Sky King

Sky King is a 1940s and 1950s American radio and television adventure series. The title character is Arizona rancher and aircraft pilot Schuyler (or Skyler) "Sky" King. The series was likely based on a true-life person, Jack Cones, the Flying Constable of Twentynine Palms during the 1930s.

Although it had strong cowboy show elements, King always captured criminals and even spies and found lost hikers using his plane.

King's personal plane was called the Songbird. Though he changed from one plane to another over the course of the series, the later plane was not given a number (i.e., Songbird II), but was simply known as Songbird.

He and his niece, Penny (and sometimes Clipper, his nephew) lived on the Flying Crown Ranch, near the (fictitious) town of Grover, Arizona. Penny and Clipper were also pilots, though still relatively inexperienced and looking to their uncle for guidance and mentoring. Penny was an accomplished air racer and rated multi-engine pilot, who Sky trusted to fly the Songbird.

The musical score was largely the work of Herschel Burke Gilbert.

Radio

The radio show, based on a radio story by Roy Winsor, was the brainchild of Robert Morris Burtt and Wilfred Gibbs Moore, who also created Captain Midnight, first aired in 1946. Several actors played the part of Sky, including Earl Nightingale and John Reed King.

Like many radio shows of the day there were many "radio premiums" offered to listeners. On November 2, 1947 in the episode titled "Mountain Detour" the Sky King Secret Signalscope was used. Listeners were advised to get their own for only 15 cents and the inner seal from a jar of Peter Pan Peanut Butter (produced by sponsor Derby Foods). The Signalscope included a glow-in-the-dark signaling device, whistle, magnifying glass and Sky King's private code. With the Signalscope you could also see around corners and trees. The premiums were innovative, such as the Sky King Spy-Detecto Writer, which had a "decoder" (cipher disk), magnifying glass, measuring scale, and printing mechanism in a single package slightly over 2 inches long. Other notable premiums included the Magni-Glo Writing Ring, which had a luminous element, a secret compartment, a magnifier, and a ballpoint pen all in the crownpiece of a "fits any finger" ring. The radio show ran until 1954, being aired simultaneously with the television version.

Television

Sky King
Genre	Drama
Starring	Kirby Grant Gloria Winters
Theme music composer	Milton Raskin Herbert Taylor
Composer(s)	Alec Compinsky Eve Newman
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	72
Production
Executive producer(s)	Stuart E. McGowan
Producer(s)	Jack Chertok Harry Poppe
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production company(s)	Jack Chertok Television Productions McGowan Productions
Broadcast
Picture format	Black-and-white
Audio format	Monaural
Original run	September 16, 1951 (1951-09-16) – March 8, 1959 (1959-03-08)
External links
Website

The television version stars Kirby Grant as Sky King and Gloria Winters as his teen-aged niece Penny. Other regular characters included his nephew Clipper, played by Ron Hagerthy, and Mitch the sheriff, played by Ewing Mitchell. Unlike many "lawman-acquaintance" characters on other shows, Mitch was competent, intelligent and skilled. He was always coming to Sky for help, due to friendship and recognizing the utility of Sky's flying skills. Other recurring characters included Jim Bell, the ranch foreman, played by Chubby Johnson as well as Sheriff Hollister played by Monte Blue and Bob Carey played by Norman Ollestad.

Many of the storylines would parallel those used in such dramatic potboilers as Adventures of Superman with the supporting cast repeatedly finding themselves in near death situations and the hero rescuing them with seconds to spare. Penny was particularly adroit at falling into the hands of spies, bank robbers (the best place to hide stolen loot was apparently in the Arizona desert) and other n'er-do-wells.

Like most television cowboy heroes of the time, Sky never killed the villains, even though one episode had him shooting a machine gun into his own stolen plane.

Largely a show for children, although it sometimes aired in primetime, Sky King became an icon in the aviation community. Many pilots, including American astronauts, who grew up watching Sky King name him as an influence.

Though plot lines were often simplistic, Grant was able to bring a casual, natural treatment of technical details which led to a level of believability not found in other television series involving aviation or life in the American West. Likewise, villains and other characters were usually shown as intelligent and believable, rather than as two-dimensional. The writing was generally well above the standard for contemporary half-hour programs, though sometimes the acting was not.

The later episodes of the television show were notable for the dramatic opening with an air-to-air shot of the sleek, second Songbird banking sharply away from the camera and its engines roaring, while the announcer proclaimed "Out of the blue of the Western sky comes — Sky King!" The short credit roll which followed was equally dramatic, with the Songbird swooping at the camera across El Mirage Dry Lake, California, then pulling up into a steep climb as it went away. The end title featured a musical theme, with the credits superimposed over an air-to-air shot of the Songbird, cruising at altitude for several moments then banking to the left and turning away (similar to the opening shot).

The show also featured low-level flying, especially with the later Songbird. Many shots showed the Cessna "down amongst the rocks and the trees", a way to show the speed of the plane as the desert flashed by in the background.

Regular cast

• Kirby Grant as Schuyler "Sky" King
• Gloria Winters as Penny
• Ewing Mitchell as Sheriff "Mitch" Mitchell
• Ron Hagerthy as Clipper

Notable guest stars

• James Brown as Matt Reynolds in "The Man Who Forgot" (1952)
• Jill St. John (as Jill Oppenheim) as Gretchen Gluckman in "Two-Gun Penny" (1952)
• Ed Hinton as Red O'Brian in "Danger at the Sawmill" (1958)
• I. Stanford Jolley, four episodes (1956–1958)
• Gregg Palmer as Frank Kinnard in "The Runaway" (1958)

Scheduling and cancellation

The television show began airing on Sunday afternoons on NBC between September 16, 1951, and October 26, 1952. These episodes were rebroadcast on ABC's Saturday morning lineup the following year November 8, 1952, until September 21, 1953, when it made its prime-time debut on ABC's Monday night lineup. It then aired twice-a-week in August and September 1954, before ABC canceled it. New episodes were produced when the show went into syndication in 1955. The last new episode, "Mickey's Birthday", aired March 8, 1959. After that, the show turned up on the Saturday schedule, in reruns that played for several years.

Syndication and DVD release

CBS began airing reruns of the show on early Saturday afternoons (at 12 pm Eastern/Pacific times; late Saturday mornings at 11 am Central/Mountain times) on October 3, 1959, and continued to do so until September 3, 1966.

All 72 episodes of the series have been released on DVD in North America.

Production notes

Songbird III a 1960 Cessna 310-D

At the beginning of the television series, Sky flew a Cessna T-50 twin-engine "Bamboo Bomber." The plane, a World War II surplus UC-78B, was owned by legendary Hollywood pilot Paul Mantz and flown by employees of his Paul Mantz Aerial Services for filming of the flying sequences. At least two other T-50s are known to have been used for on-ground and in-the-cockpit scenes.

The best-known Songbird was a twin-engine Cessna 310B. The airplane used was the second production 310B (N5348A), which was provided by Cessna at no cost to the producers and piloted by Cessna's national sales manager for the 310, Bill Fergusson. Fergusson got the job after the motion picture pilot already selected was deemed unqualified to land the airplane at some of the off-airport sites required. Some months after a library of stock footage had been compiled, additional sequences were filmed using a different airplane. The original 310B was eventually destroyed in a 1962 crash at Delano, California, that killed its owner-pilot. Cockpit sequences were filmed using the static test fuselage, also provided by Cessna.

A byproduct of the use of the Cessna 310 as Sky King's Songbird was the name becoming attached to the 310 series. Cessna has never given the 310 a type name (though most Cessnas are given such names, e.g., the Cessna 180 "Skywagon"), but because of their use in Sky King, 310s have become known as "Songbirds" within the aviation community.

A unique introduction featured the triangular Nabisco logo flying across the screen, accompanied by the sound of the Songbird flying past. Nabisco included plastic figures of characters from the show and the Songbird in packages of Wheat Honeys and Rice Honeys breakfast cereals.

Though set in Arizona, the series was filmed in the high desert of California. The ranch house used for exterior shots of the Flying Crown Ranch is an actual home in Apple Valley, California, although it has been extensively remodeled since its use as headquarters of the "Flying Crown Ranch." Other locations were shot in and around Apple Valley and the nearby San Bernardino Mountains, George Air Force Base and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Interior filming was done at the General Service studio.

While expensive for a kids' show, most of the budget went into aircraft, vehicles and sets. This meant that some standard production methods had to be abandoned, giving the series a more realistic look. For instance, in some shots, pilot Bill Fergusson actually did taxi the 310B rather than the more common (but time-consuming, thus costly) method of simulating movement by towing or dolly shots.

The budget issue also forced the frequent reuse of stock footage, sometimes flipped over to show planes banking the opposite direction, thus sometimes letters and numbers were seen in mirror-image.

The black-and-white film masked the actual paint scheme of the Cessna 310B, which was done in a rich multi-color pattern of Coronado Yellow, Sierra Gold and White, with a gold interior.

The show was filmed and shown during three periods as sponsors changed: 1951-52 (Derby Foods), 1955–56 and 1957-62 (Nabisco, though the copyright notices continued to name Derby Foods). It continued in syndication for years afterward, and was a staple on Saturday morning television into the mid-1960s.

Nabisco sold rights to the series to Grant in 1959. In later years, Grant considered bringing back the series and even a "Sky King" theme park, but nothing ever happened on either of these projects. At least one writer has boilerplated a "Sky King" film, but none has been produced.

Kirby Grant

On May 20, 2008, Kirby Grant, III, confirmed that his father was a pilot and that he flew with him many times. This was confirmed by e-mail to Officer Glenn E. Kresge, United States Department of Defense Police, (and by Kent Volgamore and by Guy Maher, article below).^{[citation needed]} Grant, however, had been turned down for pilot training during World War II because of color blindness.

The Cessna T-50 used in the first episodes of the series was provided by Paul Mantz Air Services and flown by several pilots, and the Cessna 310B used in later episodes was provided at no cost by Cessna and flown by Cessna employee Bill Fergusson. In the article "310 B Goes To Hollywood", Mr. Bill Fergusson from the Cessna Corp. recalls how Kirby Grant flew the 310B like a real pro in no time.^{[citation needed]} Thus, he was referring to the transition from the T-50 to the 310 B. The newspaper article can be found at Kae Vee's Place.^{[citation needed]}

Numerous references to Grant's flying skills came from co-workers, personal friends, and historian Kent Volgamore, who wrote the book for the Sky King DVDs.^{[citation needed]} Volgamore clearly states Grant was a pilot, and started his flying career in a Waco 1929.
Airport Journal's January 2006 interview with Gloria Winters. Winters stated that both Grant and her late husband were pilots. She stated twice in the interview that Kirby Grant was a pilot and that her husband was a crop duster.

References

Missoula City Website states Kirby Grant was a pilot: http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/index.aspx?NID=175

• Official website
• Sky King at the Internet Movie Database
• Sky King at TV.com
• Lips, Jerry. "From Out of the Clear Blue of the Western Sky Comes...Sky King", Airport Journals, January 2006, WebCitation archive.