Jason of Star Command

Jonathan Harris was supposed to play Commander Gampu on "Jason of Star Command", as this was to be a spin-off of his series "Space Academy". In a personal interview, Harris related that while the stories about his demand for higher pay was not wrong, but also not completely accurate. According to Harris, Filmation planned to film the series like an old movie serial, with each episode running about 15 minutes. "Space Academy" was a half hour series, and Harris was asked to recreate his role of Gampu for half the money he was paid on "Space Academy". He felt just because they cut the running time in half, the producers felt they could get him for half the money. So when Lou Scheimer said he would have no problem getting Harris because they were friends, this meant that he thought he could con Harris into taking less money and save on his production costs. Harris refused to take the paid cut and James Doohan was brought in as a replacement character.

The first season was originally presented in sixteen 15-minute chapters, with scenes from the previous week, a cliffhanger, and scenes from the next installment. When aired in later foreign syndiation (1990s), all first season segments were combined into 8 half-hour episodes with the first half's end credits and second half's beginning credits being removed, though all "chapter" title screens were retained. The "scenes from next week" were also removed from the first half of the "new" 30-minute episodes.

Follows Space Academy (1977)