Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964-1970: A Critical History of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, the Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants

515 Pages·2009·4.138 MB·English

by  Jon Abbott

Table of Contents
Preface
Irwin Allen: An Introduction
1. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (September 1964–March 1968)
2. Lost in Space (September 1965–March 1968)
3. The Time Tunnel (September 1966–April 1967)
4. Land of the Giants (September 1968–March 1970)
Bibliography
Index of Terms
Also by Jon Abbott
Stephen J. Cannell Television Productions: A History of All Series and Pilots (McFarland 2009)
Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964–1970
A Critical History of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time
Tunnel and Land of the Giants
Jon Abbott
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Abbott, Jon, 1956–
Irwin Allen television productions, 1964–1970 : a critical history of Voyage to the Bottom of the
Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants / Jon Abbott.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4491-5
1. Allen, Irwin, 1916–1991. 2. Irwin Allen Productions—History.
PN1992.92.I79A23 2009
791.4502'32092—dc22 2006019840
British Library cataloguing data are available
©2006 Jon Abbott. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: Irwin Allen on the set of The Time Tunnel (ABC/Photofest)
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To the memory of Irwin Allen,
Richard Basehart, Paul Carr,
Kevin Hagen, Jonathan Harris,
Kurt Kasznar, Howard Lydecker,
Guy Williams, Paul Zastupnevich,
and all the other craftsmen and
performers no longer here with us
to read these words about
their significant and valued contribution to
our enjoyment of these wonderful shows.
“When we are in a hot corner it is stories we want, not the high poetic function which represents the
world. We want incident, interest, action, and to the devil with your philosophy.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson
“Most TV shows are what I call Donna Reed’s living room. Donna goes to the door, opens the door,
and there’s John the milkman. But John’s got a problem, so they go into the living room, sit on the
couch and talk for seven pages. ‘Oh John, you found out your wife is giving you a surprise birthday
party and you don’t want her to know that you know.’ They shoot the seven pages and they go home
for the day. Me, if I can’t blow up the world in the first ten seconds, then the show’s a flop.”
—Irwin Allen
Preface
If you were watching a color science-fiction television series during the 1960s, the chances were
pretty good you were watching an Irwin Allen presentation. There were, after all, only 79 episodes of
Star Trek, and only 43 of The Invaders, whereas Irwin Allen produced 274 episodes of his four
different series, over 200 in color. Irwin Allen’s TV career began with the submarine adventure
series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, based on his own feature film of the same name, and
continued with Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants.
Some people love the Irwin Allen shows; others consider them the perfect example of how not to do
SF TV. Personally, I think the latter opinion is unfair and unjustified. There are many ways to define
SF TV. When Georges Méliès was making A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) in 1902,
widely regarded to be the first science-fiction film, he was not thinking about scientific accuracy or
presenting the true future, whatever that might be. He was thinking about just two things:
showmanship and special effects. Sixty years later, Irwin Allen was thinking about the same things—
and not without good cause. Serious science fiction films traditionally died a death at the box office,
and the failure of such films as the speculative future musical Just Imagine and the portentous Things
to Come in comparison with hits like the Flash Gordon, Superman, and Buck Rogers serials had
shown Hollywood the path to take. Allen’s efforts were one third Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, one third the Republic, Universal, and Columbia serials, and one third the bug-eyed atomic
monster movies of the ’50s. They were also undoubtedly one hundred percent Irwin Allen! Allen had
a ‘house style’—similar in many ways to the pulp magazines of the ’40s and ’50s—that permeated all
four of his series; stock players, the same writers and directors, crossover props, sets, and locations,
familiar plots, gimmicks, and obsessions all gave his shows a specific look. Allen’s tricks and
techniques, some of which he adapted from earlier examples, and some of which he devised and
popularized by himself or perpetuated by the re-use of ’50s props and musical scores, would continue
to influence other producers from Star Trek onwards (Gene Roddenberry loved flashing lights and
lurch scenes as much as Allen). The British producer of an adaptation of a fairytale story involving
miniature people for the BBC once grudgingly but admirably admitted that he screened episodes of
Land of the Giants to learn “what not to do” and ultimately ended up using every one of the series’
tricks.
Irwin Allen may well have demonstrated how not to do serious, precognitive, or scientifically
accurate SF for sniffy purists, but it was never his intention to do so. Irwin Allen’s TV shows were
made as commercial entertainments, not to comment on the human condition, deliver dire warnings, or
speculate about the future (although on rare occasions they did all three). Not only are his four 1960s
SF shows a model demonstration of how to make exciting, successful, entertaining action adventure in
the fantasy genre, not only are they still phenomenally popular around the world all these years later,
but they have been used consistently as blueprints for contemporary TV series—although sadly by
people who still haven’t managed to take on board most of the television truths Allen discovered
those long decades ago. If they had, then Fantastic Journey, Voyagers, Otherworld, seaQuest, Earth
2, and Sliders, to name but half a dozen owing a nod to Irwin Allen, would all have enjoyed much
longer runs.
As a fervent fan of the Allen series, I have promoted, praised, defined and defended them in many
articles in my twenty-year career writing for TV and sci-fi media magazines (see bibliography).
Research for those articles provided a wealth of information and inspiration that led to this book.
In these pages, you will find writer, director, and guest cast for all 274 episodes of these four Irwin
Allen series, plus trivia, comment and criticism, background, interview quotes, and as much
information on the guest players’ other work in the TV and film fantasy genre as space permits. Irwin
Allen used the same writers and directors on all his series, and many of the same guest actors, a few
of whom appeared six or seven times in different episodes of different series. With so many episodes
to cover, and so many names making more than one appearance in Allen’s four series, repetition was
not a luxury afforded to me, so for the maximum information on the writers, directors, and particularly
actors’ credits, I strongly advise the use of the index. Most of the guest players are mentioned in
detail somewhere in the text.
With all due respect to those who have gone before me, there has been very little intelligent writing
about the Irwin Allen shows, and I have done my best to redress the balance over the years.
Something snaps in the minds of even some of our most intelligent critics when the name of Irwin
Allen is mentioned, and knee-jerk name-calling and ludicrous generalizations replace the more
objective commentaries afforded to the shortcomings of, say, Roger Corman, Star Trek, or Doctor
Who. What fair-minded critic, in the face of all television’s history of short-run disasters, instant
cancellations, and acknowledged failures, could seriously call Lost in Space “the worst sci-fi show
ever”?—and yet this has happened twice. It was beloved by mainstream audiences around the world
(a clue there, perhaps), rated well for three seasons, had many fine moments (as we shall see), is still
in reruns today, and retains a devoted army of fans. Yet the slurs persist. Fortunately in recent years
we have been blessed with the fascinating research and revealing, objective interviews of U.S.
writers such as Mike Clark, Bill Cotter, Kyle Counts, Joel Eisner, Richard Messman, Paul Monroe,
Mark Phillips, Ian Spelling and Tom Weaver in the pages of Starlog and others, and the exemplary
efforts of a U.S. TV executive named Kevin Burns to get out the magnificent soundtracks of the Allen
shows and his superb documentary, all of them going out under the banner of The Fantasy Worlds of
Irwin Allen.
And we owe special thanks to the casts and supporting casts, all the wonderful guest players, Irwin
Allen, Paul Zastupnevich, the writers and directors, the set decorators, designers, film editors and
music editors who made these four shows the most extraordinary, creative, exciting and entertaining
adventure series ever to air on 20th century television.
Jon Abbott, 2006
Irwin Allen: An Introduction
There’s a place for message SF. Rod Serling burnt himself out hammering out literate and moving
paeans to the human condition in his enduring classic The Twilight Zone, using the SF medium to get
across messages that the more direct, reality-based programming of the heavily censored ’50s and
’60s TV industry did not allow. Leslie Stevens and Joe Stefano were meticulous visionaries,
enthused with the potential of film and fantasy to grab the audience by the throat and expose their
fears and imaginations to The Outer Limits. Gene Roddenberry used Star Trek to confront
philosophical and human issues in a television environment filled to capacity with genies and
witches, talking horses, hillbilly millionaires, and secret agents talking into their clothing (wonderful,
funny shows all, but variety is the spice of life).
Unlike those other icons of ’60s SF TV—Rod Serling, Stevens and Stefano, Gene Roddenberry—
Irwin Allen had no messages to impart and no philosophies to expound. Any politics to be found in
his series were usually the result of adhering to Hollywood formula and tradition rather than political
convictions. Allen was a showman, pure and simple. If it was eloquence, scientific accuracy, or
profound commentary on the meaning of life you were looking for, then it was best not to look in
Irwin Allen productions—but for superb special effects of the day, excellent sets, superior guest
performances, action and adventure, hard-nosed heroes, horrible monsters, sinister villains, and all-
out fast-paced escapism that has yet to be matched, then Irwin was your man. His series were
adventure shows, with the emphasis on visual spectacle and action. As one light-hearted commentator
once pointed out, “If you criticize Irwin Allen’s shows for being implausible, you’re missing the
point.... Radiation, pollution, over-population, starvation, the new ice age—all are very real
problems. But there’s nothing like watching grown men roaming around the cosmos with no income
worries or mortgage problems when we need cheering up.”
Critics may point to the Irwin Allen series and say “that could never happen.” And for some reason,
the same people who justifiably applaud AIP, Universal’s monsters, Alland and Arnold, Serling and
Stefano, Star Trek, Doctor Who, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Hammer films have said just that.
The fairytale scenarios in Lost in Space, the monster mayhem of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, the
time-traveling in The Time Tunnel, the tiny people of Land of the Giants not crushed by the forces of
gravity—no, that could not happen. But that is exactly the point of making these shows, watching
them, enjoying them. They could not happen. Therein lies the pleasure of them, the joy in
surrendering to them for 49 minutes an episode. They could not happen. Only in our dreams and in our
imagination could they happen. Do we dare point out that the same applies to The X-Files and Buffy
the Vampire Slayer?
The writer and comic actor John Cleese once said that he could never understand the appeal of
science-fiction, as the real world is so much more interesting. When science-fiction takes itself so
seriously, as so many contemporary series of the 1990s did, I sympathize with his point of view.
What storyline in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Babylon 5 could compare with the intrigues of
ancient Rome, Greece, or Byzantium? What fictional conspiracy yarn could beat what we know about
the Kennedy assassination or Watergate? What is the point of seeing modern-day politics played out
in a cartoon cavalcade of guttural sounds and silly names by actors in prosthetic foreheads with