Thus, the model which we saw flying sideways was in fact ``flying'' nose down, with the camera sideways.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| THE GALAXY II--- | ||||||||||||||||
| In March of 1953, Captain Video came up with his greatest space vehicle of them all, which he continued to use until the end, in April 1955. This was the Galaxy II, a lovely craft which is somewhat reminiscent of the designs favored by Wally Wood in the immortal EC science fiction comics, WEIRD SCIENCE and WEIRD FANTASY. Naturally, the Captain needed a new space jeep as well. One interesting thing about the Galaxy II cockpit is that we only saw it from a considerable distance; Captain Video and the Ranger sat on something invisible inside a large canopy suggested by MacDonald-like arches, facing completely invisible controls. But the scale of the set was large, and during "flight" the camera moved up and down, and from side to side in a gentle, irregular swaying that very cheaply and very effectively gave the illusion of space flight. We have never found a photo of the Galaxy II cockpit/canopy, but photos of various versions of the lovely plastic model of the Galaxy II, which was about 14 inches long, have been showing up often enough lately that we can share some with you. | ||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||
| The Galaxy II on the spaceport launching pad. | ||||||||||||||||
| The Galaxy II on a distant planet. | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
| The Captain's landings were sometimes far from perfect. | ||||||||||||||||
| The nifty space jeep that the Galaxy II carried. (There was a full-scale mockup that matched this model fairly well, though far from exactly.) | ||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
| Artwork by Tom Powers and Rory Coker shows the mighty Galaxy II as we remember it. On TV, the Galaxy II had three neat, compact exhaust flames which looked like natural gas pilot lights! Thus, the model which we saw flying sideways was in fact ``flying'' nose down, with the camera sideways. |
||||||||||||||||
| The only photo I have of the Galaxy II interior shows one of the back rooms. Note that DuMont could now afford a real metal ladder for the set. (Click on the photo to go to a new page, about the first Captain Video, Richard Coogan.) | ||||||||||||||||