CBC's Space Command 1953-1954 sci-fi series

CBC Television's single remaining 1953 episode of "Space Command" (with James Doohan among others - not to be confused with "Jason of Space Command")

[@outerrealm]

These scenes remind me of playing “spaceship” with my brothers in the basement, where I lined up chairs, drew TV screens on the back of them, and would shut out the lights to simulate space. I tried to emulate the look of these shows. Great memory.

[@brennanmoore2593]

Thanks so much for uploading this my late grandfather played Frank Anderson and he would have loved to see this on youtube :)

[@bonshaugh]

Glad to be able to post it. I'm saddened by the fact that this is the only extant episode. The scripts for the other episodes don't seem to exist either. A shame the CBC didn't consider conservation of these early TV shows.

[@lindamuvic8110]

Really impressive series! Your grandfather and the rest of the cast really did an excellent job, Thank you for his service.

[@YDDES]

The early TV shows were mostly sent ”live”, so not much recorded material exists. I have read somewhere that the actors had to play several different parts. For example earthlings and aliens in the same show

[@garfieldsmith332]

@@bonshaugh The series was aired live and only Kinescopes were made. Sadly like a lot of early Television the shows are long gone. Even later when TV used video tape the tapes were erased. At least one episode of this survived.

[@jessewilley531]

@@lindamuvic8110 I don't think a lot of people outside of Canada (like myself) would have heard of it, if not for James Doohan.

[@peterlutz7191]

Wow! What a gem from the past!, Wish there were more episodes available.

[@mowman1423]

All I can say is thank you for sharing this lost classic

[@ZENmud]

❤️❤️🍀❤️❤️ James presented "The Trouble with Tribbles" to a CU Boulder amphitheatre audience, in Spring 1979; I'm the Film Studies student who trailed out behind him, and found him alone: he graciously endured my questions, offered deep insights for at least 10 minutes. ❤️ We were the only two there when it began: I never once looked away... but when I did look up, there were 60 to 100 people (silent!), straining to hear every word. We talked about his success in redrafting "the Engineer" to be Scottish, not the severe German that Roddenberry had written in; talked about 'time from script arrival to shooting to airing' and other fascinations... 🍀🍀

[@davidlivigni9072]

I was there too thanks for the memories!

[@securityrobot]

I like the way the steps were kicked back into position, and the firework shoved inside the model 🚀

[@mrdovie47]

Growing up in Detroit in the 50s we could tune in the CBC just across the river from us.

[@CZeke]

This is the first time I've ever had to wonder which actor in a scene was Jimmy Doohan. It's old footage, the characters all look pretty similar, and Doohan was a master of voices, so the sound doesn't give it away. But there's an easy solution -- check which actor is hiding his right hand! Doohan lost his middle finger on D-Day, and by the time this was filmed, he'd clearly already mastered keeping his right hand out of the shot whenever possible so viewers couldn't tell.

[@bonshaugh]

Good observation!

[@philrosebery]

The hair style is a la Star Trek though.

[@mnirwin5112]

Thanks for the heads-up. I kept waiting for the Scottish accent! 😆

[@blueindigo1000]

Given the limitations of the TV technology of the time, this is really a pretty good story, well presented and acted. I am impressed! I am sorry there are no other episodes. Thank you for this, truly a lost gem.

[@demetriussherman476]

There were many good radio and television programs before Star Trek with captains and crews in space. Why didn't ABC or CBS make such a series at the same time Star Trek was on the air?

[@jedgould5531]

Yes, hilarious. Going from exoplanet to exoplanet like they are doing shopping errands, crew not being compatibility screened, illegally used Perry Mason music snippets. And guns! Hail Canada!

[@michaelhewitt258]

Still very entertaining Even after 70 years

[@VirtualVikki]

Wow! I never thought I would ever get to see any of this! Amazing!

[@kensolar69]

Only surviving episode out of 151.

[@martintheriault5673]

"We found a planet" (Doohan whispers "a ship") ...keep rolling, blooper reels have not been invented yet 😆

[@tsm688]

Hahaha, I love that it's not perfect. I was wondering if it was an error or an attempt to make the guy look younger but probably just an error...

[@mottledbrain]

I just found this on Wikipedia: " Doohan and Shatner both appeared on the 1950s Canadian science fiction series Space Command. " en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Doohan#Early_acting_career

[@kensolar69]

Shatner also did western cowboy TV with DeForest Kelley 2-3 times. In one they were close friends and gang members. Shatner was the young gun with a bad attitude and Kelly was the seasoned tough guy keeping him in line.

[@jbarnhart2653]

@@kensolar69 Shatner and Nimoy were in an Outer Limits episode together. Watched it on YT a while ago...

[@marcziegenhain8420]

Scotty has given her all she's got.

[@LiLi-or2gm]

@6:44 "That's gotta be a space-warp drive . . ." for 1953, that's a pretty interesting bit of script.

[@melnikhoogland7545]

And spoken by a future Chief Engineer of a space-warp drive spaceship too.

[@larrywprice2]

Warp drive was a common concept in written sci-fi at this time. In short, not a new idea.

[@jonnyz5772]

@@larrywprice2 who originally coined it, Larry?

[@tsm688]

@@larrywprice2 but it remained a mystery

[@pontimaniac2303]

Yes Wharp Drive , Larry , who did coin it? I wish we could see all the episodes.

[@kelvyquayo]

It’s amazing to imagine WW2 was still going on 7 years before this…. No time at all..

[@TheTwick]

“We’ve been out here for centuries” This must be set in the 23rd Century. So, when does Scotty (Phil) transfer to Star Fleet? This show aired 13 March, 1953 to 29 May, 1954 (according to IMDB). They had “shaking the camera” down to a fine art. 😅 Toronto, of course, who else in Canada would have its own space program?

[@marcziegenhain8420]

He joined Starfleet in 2241.

[@amcken9316]

Shakey camera more likely a result of the kinescope, rather than the original cameraman.

[@DavidLS1]

Those early spaceships sure were roomy.

[@lindamuvic8110]

Can’t believe that’s James Doohan sitting in that chair, and that he was born in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada.

[@somewhere6]

Born in Vancouver, went to high school in Sarnia.

[@lindamuvic8110]

somewhere6 Opps my bad.

[@johnbockelie3899]

James Doohan , Space Command, Star Trek , & Space Academy. Star Trek movies. Unbelievable. Thank you,Mr.Doohan.

[@howardkerr8174]

James Doohan would also appear as an engineer on an episode of HAZEL.

[@primmoore6232]

@@johnbockelie3899 AND he was a real-life fighter pilot in the war! Jimmy was always up in the air.

[@terrydanks]

An old one here. I watched this series on our first TV. Strangely, I definitely recall theme music quite different to this ??

[@chrisddawson]

Enjoyed this! Thanks for posting

[@jmmahony]

2:50 "26,000 billion miles away" and 3:13 "very close to Proxima Centauri". Wow, they actually got the distance to Proxima Centauri correct. Impressive scientific accuracy for 1950's TV sci-fi.

[@douggraham5082]

The camera operator was nicknamed, "shaky."

[@michaelbutt5978]

I love how the one guy's reactions to everything is "WhaaT?!

[@antonnym214]

Wonderful! What a find! "Space Command Earth to XSW1." Haha! Uhura would have got through.

[@thomassutherland2647]

X for Space X.. oh no.. not the "Simpsons effect"! 😮😂

[@bonshaugh]

Someone pointed out that the name on this video made it hard to find. Sorry about that - but it is fixed now.

[@kalskag8496]

Thank you, Mr. Scott.

[@cindylawrence1515]

You can tell this is a Canadian star ship three ways: 1) Everyone is even tempered and polite 2) The star ship has a cargo hold filled with maple leaves for distribution around the universe 3) condition #1 is true because there are no Francophones aboard....

[@spockboy]

9:52 Scotty!!! Thanks for the upload. : )

[@garfieldsmith332]

26,000 billion miles. (26 Trillion) and all that way by rocket motor. Love the painted dials, the loose steps. the fireworks rocket motor. Back then this was pure excitement for any kid. We had TV back then but too young to remember it.

[@kensolar69]

Yep. The days of TV shows on a radio budget. In 1953 I doubt more than 12-13% of households had a TV and this was Canadian.

[@garfieldsmith332]

@@kensolar69 Yes. Only 1 Canadian station back then. CBC (CBLT in Toronto). And those close to the border could pick up the 3 U.S. channels through their Buffalo affiliates. In 1954 there were one million TV sets in Canada mostly Quebec and Ontario.

[@tsm688]

@@garfieldsmith332 Huh. Does that mean the prairies had no TV at all? ...Probably did. It's weird how late everything happened in the prairies.

[@garfieldsmith332]

@@tsm688 Yes no TV and also in northern Canada. CBC was set up so it could eventually broadcast all over Canada. The CBC TV channel also was broadcast on radio so those with no TV could at least listen to the TV shows. And all B&W TVs. I still remember ice trucks in the major city of Toronto in the late 1959\0s. Not everyone had a refrigerator.

[@tsm688]

@@garfieldsmith332 Thanks for the info. My grandparents still remember tilling the soil with horses. Saskatchewan was a world apart in those days.

[@1980hackett]

I wonder why all the camera cards are crooked? Probably distortion from the warp drive

[@alvinprettyman1802]

thanks for posting

[@metaspherz]

Billions of miles from Earth using only rocket power and yet their technology was so advanced that they could communicate instantly with Earth Command! I won't mention the fact -- okay I will -- that they must have started the journey to Proxima Centauri when they were still embryos too, even at 7000 miles per second. At that speed, the crew was pressed against their chairs which they said were 8Gs. Imagine the entire journey at that speed. Nobody could've survived under those conditions for very long. Also, what did they use for food and water? I like how at the end special effects used what appears to be a fire extinguisher exhaust blown at the Space Command title. These old shows are precious...kind of makes me wonder 70 years from now how our current sci-fi shows will hold up under future scrutiny?

[@bonshaugh]

Also note that their communications technology hadn't advanced beyond rotary dial handsets. One wonders what the long distance dial-up to Proxima Centauri was.

[@tsm688]

We excuse radio in Star Wars but not this? They were smart in not talking too much about technology. We can handwave it however we like, and they aren't forced to speak 30 minutes of straight technobabble.

[@metaspherz]

@@tsm688 LOL! Rockets and radios are a far cry from sublight drives and hyperdrives with electromagnetic propulsion! In Star Wars, a subspace transceiver, also known as a subspace comm and hyper-transceiver, was a standard device used for instantaneous, faster-than-light communications between nearby systems. Similar to its shorter-ranged cousin, the com-link, the subspace transceiver relied on energy to broadcast signals. Starships carried these units to broadcast distress signals and other important messages. They used subspace as the communications medium. The subspace transceiver of an Imperial Star Destroyer had a range of 100 light-years.

[@tsm688]

@@metaspherz All that post-hoc justification was invented almost 20 years after the movie :D :D They just talked, and nobody cared how.

[@johncarper2816]

Interesting, thanks for posting. The look suggests a budget on a par with Rocky Jones or Tom Corbett, but this takes the material a bit more seriously. Radio science fiction at this time was adapting stories by the likes of Heinlein or Asimov and this seems to be trying to appeal to that audience more than just kids. Some pretty interesting shot composition when the one crewman goes down into the guts of the ship as well.

[@blueindigo1000]

It reminded me of Star Trek and the Jeffery's tube.

[@tsm688]

I am shocked by how not-dumb this is, not just by 1950's space opera standards but by modern standards. It acknowledges things like relative velocity, and barely makes up any words at all. About the only anachronism is the corded telephones.

[@KJTV67]

Once again Scotty saves the day!

[@kensolar69]

Um, that was Anderson, Robert Barclay. Phil, Doohan was sitting in his chair with the dead controls.

[@garfieldsmith332]

Had a second look at it really looks like being on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The similarities to to Star trek are there in the bridge scenes.

[@STho205]

That may be wishful thinking on your part. Their bridge looked like an industrial boiler room supervisors station with three recliners. The Enterprise bridge was a modernized version of the set in "Forbidden Planet" and the kid show "Rocky Jones Space Ranger" which had the same set designer as the two pilots of ST.

[@garfieldsmith332]

@@STho205 Big laidback captains chair, steps, controls at the stations, captains chair sort of centered. Dials that do nothing. Similar ideas to ST. In fact a lot of early sets from movies and shows had similar layouts, not identical but similar. This was 3 years before Forbidden Planet and one year before Rocky Jones. And it was filmed by the CBC in Toronto on a thinner than shoestring budget. it may have been filmed in the boiler room at the CBC.

[@STho205]

@@garfieldsmith332 no the design similarities don't exist in comparison. The ST crew mostly sat in armless 1960s futurist Tulip Chairs. The captain's chair was a swivel executive desk chair without recline ever shown. The US TV show with a flight deck that looked closest to this was Lost In Space, Jupiter II....including all the levers, control boxes on the walls and short open temporary looking stairs. This looks industrial factory room in style, as did the Jupiter 2.

[@STho205]

@@garfieldsmith332 your point of it looking like the Enterprise is that it is a copy. Noting the dates is illogical in that context, as ST design was in 1964/65. It was originally piloted from MGM prop surplus which meant Forbidden Planet...the round flight deck, the railings, the officer stations (looking like desks), the lifts and double sliding doors. Rocky Jones had the very same viewscreen as the two pilot episodes. The globe Astrogator in Lost in Space came from Forbidden Planet directly, and the filming ship model maker was the same prop shop....thus the flying saucer looked similar.

[@paulbenson4809]

Where you find this chestnut sofi fanatic never seen before

[@bonshaugh]

I went through my records (Gmail) as best I could but it looks like I got this video in prehistoric times (prior to 2005) when I was using a different email server. Well the story is that I saw someone had included some shots from this video on Facebook and I inquired where I might get a copy (I wish I could remember who the gentleman was). Anyhow he said, he'd send me a copy and so he did. I tried to upload it onto KZbin but failed miserably until March of 2015. The source of the copy that the other gentleman sent me was a replay of this episode on a Canadian television channel (probably the old SPACE channel) - you can tell from the Maple Leaf on the PG rating tab. These is also a copy in the Canadian archives.

[@louisborselio8608]

That would be Jason of STAR Command. Not Space Command

[@kelvyquayo]

@06:41 He was always a lover of that warp drive 😂

[@ewaf88]

So they also had subspace radio in those days for realtime reporting

[@ewaf88]

I think 26 thousand billion miles is about 4.4 light years so Proxima Centurai would certainly be near. I'd love to know what rocket fuel they were using

[@caseyjonessnr1200]

Nice to see the Vulcan Bomber at the end of the episode. 29:39

[@djpass-mi4bi]

"It's a bakery!" If you don't find the show interesting, the closed captions are hilarious.

[@kmwynn6718]

ouch no more eps. is a crime

[@valueofnothing2487]

Better than Star Trek Picard.

[@thecaptain6730]

🎯🖖

[@peanut1001x]

watching paint dry is better than anything with Picard

[@toddkrueger1585]

‘An Alien spaceship, I bet their not from earth.’

[@txsraappraiser]

`great!

[@bryanttillman]

Bill is SCOTTY!!!

[@lennyernquist1246]

Wow

[@anthonybarlow5955]

Why would anyone confuse the two

[@bonshaugh]

Well one WAS in colour

[@barryflick54]

I think it plays just like star trek....without Roddenberry.....

[@leftyxbuffalo]

Very cool to see this! By the way, that would be "Jason of Star Command", not Space Command.

[@tonyshort1623]

Why don't they release this tv out the public

[@jonnyz5772]

6:40 - now we know where star trek got its space warp drive and antigravity from!

[@peanut1001x]

yep

[@howardkerr8174]

Ok, so this was obviously done on a shoe string budget, I can accept that. I only have one question: why do our intrepid space pioneers look like they got lost on their way to a Thanksgiving re-enactment? The uniforms don't look at all functional and they don't look like anything seen in any other space travel adventure.

[@kensolar69]

1953, Canadian. This predates almost all TV space opera and even most movies. And shoe-string would be a step up from what they had. Before this it was Flash Gordon and such. Except for the shin pieces I thought the uniforms looked pretty modern for the day. Not much different from some used years later with a budget. Check out early "Space Patrol" One of the few TV space show before this, I think. Their early uniforms were worse.

[@STho205]

Blokes In Spaaaaaace Wonder if they fit a beer joint, doughnut shop and bowling alley in the ship...

[@tonyshort1623]

Maybe one day they will release this tv series

[@klopferator]

This is the only surviving episode. What should they release?

[@tonyshort1623]

@klopferator it's a shame would have loved to seen william shatner

[@cindys1819]

Commander to earth base: Earth, we have found that for some reason, space here is littered with Maple Leaves.....

[@dungeoneering1974]

13 years before Star Trek! William Shatner was on this show too, some other episode

[@bonshaugh]

Yes he was... don't know how many appearances he made though. He was only a guest actor whereas James Doohan was part of the regular cast. A shame that neither any other episodes nor scripts from the series still exist.

[@peanut1001x]

awesome

[@antonyandrerenaissanceart977]

Canada has some great programming in both movies and animation... Blues bro Akroyd is a Canadian...bon jovi is one, Neil Young and so many more greats

[@alcoholic2412]

Don't forget William Shatner

[@trollking99]

Bon Jovi? I don't think so.

[@amcken9316]

Phil X of Bon Jovi was born in Toronto. Perhaps that is the Canadian connection.

[@cold10er]

@@amcken9316 John is from jersey

[@stevenpilling5318]

Jimmy Doohan!

[@cbalducc]

Which one is Doohan?

[@bonshaugh]

Phil Mitchell is played by James Doohan (Phil is the one sleeping at his console at the beginning of the episode).

[@jasonpoe5360]

Nice, but I don’t see much in common with ST.

[@lindamuvic8110]

Jason Poe It has James Doohan playing the character in the back chair. It was his first series, years before he played Scotty in the original Star Trek series.

[@MICHGO1]

NO ONE ON THE BRIDGE EVER LOOKED BORED ON ENTERPRISE.

[@levonpoe]

Aileen Taylor was HOT!

[@vicesquadpunk]

I love the fact that space travel and exploration by this time is regarded as boring 😂

[@Nash55ppp]

Canada of the 1950s

[@MICHGO1]

THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES EVERYONE LOOKS BORED, NOT A GREAT WAY TO GARNER INTEREST IN THE REST OF THE EPISODE.

[@kelvyquayo]

Man. You know Scotty was happy to move from this nincompoop captain onto James Kirk.

[@SaintLawrence777]

This would of made a good series

[@CaptZdq1]

It was a series. This was the only surviving episode.

[@Chris-ut6eq]

Ahhh, so little Donny T. said to himself, when I become president I want to be commander in chief of Space Command.

[@GeorgePaul-jk5pc]

Sorry. Don't remember this show

[@panchovcarlo]

It was OK, but I still think SPACE PATROL is better.

[@Neilcapri]

Captain larry dart, huskey and slim. Galasphere 347.

[@charlesforbin6937]

I SPY JAMES 'SCOTTY' DOHAN.....Captain Scotty???........Haaaaaaaa!

[@peanut1001x]

Roddenberry certainly copied a lot of stuff

[@Franklin-pc3xd]

Amazing how much the Star Trek team plagiarized from this.

[@tsm688]

I am shocked by how not-dumb this is, not just by space opera standards but by 1950's sci fi standards. 12 minutes in and they haven't even made up any words

[@Rightlydividing-wx1xb]

Dr who

[@kevinmccarthy8746]

WOW, this guy is a real rude person. Demanding this and that to be done. Constantly interrupting her with a ORDER to be done.

[@Thirdgen83]

Sheesh this is boring!