Avengers, Rocky Jones among new cult TV offerings

By STEVE D. STONES

This is part two of a three part series on cult television shows. Here at Plan 9 Crunch, we acknowledge the importance of television as part of the “cult-dom” culture that we are passionate in writing about and documenting on this blog site. Part One is here.

Here are five more “cultish” TV titles:

The Avengers – Mandrake – episode 18, season three – aired January 25^th, 1964

John Steed (Patrick Macnee) attends the funeral of a former prominent colleague at a small Cornish cemetery. He becomes suspicious of the man's cause of death and wonders why the man is being buried in a town cemetery that he has no association or ties to. Steed's investigations take him to Mandrake Investments, led by a doctor and his associates.

Mandrake Investments is a “for-hire” assassination agency who poisons victims then buries them in the Cornish town near a churchyard with an old mine where the soil does not detect poison and has high levels of arsenic. Most of the victims are rich, prominent men who lived outside of the Cornish community.

Considered a fan favorite of early Avengers episodes, Mandrake is an intelligent and fun episode. The chemistry between actress Honor Blackman and actor Patrick Macnee always works well in all of the early Avengers episodes. Blackman later left the TV show to star as Pussy Galore in the James Bond film – Goldfinger (1964). Patrick Macnee would also star in a later James Bond film – A View To A Kill (1985) with Roger Moore.

Timeslip – The Wrong End of Time – episode one, season one – aired September 28^th, 1970.

A young woman walks through a time barrier in the field of the old abandoned Ministry of Defense at St. Oswald that has been empty since the end of World War II. A town drunk witnesses the girl being transported through the time barrier and reports the incident to a few of his drinking buddies at a local hotel pub. Commander Traynor (Denis Quilley) overhears the conversation in the pub and becomes intrigued by the report.

Two teenagers – Liz Skinner (Cheryl Burfield) and Simon Randall (Spencer Banks) also find the time barrier and walk through it. Liz and Simon encounter a group of German marines in the field after stepping through the barrier. Luckily, they are not captured by the marines.

A guard finds Liz and Simon and takes them to Commander Traynor's office at the Ministry of Defense. Traynor is much younger and is serving in the British Navy. Liz and Simon tell Traynor that they overheard men out in the field speaking in German. Traynor does not believe them.

While left alone in Traynor's office, a young man speaks to Liz and introduces himself as Frank Skinner – who is Liz's father in the future. We discover that Liz and Simon have been transported to 1940 during World War II.

The entire series of Timeslip addressed such topics as cloning, anti-aging drugs, global warming and government conspiracies – making it way ahead of its time. A&E Television released all four seasons of the Timeslip television series as a boxed DVD set in 2005. The box set is a great treasure to have for any fan of British science-fiction television.

Rocky Jones – Space Ranger – Beyond The Curtain of Space – season one – chapter 1 (of 3 chapters) – aired February 23^rd, 1954.

Rocky Jones (Richard Crane) and Winkie (Scotty Beckett) return to the Office of Space Affairs to report to Secretary Drake (Charles Meredith) and to start a long deserved vacation. While being issued their vacation papers by Drake, Rocky and Winkie learn in a televised message that Professor Newton (Maurice Cass) and young Bobbie have been brainwashed and captured on the planet of Ophiuchus.

Rocky cancels his vacation plans and rushes to Ophiuchus in his rocket ship – the X-V-2 with Winkie and sexy assistant and language expert – Vena (Sally Mansfield) to rescue Newton and Bobbie. Rocky objects to Vena coming along on the trip because she is a girl, and later tells her to “go home and knit a sweater” in a sequence that would be considered politically incorrect by today's standards.

Vena gets trapped in a compartment of the rocket ship and faints from lack of oxygen. Rocky and Winkie rescue her, but Rocky becomes more skeptical of Vena being along for the trip because of her sex. He orders her to return home to earth.

The funnest aspect of watching Rocky Jones – Space Ranger is to see all the interesting special effects, props and costumes of early television. It's unfortunate that Rocky Jones – Space Ranger had to be canceled because of the special effects budget going overboard in each episode. The early days of television often encountered these types of problems.

Actor Richard Crane went on to star in a number of other cult classics, such as – The Alligator People (1959) with Lon Chaney, The Devil's Partner (1961) and two serials – Mysterious Island (1951) and Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of The Universe (1953).




Lights Out – The Passage Beyond – season three – episode 44 – aired June 25^th, 1951

Lights Out is early television at its most minimal, bare bones. The show had a nearly zero budget and it shows.

A brightly lit, close up pale face with staring eyes opens each episode with a deep, monotone voice and creepy organ music playing in the background. His head appears to be floating against a dark environment. Creepy stuff, indeed.

Rod (Ralph Clanton) and Milly Taylor (Stella Andrew) return home to their mansion one evening with a guest named Trix (Monica Lang) after attending a party. The ghost of a family ancestor named Lady Anne haunts the mansion. Lady Anne murdered her possessive husband many years before in the mansion.

Rod complains to the butler that the home is too dark inside. The butler was not expecting the trio back for several hours. Rod sits down by the fireplace with Trix as his wife Milly leaves the room. Rod expresses his boredom to Trix of his marriage to Milly. He begins to kiss at her neck and it becomes obvious that the two are having an affair behind Milly's back.

Milly eventually confronts Trix about the affair and tells her that Rod can never stop loving her. The two discuss the affair for a while as Rod walks through a dark passage in the mansion and is confronted by the ghost of Lady Anne holding a knife.

The Passage Beyond is one of the more creepy and atmospheric episodes of Lights Out, despite its shortcomings and minimal budget. Many scenes remind me of German-Expressionist films from the silent era with deep contrasts of light and shadow. The mansion is filled with extremely dark and deep shadows that consume many of the interior environments of the episode. Lights Out aired from 1949 – 1952, and was based on a popular radio program from the 1930s.

Rocky & Bullwinkle – Jet Fuel Formula (part one of forty) – season one – aired November, 19^th, 1959

As a child in the early 1980s, I liked to get up early every morning in the summer to watch an hour of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons from the late 1950s and early 1960s. I was fascinated with the simple drawing and animation style of the show. I also loved Cap-N-Crunch cereal, and did not see the connection between Rocky & Bullwinkle and Cap-N-Crunch until many years later. I would save empty Cap-N-Crunch cereal boxes and pile them up in my bedroom closet. My family and friends thought I was strange for doing this, but this ritual later influenced my adult artistic career.

Looking through a giant telescope at Slick Observatory, Dr. Milton meets with “eggheads” and “double domes” (i.e. scientists) to proclaim that there can be no life on the moon. Another scientist spots Rocky and Bullwinkle on the moon through the same telescope. Rocky and Bullwinkle fly back to earth in a rocket ship.

Greeted in Washington by military dignitaries after their rocket ship landing, Rocky and Bullwinkle inform the dignitaries that they are not from the moon, but from Frost Bite Falls, Minnesota.

Days earlier, Bullwinkle was baking a mooseberry fudge layer cake and the cake blasted to the moon in the oven as the cake was baking. The second layer of the cake was placed inside a rocket ship built by Rocky and Bullwinkle to travel to the moon. The military dignitaries demand the recipe/formula for the cake, but Rocky is unable to remember every ingredient.

Meanwhile, Russian spies – Boris and Natasha, are also desperate to get the cake formula from Bullwinkle. Two green moon men – Gidney and Cloyd, arrive from the moon to try and prevent Bullwinkle from recreating the cake formula for fear of tourists coming to the moon.

These early episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle are a delight to watch. It's interesting to see the evolution of how both characters are drawn. Bullwinkle talks from the front of his face, in these early episodes, instead of from the side of his face, as we see in later episodes. His feet look more like claw shapes, instead of the rounded shapes seen in later depictions of Bullwinkle.

Creative geniuses Jay Ward and Bill Scott were the two brains behind the clever wit and charm of Rocky & Bullwinkle. Jay Ward was often referred to as the “P.T. Barnum” of TV cartoons, and Bill Scott was often referred to as his “Bailey.” Ward was also responsible for the creation of the Cap-N-Crunch and Quisp and Quake breakfast cereal characters.

For further information about the Rocky & Bullwinkle TV show and the life and careers of Jay Ward and Bill Scott, refer to the book – The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose, by Keith Scott (St. Martin's Press – 2000). This is a wonderful book that is well researched and I highly recommend it. Happy viewing!