Before we had William Shatner as Captain Kirk we had Walter Pigeon as Admiral Nelson. Before we had the Enterprise's five year mission to seek out new life, new civilizations, we had the Seaview, seeking out new perils under the sea.
I came across this whimsical trip down Irwin Allen lane, a retrospective on the movie ("Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea") that inspired one of the biggest science fiction television shows of the 1960s. My sense of nostalgia could not help but respond.
You can watch the original trailer for the movie here:
The television show starred Richard Basehart as Admiral Nelson and David Hedison as Captain Lee Crane (hm...reminds me of Lee Adama in David Moore's re-imagined Battlestar Galactica). I loved watching this show almost as much as I loved watching Star Trek. Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea ran from 1964 to 1968 so there was some overlap between the two shows (and with Lost In Space).
During those happy childhood years my brother and I watched The Green Hornet, Batman, and Bonanza faithfully every week. We also loved F Troop and Gilligan's Island. Most of these shows only lasted 2 or 3 seasons, if even that long. It was tough, being a science fiction TV fan in the 1960s.
I never even knew about blooper reels until the late 1970s. I found some VTTBOTS bloopers on YouTube, naturally:
David Hedison was one of those actors who seemed to turn up as a guest star on every possible show in the 1970s and 1980s. He appeared in six episodes of Fantasy Island and even made a guest appearance on Knight Rider. Richard Basehart also had a connection with Knight Rider -- he played Wilton Knight, the dying millionaire who gave David Hasselhoff a kickstart as the first Michael Knight. Basehart did the voiceover for the opening credits of the show ("One man CAN make a difference").
Well, I'm sure there are Voyage fans who are far more hardcore than me. Submarine science fiction is not exactly a huge sub-genre but there have been a few movies and television series that might have appealed to the same crowd: Seaquest 2020 (a Saturday morning cartoon from 1973 or thereabouts), Sequest DSV (a live action television series), and "Around The World Under The Sea" (a movie starring Lloyd Bridges, who had starred in the scuba diving television show Sea Hunt).
Bridges, you may recall, played the original Admiral Cain on the first Battlestar Galactica series. Another science fiction star appeared in six episodes of Sea Hunt: Leonard Nimoy (Spock on Star Trek) had a recurring role as Indio. Larry Hagman (I Dream of Jeannie's Major Nelson and Dallas' J.R. Ewing) appeared in 3 episodes of Sea Hunt. Okay, a LOT of people appeared on Sea Hunt. No need to name them all.
It's been a fun walk down memory lane, but if I stray too far I may never come back.
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