WIKIPEDIA: Space Patrol is a science fiction adventure, aimed at juvenile audiences of the early 1950s via television, radio, and comic books. The television show ran for 210 network episodes from September 1950 to February 1955. The series was patterned unabashedly after Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and its TV rival, Captain Video and His Video Rangers.
The stories followed the 30th-century adventures of Commander Buzz Corry (Ed Kemmer) of the United Planets Space Patrol and his young improbably-named sidekick Cadet Happy (Lyn Osborn) as they faced nefarious interplanetary villains with diabolical schemes. Not surprisingly for the time, some of these villains had Russian- or German-sounding accents. Cmdr. Corry and his allies were aided by such nifty gadgets as "miniature space-o-phones" and "atomolights." Episodes had such pulp-magazine titles as "Revolt of the Space Rats" and "The Menace of Planet X."
The special effects used in the live half-hour TV episodes had to be performed in real time. For example, pistols that shot invisible rays necessitated pre-positioning a small explosive charge on the wall. An actor would point the prop at that spot, whereupon a special effects worker would throw a detonation switch. These effects could not have been superimposed on film for the series was done live. For distribution to distant stations, an image of a tiny bright TV monitor was filmed to make kinescopes, and most of the Saturday half-hour TV broadcasts are available in this form today. The 15-minutes-every-weekday version of the program was at first seen mainly in the Los Angeles viewing area, but also was later distributed nationwide via kinescopes; it was not carried by ABC-TV but was presented in syndication.
The show played directly to children, and each episode shamelessly merchandised various toys and mail-order premiums tied into the series during their commercial breaks. Even the ads for corporate sponsor Chex cereals used the show's space opera motif in their pitches. A unique feature of the TV and radio adventures was that the premium of the month was often worked intricately into the action of the live adventures.
