Salvage I

[AndyC]

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?

[Ken Begg]

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?

[Chadzilla]

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.

[Flangepart]

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.................................................

[AndyC]

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.

[John]

>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.

[Redjack]

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.

[AndyC]

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?

[Jay O'Connor]

http://www.jumptheshark.com/>Jump The Shark

[Jay O'Connor]

OK, why doesn't my HTML show up right anymore?


FWIW - The TV show a few years ago with the premise of a computer generated person (and a really cool car) that fought crime or something.  He could only go out at night because apparently too much power was being used in the city during the day.

They kinda ran out of ways to write the stories with him only being around at night

[AndyC]

Ah, that would be Automan. Never got to see much of that one.

There almost ought to be a Jump the Shark category for shows that revolve too much around a gimmick.

Gimmicks can work, but only if they don't limit the writers. Look at Knight Rider. Heroes can have cool cars and heroes can have partners, both of which can figure prominently into a variety of adventure stories. In Knight Rider's case, the cool car was the hero's partner. We could see a lot of KITT without limiting the story possibilities. Granted, a lot of the same tricks were repeated, but compared to Salvage I or Whiz Kids, the gimmick at least had legs...or...wheels.

[Jay O'Connor]

> Ah, that would be Automan. Never got to see much of that one.

Yes!!!  I remember watching both it and Manimal for their very brief runs

Anyone remember "Wizards and Warriors"  I loved that show!  I liked the "Wild, Wild, West" style fadeouts where the fading shot becomes a static drawing

> In Knight Rider's case, the cool car was the hero's partner.

So Micheal Knight gets KITT as a partner...

and Jan Micheal Vincent got the killer helicopter ride, and Ernest Borgnine as a partner....

[Jay O'Connor]

>Gimmicks can work, but only if they don't limit the writers. Look at Knight Rider.

KITT wasn't a gimmick, KITT using TurboBoast at the end of every episode was the gimmick.  Fortunately, it wasn't too constraining.

[AndyC]

I would have considered a talking car to be a gimmick, in the same sense as a homemade rocket or a super powerful home computer is a gimmick. The difference is that a car will fit easily into stories that do not involve flying into space or hacking into computers. KITT was special in that he was one of the show's characters, but as a talking car, he was a gimmick.

I do agree that turbo boost was overused, but it was kind of like the Duke boys having to jump the General Lee over something in every episode. It looked cool, and the fans expected it.

[Jay O'Connor]

>I do agree that turbo boost was overused, but it was kind of like the Duke boys having to jump the General Lee over something in every episode. It looked cool, and the fans expected it.

Or the flipping vehicle in A-Team
Or the Fiery Pheonix in "Battle Of The Planets"
Or Sam saying "Oh, boy" in "Quantum Leap"

I've never really watched "Enterprise", but I always get this mental picture

Creman:  "Captain, their's a Klingon warship decloaking!"
Bakula: "Oh boy!"