Mister Ed - The Horsestronaut (1961)

I think this is a first for this site so lets just get in there and explore our very first Horsestronaut in the form of Mister Ed, season 2, episode 2.

 

 

Now for those of you that don't know, Mister Ed was an American television comedy show that ran from January 1961 to February 1966 and featured a talking horse as the titular star.  It lasted for 143 episodes.  I may have seen s couple of them back in my youth during the summer holiday schedule but for the most part I don't think it ran very often on this side of the pond, so I would never have discovered this one without the help of one of our long standing blog followers.

So, according to Wikipedia the episode synopsis is;

"In order to appease Mr. Mencken, a potential new client, Wilbur takes an office downtown. Ed now feels unwanted and attempts to become the first horse astronaut into space. Ed goes to the space center and passes the intelligence test. The day of the flight, Wilbur rushes to the space center, but the rocket is just taking off. Mr. Ed shows up and tells Wilbur they picked another horse at the last minute because Ed was too heavy."

Which is all very informative but what you really want to see is this rather splendid Destination Moon style spacesuit on that there horse

 

 

Its a cracking job isn't it and its fun to note that they've left a little grill in the horse shaped fishbowl (?) helmet so that the 'actor' can still breath with out steaming it up and obscuring his talent.

 

If we never see another horse shaped spacesuit again, I still think we've already seen the best.

 

Big thanks to Bill for this find. You are a good friend to the blog and its greatly appreciated.

 

 

Steve

Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)

Steve

Drift Marlo (1961)

Drift Marlo, a space adventure comic was first launched on May 29, 1961

number 1

 

number 2

Steve

Armchair Theatre - The Man Out There (1961)

Episode 27, season 4 of Armchair Theatre is entitled The Man Out There and sees Patrick McGoohan as a Russian cosmonaut trapped in space in a faulty rocket who has five hours to live when his radio makes contact with Marie, a hunter's wife who is also trapped in a blizzard swept area of Canada. Marie's daughter is dying of diphtheria and despite the great distance, Nicholai has the medical knowledge to help her.     Steve

The Avengers - Dragonsfield (1961)

Dragonsfield is the 26th episode of the first season of The Avengers.

Steed is sent to research facility when a scientist developing a radiation-proof material dies of radiation.

I'm not going to tell you anything about The Avengers series its self other than its very cool, ran for quite a while and a more quintessential slice of 60's British television you will be hard pressed to find.

 

 

Steve

Sea Hunt - The Aquanettes (1961)

There were 155 episodes of Sea Hunt over four seasons running from 1958 to 1961.  The Aquanettes are from episode 12 of the fourth season.  Now I don't think we ever got this over in the UK or if we did it was way before my time and never got repeated on my local ITV network.

So being ignorant to the show I'll quote IMDB for the episode description  and leave it up to you to nod your head with nostalgia or shrug, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're living.

Mike takes part in a special program known as Operation Astronette. His job is to train three female astronauts in underwater survival skills.

Another Men into Space helmet appearance.  More pretty girls in a space suit. What more do you want.

Steve

Life Magazine (1961)

When we looked at The Road to Hong Kong (1962) not too many posts back, blog follower; beamjockey, made comment about the story and images published in the 10th of November 1961 issues of Life magazine.  Being a good sort, he emailed me a scan of the page 46 and here it is including some close ups.  Its a great little story and adds hugely to the original post.  Thanks again, sir.

Brilliant stuff.

 

 

Steve

 

Armchair Theatre - The Man Out There (1961)

 

Steve

Nude on the Moon (1961)

Nude on the Moon is a degrading and shocking exploitation of the female-form that repeatedly exposes the most obvious of the lady-bumps purely to titillate (tee-hee) and turn a cheap profit....

However that's not going to stop me covering it here.

Never seen it.  Probably never will but according to Wikipedia;

Nude on the Moon is a 1961 sexploitation film co-written and co-directed by Doris Wishman and Raymond Phelan under the shared pseudonyms "O. O. Miller" and "Anthony Brooks". The film was produced in 1960 but was not released theatrically until 1961. Doris Wishman went on to become a significant filmmaker and noteworthy director of sexploitation movies. Wishman is also credited as the film's co-producer.

That's it now, nothing more to see.  Move along.


Steve

The Phantom Planet (1961)

A mysterious planet, miniature people, giant monsters, beautiful women and all set in outer space with an undaunted hero doing his darnedest to sort it all out.  B-Movie gold, me thinks or if you were born a little later, memorable Saturday morning cinema.

 

Of interest to the Trivianaut in me; this film appears to be using the same space helmets as were first featured in the 1959 TV series; Men into Space (Same back-packs too)  In 1977 one of these helmets would appear in the Mos Eisley Cantine in Star Wars IV.  I'm guessing it features in a few other places in between and we'll see if we can follow its journey.


Steve

Il Pianeta degli uomini spenti (1961)

 

Il Pianeta degli uomini spenti is an Italian sci-fi film from 1961.  It's probably better known over in this neck of the woods as Battle of the Worlds and may well not have surfaced in its English speaking dubbed form until a couple of years later.  It's plot is pure B movie cheese.

A runaway asteroid mysteriously begins orbiting the Earth and threatens it with lethal flying saucers.  If seen at the right age, I can't imagine what more you would want from a movie.      Steve

Mercury 3 - Alan Shepard (1961)

Alan Shepard first American in Space,  May 1961.

When Shepard was asked why he thought he had been selected for this historical flight, he grinned and said: “I guess they just ran out of monkeys!”

 

 

Steve

Ham Space Monkey (1961)

Ham the American space chimp completed his sub-orbital flight in January 1961 paving the way for Alan Shepard

 

 

Steve

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (1961)

The first man in space and the first man to orbit the Earth; Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, 12th of April 1961 in Vostok 1.

Say; Hello Cosmonaut


Steve

Spacemen Magazine #2 (1961)

The cover of Spacemen Magazine issue 2 with art by one Bruce Minney, of whome I know nothing.

The spaceman pictured here is sporting a Gemini mission suit, I think, and although they did turn up in movies and TV later on, I would have thought the reference material for this were direct from NASA.

Steve

Spacemen Magazine #1 (1961)

This is the cover to Spacemen Magazine #1 which was put out by Warren Publishing in 1961.

They had been doing quite well with their Famous Monsters of Filmland, magazine and thought a similar venture dealing with Sci-fi films might prove equally popular.  It didn’t especially and the whole thing ran to only eight issues and one yearbook, although due to a very erratic publishing schedule they somehow managed to get all the way to 1965 before calling it a day.

The cover art is an early example by Basil Gogos, whose work on Famous Monsters is horrifically beautiful.... but that's for somebody else to blog about.

Reference for the painting seems to be from 12 To the Moon, a bit of B-movie fluff released the previous year. 

Steve