Space Patrol

"Space Patrol" (a.k.a. "Planet Patrol" for U.S. release) was a children's cartoon show with puppet marionettes. The concept was an interplanetary organization of men and women from Earth, Mars and Venus, patrolling the Solar System to maintain the peace in the year 2100.

What distinguished this series from others of its ilk was the thought that went into it. The characters had real personalities. The futuristic Headquarters City was well done despite the cheap budget, with individual personal vehicles traveling thru transparent tubes to be automatically guided to their final destination. The spaceship wasn't the usual rocket ship, but something innovative: a "Galasphere" that looked vaguely like a kid's gyroscope toy, that made weird humming sounds as it sailed thru space. (Those humming sounds became the theme song for the TV series.)

The plots and sets were surprisingly dark for a children's show, in the style of "Outer Limits." One plot concerned aliens from Neptune (I think) conspiring to take over the minds of Earthlings and eventually "conquer the Earth leaders". Another dealt with a plot to subvert Earth's currency by counterfeiting huge quantities of Earth money. Even the backdrops were dark--the sky over the Headquarters City was usually dark, dreary overcast rather than bright and sunny.

Could have been a great show with a bigger budget.

This was a quite different and quirky SF puppet production done on the cheap. I am really looking forward to the videos because it will be so evocative of my childhood. There was never anything like it before or after - I don't think it can even be compared with Fireball XL5. Fantastic.

I regret I don't recall much of this show, and I have no knowledge of it ever being rebroadcast or issued on video, but I believe it tried to be technically accurate in its predictions of foreseeable future technology. For example, the spaceships ('galaspheres' - spelling?) were toroidal, and rotated to simulate gravity. I also have an idea that they used suspended animation on long trips (journey times never seemed to be more than a couple of hours in Fireball XL5!), but can't be certain of that. In response to the question "why 39 episodes?": I believe that TV series are/were often commissioned for 13-week 'seasons', so 39 episodes = 3 series/seasons.

Space Patrol is not something I would spend much time on these days, but it has the distinction of being the earliest TV programme I remember from the early 60s. For years I racked my brains trying to remember what it was called. Some elements were quite futuristic. One thing I recalled was the Galasphere - in space there is no reason apart from the aesthetic why a spaceship should have the more traditional rocket shape. Travel on earth is by a vehicle inside a tube, now recognisable as a hyperloop.

The most memorable aliens are the effeminate but ruthless Neptunians with their imperious demands for slaves. If Space Patrol is ever on TV again the Neptune related episodes would probably need to be accompanied by trigger warnings to avoid upsetting easily offended snowflakes. That's even supposing outright cancellation can be avoided.

I don't remember this first time round but it's just started to be shown on Talking Pictures TV in the UK (As Space Patrol) so get over there quick!

Looks like a mid 1950s effort rather than ten years later but I love it. A few gadgets used so far, including "the plasticiser" and I can't wait to see lots more. A very nice model city but the cars don't half whizz along the roads a bit too quickly for the scale of it, but as it's set in 2100 they may be Tesla's Model 30, or nuclear powered is more probable.

Great fun which even the young may enjoy now but there is no colour which might spoil it a bit for them.