekriffic
Starship Navigator


Joined: 19 Feb 2015
Posts: 593

PostPosted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 7:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
David, you are bang on target! Very Happy

Modern fighter planes have "thrust vectoring" — movable nozzles which swivel around to do much more to maneuver an aircraft than control surfaces ever could. It makes the aircraft move like a puppet on a string!

Below is a 1:19 video to demonstrate the technology. It's amazing! (The audio is silent). Note that the rear horizontal stabilizers don't just have "flaps", the entire stabilizer moves up and down!

Welcome to the 21st Century! Cool

Yeah but I don’t see any moveable nozzles in the cartoon.


Voyager by Steve J, on Flickr
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
johnnybear
Mission Specialist


Joined: 15 Jun 2016
Posts: 442

PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2020 8:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've got the UK DVD of this show and it's great with it's opening theme and stuff! Similar to the Star Trek cartoon by Lou Schemer and the boys! 17 episodes were made and not all were brilliant but most were okay and I remembered them from childhood anyway!
JB
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17018
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

trekriffic wrote:
Yeah, but I don’t see any moveable nozzles in the cartoon.

As you pointed out earlier, the ship has no visible control surface either. But since the ship has to maneuver somehow, either they neglected to show its control surfaces or they neglected to show its moveable nozzles.

And since movable nozzles are a more effective and hi-tech design, I vote that the feature they left out in the cartoon was the thrust vectoring nozzles. Very Happy

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Nov 07, 2020 2:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
scotpens
Starship Captain


Joined: 19 Sep 2014
Posts: 871
Location: The Left Coast

PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2020 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can't control an aircraft with thrust vectoring alone. Aircraft that employ thrust vectoring still have conventional control surfaces. Thrust vectoring is mainly useful in low-speed and high-angle-of-attack maneuvers.

Link: https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/how-things-work-thrust-vectoring-45338677/

This sleek-looking baby has no visible control surfaces either. The only way it was ever gonna fly was on a Lydecker rig!


Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17018
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sat Nov 07, 2020 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

scotpens wrote:
You can't control an aircraft with thrust vectoring alone. Aircraft that employ thrust vectoring still have conventional control surfaces.

Ah heck, you're right. Embarassed

The video I posted does indeed show conventional control surfaces flexing around vigorously. So, I guess the Fantastic Voyage ship doesn't show control surfaces simply because it's the kind of "limited animation" we see in cartoon shows like ST: TOS.

The animators just flew the ship around with simple movements. Watch the video below at the 11:50 mark. Each shot uses a single view of the ship, like a cut-out being moved around on the background image.

I realize the artist could have drawn the lines for the horizontal stabilizers, but they wouldn't have ever bothered to show the control surfaces actually moving.


_S1, Ep1- Fantastic Voyage - Gathering of the Team


__________

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 12:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The animated series was considered more of a spin-off from the Fantastic Voyage feature film than a sequel, the series was reportedly originally meant to be a live-action program with a teleplay developed by William Read Woodfield & Alan Balter.

My 2 cents: Irwin Allen's Land of the Giants debuted in 1968 on ABC. So the special effects technology did exist to have produced a Fantastic Voyage live-action TV series. The problem was that in time it became too expensive to continue producing LOTG due to those visual effects. The producers scrapped the idea of shooting a live-action FV TV show, presumably because the optical cost required.

Makes sense that the network would have projected the effects costs and declined to tackle doing it. What happened to Allen's LOTG becoming far too expensive from the special effects standpoint would have most likely occurred to a live FV show.

I would love to have read the script by Woodfield & Balter for the live-action pilot. They were a very talented writing duo who worked on Mission: Impossible and even produced the show for one season. Critics felt that they wrote some of the finest scripts for M:I, and that they developed the series format beyond what even Mission creator Bruce Geller had conceived.

They also wrote the SF TV-movie/pilot Earth II which was an intriguing one involving life on board a near-future space station orbiting earth.

20th Century Fox then settled instead for an animated series slanted to younger audience, with an entirely new crew.

Opening narration was by Ted Knight for the show.

Headquarters: CMDF, Combined Miniature Defense Force Project: Fantastic Voyage.
Process: Miniaturization.

Authority: Top Secret, highest clearance.

Team: Jonathan Kidd, Commander. Guru: Master of mystic powers.
Erica Lane: Doctor/Biologist.

Busby Birdwell: Scientist/Inventor, builder of the "Voyager."

Mission: In their miniature form, combat the unseen, unsuspected enemies of freedom.

Time limit: 12 hours.

Producers changed Deterrent from the film to Defense for the animated series because they felt most kids wouldn't understand the word. Ah yes, TV's dumbing down of America. Dictionaries existed in 1969.

Ted Knight (Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show) who did the opening narration for the animated show also provided the voice for the team commander Jonathan Kidd.

Jane Webb provided the voice for Dr. Erica Lane. Jane also did the voices of Betty Cooper & Veronica Lodge for Filmation's cartoon TV show The Archie Show.

Marvin Miller did the voice for Busby Birdwell, Guru, and the Chief of CMDF. Miller was an actor and also did a lot of narration work.

He was the voice for Robby the Robot on the MGM classic SF movie Forbidden Planet.
He voiced the theatrical trailer for the Fantastic Voyage movie.

He is best remembered form the TV show: The Millionaire which ran from 1955 to 1960. He played Michael Anthony, assistant to the wealthy James Beresford Tipton. Tipton was only seen from the back each week and was voiced by another terrific narrator, Paul Frees.

Miller narrated the 1956 documentary Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers, one of the earliest documentaries to focus upon UFOs.

Each week Tipton would summon his assistant Anthony to hand him a check for $1,000,000. Anthony was then to give the check to someone Tipton had chosen. Someone Tipton never knew personally or had met previously.

The rest of the episode would then show how the person who received the enormous check had their life changed by it. In some ways, the series was almost an anthology show as Tipton & Anthony were generally only seen at the start of the episode. Once the check was handed off by Anthony, the rest of the episode would follow that week's guest star such as David Jansen, or Jack Lord.

Interesting concept.

And if a million dollar check does not sound all that big now, remember in 1955 $1,000,000 had the purchasing power of $8,713,000 dollars!

While the FV series was in production, Aurora Model Company developed a plastic model of the Voyager vessel from the show. It was released only months before the cancellation of the series was announced.

Due to the short run, the kit received only one press run, resulting in it becoming one of the rarest kits to find of the Aurora line.

Unbuilt, in-box kits have sold on eBay from $300 to $700 dollars.

Episode #6, October 19, 1968: "The Mind of the Master was the animated version of the Fantastic Voyage feature film.

In that episode Guru is psychically attacked by a rival mystic.

The CMDF team must journey inside Gurur so that Dr. Lane can dissolve an inoperable blood clot in the swami's brain.

Episode #2, September 21, 1968: "The Menace From Space" is the subject of the GAF Viewmaster.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Sci-Fi on Television from 1950 to 1969 All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group