Board 8 > Anagram watches some really old sci-fi shows from the 30s-60s (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was at Fry's and found a DVD collection labeled Classic Sci-Fi TV for six dollars. How could I pass up such a bargain? I plan to watch these and rate the shows for B8's pleasure. I expect literally all of these to be terrible. Of note: I've already seen Radar Men From The Moon and it's garbage, and it's the one they put stills of on the back of the box, so I know I'm in for some good times.

Board 8, choose for me an option from the list below. Start with a show that's four episodes or fewer. I reserve the right to abort if it's just complete trash.

Our shows will be:
Captain Fathom (1965, Color) - 3 Episodes
Captain Z-Ro (1955, B&W) - 24 Episodes
Climax (1954, B&W) - 1 Episode
Clutch Cargo (1959, Color) - 1 Episode
Destination Space (1959, B&W) - 1 Episode
Flash Gordon (1953, B&W) - 14 Episodes
G.E. Theatre (1953, B&W) - 2 Episodes
Invisible Avenger (1958, B&W) - 1 Episode
Johnny Jupiter (1953, B&W) - 1 Episode
Lights Out (1946, B&W) - 4 Episodes
One Step Beyond (1959, B&W) - 18 Episodes
Operation ESP (1959, B&W) - 1 Episode
Phantom Empire (1935, B&W) - 12 Episodes
Radar Men From The Moon (1952, B&W) - 12 Episodes (I've already seen this one)
Rocky Jones (1954, B&W) - 24 Episodes
The Shadow (1955, B&W) - 1 Episode
Space Angel (1962, Color) - 9 Episodes
Stamp Day For Superman (1954, B&W) - 1 Episode
The Star & The Story (1959, B&W) - 1 Episode
Tales of Frankenstein (1958, B&W) - 1 Episode
Tales of Tomorrow (1951, B&W) - 6 Episodes
Thriller (1969, B&W) - 1 Episode
Undersea Kingdom (1936, B&W) - 12 Episodes
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Anagram posted...

Stamp Day For Superman (1954, B&W) - 1 Episode

this one.
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The Adventures of Superman: Stamp Day For Superman
Boys and girls, be a super-citizen and have a super-future by saving regularly with United States savings bonds and certificates.

Apparently this is part of the larger series The Adventures of Superman, which is not at all clear on the back of the box. The episode begins by proudly announcing that its sponsored by the US Treasury Department.

We start with Clark Kent and Lois Lane walking down a street. Lois wants to stop and look at puppies and jewelry because women, am I right? Fortunately for Clark, theres a bank robbery next door. One robber escapes past Lois, but the other stays behind and lets Superman arrest him because he feels so guilty for turning to crime because he never learned how to save and invest when he was younger.

The next day, Clark and Jimmy go to visit Stamp Day at an elementary school, where kids learn how to buy investments and bonds. The robber who escaped calls Lois Lane to ask her to arrest him because he thinks the cops will go easier on him if she takes him in, and he just captures her. I like how the rest of this episode only happens because Lois brags about how shes going to do this to her boss.

The robber lets Lois use the typewriter because he wants to see how it works, so she writes a message, folds it into a paper airplane, and writes DAILY PLANT URGENT on it so the random person who finds it will take it to the Daily Planet. Clark gets it, so he rescues her, defeats the robber, and goes to visit the elementary school as Superman to tell all of the kids about how important savings and bonds are.

This is so much cheesier than anything you could make in the modern day, even for children. I still like it more than the DCEU, though.
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I'd go with Undersea Kingdom, just because I'm curious what a TV show from the 30s was even like.
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No Classic Who? No Quatermass? Boo to this collection!
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Halfway through Undersea Kingdom
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Undersea Kingdom
What a story thisll make for my paper! Girl Reporter discovers lost civilization ten-thousand feet below the surface of the ocean!'

Strange earthquakes strike the world, so an elderly professor builds a machine to identify the source: the undersea continent of Atlantis. He builds a super submarine and assembles a group of adventurers to go check it out, including Crash Corrigan the athletic naval officer, Diana, an intrepid reporter, Billy, his son, a sass-talking parrot, and some other guys of no real importance.

They find Atlantis in a power struggle between Sharad, the high priest who desires peace and friendship, and Unga Khan, a white guy in yellowface who wants to conquer the surface world. I like how Atlantis sank during ancient times, so it has chariots, stone walls, and a Roman theme (although it should really have a Greek one), but also somehow has advanced laser guns, TV screens that spy on you from afar, and tanks. More importantly, its 1936, so the Atlantean salute is just the Nazi salute.

After a lot of shenanigans, Unga Khan mind controls the professor into helping him conquer the surface world with his advanced technology, so its up to Crash Corrigan to stop them using courage, spunk, and American know-how. Unga Khan eventually kills Sharad and takes Atlantis to the surface, but thankfully Crash contacts the US Navy. Their judicious use of stock footage of ships sailing and cannons firing is enough to save the world, but Atlantis all of its people are sadly killed. In the end, Crash and Diana get married despite never having given any indication that they cared about each other and Dianas only focus being on her work.

It goes without saying that everything in this serial is completely stupid and a huge ripoff of Flash Gordon (right down to having a white guy in yellowface), but it does have some merit. They built a lot of sets, they hired a million extras and gave them costumes and horses, they have two miniature cities, there are a bunch of characters and subplots, it has lots of neat sci-fi equipment for the scale of evil Atlantean king wants to conquer the surface world, it actually almost works. All of the props and costumes look cheap, of course, but the show doesnt skimp on the battle scenes. There are multiple epic battle sequences with volleys of arrows, tanks, flamethrowers, guys with scimitars, its great.

The biggest problem with this show is that its full of padding. A ton of subplots go nowhere, sometimes as much as twenty minutes is spent with the heroes trying to escape the villains only to be captured anyway, that kind of thing. The worst is the two sailor guys and the sassy parrot. Theyre captured early on and put into slave labor, try to escape every episode and comically fail, and then just die. None of the main characters even learn they survived reaching Atlantis. If you cut the padding, this would be like an hour shorter.

Theres also a big problem in inconsistency. Sometimes the mind control device destroys the professors mind, sometimes it just hypnotizes him, sometimes Sharad is very kind and wise, sometimes he wants to execute a guy for refusing to kill an enemy gladiator after defeating him, and so on. We also have the obvious sexism in the female lead being dumb and useless (she does nothing to help her friends unless told to by a man, which at one point includes being left alone with the enemys laboratory equipment they need to destroy the surface world and only smashing it after a small boy tells her to) and Atlantis having zero women on-screen, just men.
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Tales of Tomorrow (1951, B&W) - 6 Episodes

this one
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Sounds interesting. Both comically bad and kinda awesome at the same time. Thank you for watching.
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