Space: 1999 Premiere Article

Clipped from the TV Preview section of the Miami Herald on Sunday, August 17th, 1975, comes this big article on the upcoming series Space: 1999. Featuring the show's stars Martin Landau and wife/co-star Barbara Bain, the interview was conducted when they were in Miami on a tour to promote the show. As in every single article and interview about the new show,"Star Trek" is of course brought up, which is significant in that the series had been seen only in re-runs for seven years by that time. Landau, in drawing a distinction between the shows, goofs when he claims that Star Trek had been set "a thousand years later" than their series.

(Click on images to enlarge. You may have to click on it again once it loads to view it full-size.)

Bonus: Below, a clipping from one of the tabloids, possibly the Globe (I didn't include the paper name or date when clipping it) featuring Joan Collins in a role on Space:1999. Once again, "Trek" is brought up, but the writer completely misses the connection that Joan had a guest-starring role in that show as well. Claiming the shows to be "similar" also reveals how little the writer knew about either one.

Planet of the Apes Timeline Article

"And my timeline paper beats his, thanks to my superior firepower!"

The chronological timeline of the Apes movies and TV show is quite convoluted, with seeming contradictions scattered throughout. Indeed, many have tried to reconcile the various dates given throughout the series, and their efforts can be found on various sites, such as this one, this one, this one, and this one, among many others (One site that seems to offer an authoritative outline is HassleinBooks.com. I have not bought the book to examine it, but it looks to be the definitive effort so far) . This article from issue #11 of Marvel's 1975 POTA magazine seems to be the first published attempt to track the various dates and events given, in order to try to make sense of it (although it muddies the water somewhat by interjecting the Marvel comics storylines into it). I subscribe to the theory that once Zira and Cornelius come back in time to 1973, they created another timeline that differs from the original, where they did not go back. Their presence (and DNA) cause the ape mutation and uprising to occur much earlier than their history recorded, and I hold that the subsequent film and TV series events are a direct result of this new timeline. In that film the scientific advisor Hasslein thought that the future could be changed, and I think it was, just not in the direction he wanted. (Update: as you can see from the discussion with a knowledgable fan in the comments, there are different views on this.)

The author further submits the possibility, and I tend to agree, that the Zira and Cornelius of the third film may not even be from the same timeline as the first and second film; since it seems so unlikely that they could have located the sunken spaceship, retreived it, repaired it and launched it into space, even with Milo's help. Their technology just wasn't that advanced. The many attempts to catalog the timeline testify to the inconsistencies found in the movies; the carelessness of the writers force us fans into some strange contortions to justify the timeline of the films, indeed! Continuity was not a strong point of the franchise's producers. One thing is certain; we fans have given it much, much more thought than they ever did when creating it. Maybe we should set our brains in "nuetral" and just pop some popcorn and enjoy the films for the light entertainment they were intended to be...

Speaking of timelines, here is one that tracks various events in the real world relative to the production of the Apes franchise and various items associated with it. It's exhaustive, and informative, but ultimately depressing to me, to see how many people that contributed in some way to the Apes story have passed away.

1975 "Space:1999" Premiere Review

Below is an article I clipped from the September 11, 1975 edition of the Miami Herald. I lived in Ft. Lauderdale at the time, and although I was a fervent dyed-in-the-wool Trekkie, I enjoyed other good sci-fi series also. This is one of several articles I clipped about it, and I'll post more in the future. The author was withholding judgement on it until he saw more, and I'm sure he felt as I did that it was too dry and hard to follow. It's significant that it took bringing in the man that screwed up Trek's third season, Fred Frieberger, to bring it at least up to a level of action and characterization to improve the second season. Even then it never equalled or surpassed Trek as it's promoters bragged it would; at least in my opinion. Although the effects were superb, I enjoyed the earlier effort "U.F.O." more.

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Below is an earlier article, clipped from The Macon telegraph, about the upcoming show. It was this one article that, more than any other, predjudiced me against the new program. Replace "Star Trek"? Never! I would have been more open to it if every article about it didn't compare it to Trek. Here's an article from my other blog that does the exact same thing on a bigger scale.

Below are a couple of ads, one for an interview with the stars and another for the show itself, taken from the same publicity photo.

1975 "Cracked" Planet Of The Apes TV show spoof

In 1975, I was 16 years young, and the biggest thing in my life at that time (aside from Star Trek) was the Apes movies and the new TV series based on them. I was excited to find this "Cracked" magazine, issue #123, in March of that year, and read it as I walked back home. The cover art and the inside spoof were done by Severin, as usual with his spot-on caricatures and accurately detailed costumes and sets. The cover, oddly enough, is from the movie, protraying Zira, Cornelius and Lucius, along with a couple of gorillas, whereas the inside parody was of the TV show. But that was alright by me, being an ardent Zira-lover as I was (and still am).

Bonus: Below, a two-page poster from the teen magazine "Spec," once again bought in 1974 at a corner 7-11 using the excuse of buying it for my (non-existent) little sister. I'm sure the clerk was used to hearing that from me after awhile as I bought teen girl's mags for whatever genre nugget I found in them. Humiliating it might have been, but nothing stopped me from my collecting, not even "the step-father" who was constantly on my case about it, irritatedly demanding "when are you going to grow up?" Well, "daddy-o," sorry to disappoint, but here I am at 50 years old and I still haven't.