The now-defunct DuMont Television Network's Captain Video and His Video Rangers was a hugely popular television series which ran from 1949-1955. A Primetime show airing from 7PM-7:30PM Monday through Friday, it was a big hit with kids and adults alike. It is said that Adlai Stevenson, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, refused to schedule a speech during the same time slot as Captain Video fearing not enough people would watch his speech. The show was broadcast live and by today's standards was utterly laughable, but it - along with other shows like Tom Corbett Space Cadet and Rocky Jones Space Ranger - were pioneers in the television Sci-Fi genre. The plots were thin or non-existent, the $25 budget for props made it a challenge to produce things like ray guns (one of which was made in part with a car muffler), and an early cast of only three actors, made this a fascinating early television show to read about.
Being live meant that shows generally weren't recorded for posterity. Videotape wasn't invented until 1951 and was certainly not in industry-wide use during the early '50s. Prior to that, saving broadcasts for posterity was accomplished using the kinescope method - essentially filming a broadcast by placing a movie camera in front of a television screen thus allowing the broadcast to be saved on film. Later in the series run, the writing would improve as scripts were being written by such notable authors as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark. Also interesting was the fact that a young Ernest Borgnine was cast member for a while before gaining great notoriety in Hollywood.
By the 1950s, collaborative efforts between television networks, breakfast cereal companies, and toy companies would see the beginning of very cool and very fascinating toys hitting the market - a boon and a challenge to us toy collector's as so many early toys ended up tossed in the garbage. Fortunately, a lot still survive and in this next little mini-series I'm going to post what few I have.
Lido offered a series of small spaceships (of which I only have four types) and a series of aliens and spacemen as tie-ins. They were available as separate sale items as well as being included in T. Cohn's Captain Video Space Port playset which combined a beautiful tin-litho space port with plastic accessories. Lido apparently got a lot of run time with their Captain Video toys as this photo attests. This was bear-shaped birthday cake my mom made for me in 1963 surrounded by Lido spaceships and alien figures! I'd love to latch-on to a cardboard spaceship like the one shown at the far left!! Enjoy! Opa Fritz
The first ship we'll cover is called the 'Pursuit Ship' and while taking the photos I made sure to match the removable guns and gear to the artwork on the boxes as shown in the graphic above. Over the years, all these different parts get taken off, mixed up, or broken, and assembling them correctly becomes a challenge. Of course, once the photo taking is over-&-done I can mix and match to my heart's content and just have fun playing with them!! This ship measures: 4" (10.16cm) L x 1.75"(4.44cm) W x 1.5" (3.81cm) H and is equipped with a ray gun array and a radar. As was common for toys of that era, the pieces that make up the spaceship were molded in all colors of the rainbow!
