One of my favorite shows as a kid was The Time Tunnel. Broadcast on ABC for 30 episodes from 1966-1967, The show starred James Darren, Robert Colbert and Lee Meriwether, all of whom are still alive as of the writing of this post. The show followed the adventures of Darren and Colbert as they randomly appeared at different periods in time. For a kid interested in both history and science fiction this series was a double treat. All of the episodes can be found on YouTube and I am surprised how well they hold up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrGPmJSxdvk
Bonus:Â Another role Lee Meriwether was playing back in 1966:
She played Catwoman in the 1966 Batman movie.
Some of the sets are a homages to the Krell machine in the movie Forbidden Planet.
I truly enjoyed all Irwin Allen’s TV shows. Sadly there are no more like them and haven’t been for a very long time. I miss them: Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (my inspiration to become a submarine reactor operator), and Lost in Space. Obviously, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was my favorite. And yes, Adm. Nelson was supposed to be a fictional portrayal of Adm. Hyman G. Rickover. I am not sure if Adm. Rickover appreciated the compliment. Of course I never got to meet Adm. Nelson (Richard Basehart), but I did get to meet Adm. Rickover on sea trials of the USS Jacksonville SSN-699. God has been good to me that I got to “voyage to the bottom of the sea” and meet the man after whom a childhood hero of mine had been modelled (albeit imperfectly).
Heavy winter fog could obscure the edges of our school yard in Daly City, CA, and we would play Time Machine at recess.
On “Voyage”: Maybe Bezos’ next feat could be the first flying sub!
Or maybe Bezos could use his billions to pay for a time machine to be invented, so he and Zuckerberg can go back to 1939 Germany and stay there. I’m sure they would be happy. /sarc off
BTW, not directly related to this post, but since we are talking about Irwin Allen’s TV shows (one of which was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), there are some interesting Catholic-related tidbits about Adm. Rickover (after whom the Seaview’s Adm. Nelson was somewhat modelled). He had married Ruth Dorothy Masters in 1932. They had one son, Robert Masters. Ruth died in 1972. Then in 1974 he married Eleonore Ann Bednowicz, a devout Polish Catholic Naval Nurse Captain. Now remember: Rickover was a Russian Jew. So fathom this (yes, pun intended), knowing that Poles and Russians, Catholics and Jews are sometimes at odds: a Russian Jew and a Polish Catholic got married and stayed that way till he died on July 8th, 1986 (I was a little less than one month out of the drug rehab at that time). Eleonore herself died this past July 5th, 2021. Here is here obituary:
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/chicagotribune/name/eleonore-rickover-obituary?id=6047197
There’s a lot of history in nuclear power, Donald! The differences that Adm. Rickover and Dr. Alvin Weinberg of Oak Ridge National Laboratory had were awesome. 😉 😉 😉
By the way, Adm. Rickover was called the “kindly old gentleman” precisely because he was NOT kind at all. You either did nuclear power the right way (his way, which actually turned out to be the right way, much to Weinberg’s consternation – but that’s another story), or you got the frack out of the way. He said that appointing nit wit Jimmy Carter to be a nuclear submarine officer was his worst and only mistake, and I think he was right.
PS, a Virginia class nuclear powered submarine is names after the man behind my childhood hero: USS Hyman G. Rickover (SSN795).
All these memories from Irwin Allen’s fantasy TV shows.