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Just thinking about an old short-lived TV show I enjoyed, and wondering how many of you remember it. I believe it ran on ABC around 1979. This is one of those shows that I describe to people at work and they just look at me like they think I dreamed the whole thing.

Andy Griffith played a scrapyard dealer who gathered together some experts and built his own rocket to visit the moon, with the idea of salvaging the valuable hardware left there by the Apollo missions. It's a goofy idea, and not very profitable when you think about it, but it was fun. I think they even might have used some 'onconventional' theories to make possible the flight in a single-stage craft with little fuel.

I got a kick out of the original TV movie, but the series was doomed from the beginning. I mean, how many stories can you do about a junkman with his own rocket? It's already been to the moon, and there ain't many possibilities in earth orbit. Special effects cost money too. Eventually, they were just using the rocket for jobs better suited to a plane, then finally relegating it to the background and doing standard adventure stories. Very much the same thing that happened with Whiz Kids - the writers couldn't get enough variety out of the gimmick and started writing around it. The show was then mercifully put out of its misery.

Anybody else remember this show?

I do, and my memories lie entirely with your own.  Another problem was that the Andy Griffith character could never really hit a humoungous score, since then he'd be in a position to retire.

The movie was fun though.  I still think that the greatest untapped video source is TV movies.

Anyone else remember the pre-CSI series UNSUB, with David Soul and M. Emmet Walsh?

I posted about this show over at Gerry;s Legion of Muck winner Scifilm.  I remember the TV movie being a real hoot, but the show after was a real let down (we watched a few episodes and just gave up, if I remember correctly they never went back to space - and expensive special effects - but just salvaged the usual adventure series stuff).  Still I hope that the movie gets a DVD release someday, I would like to see if it is good as I remember it to be.

Yeah. The movies was fun, but the plot never took the idea to its full potential. If i'd made such a breakthru discovery, i'd be selling space rides, and auctioning off cargo space to beat the band. Now, conciter the plot inherint in such : Goverment agencys trying to glom on to the secret propulsion system...arguments and legal wrangles over intellectual property rights.....the stars characters getting effected by the fame and palaver. Handled adriotly, it could have been a good, true, Sci-Fi show. Hummm....it could always be re-made, ya' know.................................................

That was, I suppose, the biggest flaw in the show, besides the design of the ship (which did look cool even if it would never fly). TV writers of the 70s didn't forsee the significance of simply achieving the first commercial space flight.

The Vulture shouldn't have been gathering dust while Harry and the gang went looking for buried treasure. They could have charged any price for space tourism, launched and retrieved satellites, done any number of things. That is not even considering book deals, movie deals, product endorsements, speaking engagements and corporate contracts. I'm sure the government would also have some interest beyond sending some FBI agent to be a thorn in Harry's side.

Salvaging Apollo junk wouldn't have paid much. I recall the reasoning was that NASA spent billions on the equipment. That doesn't mean it's worth anything as scrap. Maybe it would make money as memerobilia. Melt down the Eagle and mint it into collector coins, made from metal that actually landed Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in 1969.

Still, what killed the show has to be the lack of potential TV adventures that use a rocket, at least one that can go no further than the moon. Hard to write a different story each week that has the gang flying into orbit for some reason. The writers should at least have forseen that.

>if I remember correctly they never went back to space

 Actually, if I remember correctly, there was an episode about them being asked to save a stranded space shuttle because they could get their rocket ready to launch faster than NASA could.

 Interestingly, epguides.com says that there are 4 episodes of the second season that were never aired.

I used to watch it religiously, but you  nailed it.  Only so many stories you could do with the concept.   Unfortunately that show was responsible for me nearly removing myself from the gene pool as i attempted to construct my own rocket out of household junk.  Yes i survived,  but Mom's washer was never quite the same.

Just to keep this thread going, what other shows did everone enjoy that were doomed from the beginning by a great gimmick that the writers simply couldn't make a series out of.

I already mentioned Whiz Kids. Hot on the heels of War Games, a weekly adventure/comedy about a bunch of hacker kids was a natural. The first episodes were great fun, with Richie hacking various computers and wreaking hilarious havok on the bad guys. Of course, how many weeks can you do that? The hacking went to the background, and soon the computer was little more than window dressing for stories that, if we were lucky, were somewhat related to modern technology.

It was rather like what, for me, was the jump-the-shark moment for the A-team. When the big elaborate battles with home-made weapons gave way to standard shoot-em-up climaxes.

Other ideas?

Jump The Shark