Space Academy

Space Academy
Genre	Science Fiction
Created by	Allen Ducovny
Directed by	Various
Presented by	Filmation
Starring	Jonathan Harris Pamelyn Ferdin Ric Carrott Maggie Cooper Brian Tochi Ty Henderson Eric Greene
Composer(s)	"Yvette Blais" and "Jeff Michael"
Country of origin	USA
Language(s)	English and dubbed into Spanish for Spanish-speaking television markets. (These dubs are an audio option on the 4-DVD set.)
No. of seasons	One (not counting reruns)
No. of episodes	15
Production
Executive producer(s)	Norm Prescott Lou Scheimer
Producer(s)	Arthur H. Nadel
Editor(s)	Stanley Frazen, F. Timothy McAvoy
Cinematography	Aldric Edens, A.S.C.
Running time	30 min. (with commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Picture format	1.33:1 (fullscreen)
Audio format	Monaural
Original run	1977 – (as reruns) 1979
Chronology
Related shows	Jason of Star Command

Space Academy was a live-action sci-fi children's television program produced by Filmation that originally aired Saturday mornings on the CBS television network, from September 10, 1977, to December 17, 1977. (Repeats ran on and off until 1979.) A total of fifteen half-hour episodes were made.

Cast

The program starred veteran actor Jonathan Harris, best known as Dr. Zachary Smith of Lost in Space; co-starring were Pamelyn Ferdin, Ric Carrott, Maggie Cooper, Brian Tochi, Ty Henderson, and Eric Greene. The program also featured a pint-sized robot called Peepo, a radio-controlled machine, voiced by Erika Scheimer (credited as "E.C.S.") through a vocoder.

Guest stars included Lawrence "Larry" Dobkin, Dena Dietrich ("Mother Nature" in Chiffon Margarine TV commercials of the 1970s), Dallas McKennon, and Howard Morris.

Plot

Established in 3732, the Space Academy (located on an asteroid, often shown on camera) brought together the best of young minds, along with those having special skills and abilities, to learn about and experience the unknowns of space as Earth people continued to explore it in the distant future. (It is generally assumed that the show takes place in 3732 A.D. However, series star Jonathan Harris's opening narration says that the academy was founded in "the star year 3732" [emphasis added], and the "star year" calendar may not correspond to the Gregorian calendar. Further, the stories could be taking place decades or centuries after the academy's founding; based on this limited information, the actual time frame of the series is impossible to determine.)

Commander Isaac Gampu (Harris) was the head of the academy. His many space explorations, over the course of several years, had exposed him to conditions that immensely slowed his aging process; though appearing to be in his sixties or seventies, his true age was well over 300 years old, giving him a unique perspective on history and some ideal qualifications as a teacher.

Each of the academy students had their own unique aspects:

Chris Gentry (Carrott) and Laura Gentry (Ferdin) were the captain and co-captain, respectively, of the academy's "Blue Team." The siblings (Chris was the elder) had highly developed telekinetic and psychic powers. (A frequent element in stories was the use and display of telekenesis.) Laura was attracted to Matt Prentiss (a pre-Hero High John Berwick), the occasionally seen leader of Red Team. (There was also a Gold Team, but no apparent hierarchy among the three teams.)

Adrian Pryce-Jones (Cooper) was number three in the Blue Team's chain of command (and Chris's love interest).

Paul Jerome (Henderson), a highly intelligent transferee from the Red Team, hailed from an Earth colony. He was number four in the Blue Team's chain of command. (Although Paul appears as a regular academy crewmember in the first episode, with Loki having yet to join them, he is reintroduced in the second episode as if he were a new character, and Loki's already an established member. This was an apparent continuity error, acknowledged in the liner notes booklet of the show's DVD release. However, the mistake can be reconciled because none of the characters introduced to Paul in the second episode had actually met him in the first. In fact, he only appeared in the control room, while the others were away on a mission.)

Tee Gar Soom (Tochi), number five in Blue Team's chain of command, had super-humanoid physical strength and continued the martial arts traditions of his Asian ancestors. He augmented these abilities with newer disciplines, some of which originated in space.

Loki (Greene) was an orphan discovered (in the first episode) on the dying world of Zalon. A playful young prankster - hence his adopted name - Loki could teleport and see infrared or anything on the electromagnetic spectrum. He often used the catchphrase "Camelopardus!"

As with much 1970s children's television fare, lessons and morals were taught in each episode. These included wide-ranging concepts such as that the super-humanoid powers possessed by some academy students fell far short of being a cure-all for problems, and that even the old and wise could make mistakes. As the students encountered members of extraterrestrial races, even mutated descendants of Earth colonists in space, they came to further develop their wisdom and understanding of diversities throughout the universe.

The spaceships commonly seen in the series were called Seekers and used much like a spacebound van or passenger truck. (The Seeker's nose was a re-used prop from the earlier Filmation series Ark II.)

One term of jargon unique to the program was "ORACO" ("Orders Received And Carried Out"), used when orders were acknowledged by academy personnel.

Episode list

Episode	Plot
1. "The Survivors of Zalon"	A field trip discovers Loki, an alien refugee whose parents are dead.
2. "Castaways in Time and Space"
3. "Hide and Seek"
4. "Countdown"	The crew encounter a cryogenically frozen Vegan (man from Vega), played by George DiCenzo, in an old space battleground and revive him.
5. "There's No Place Like Home"
6. "The Rocks of Janus"
7. "Monkey Business"	Adrian has limited success with her latest project: telepathic communication with a chimpanzee.
8. "The Phantom Planet"
9. "Planet of Fire"
10. "Life Begins at 300"	Gampu has doubts about his fitness to carry out a mission, and Chris has to reassure him by rejecting the mission in his favor.
11. "The Cheat"
12. "My Favorite Marcia"	An old flame of Gampu's (played by Dena Dietrich) visits the Academy. (It is here that his personal name, "Isaac," is revealed.)
13. "Space Hooky"
14. "Star Legend"	Howard Morris guested.
15. "Johnny Sunseed"	Gampu's anti-technological half-brother, played by Dallas McKennon in one of the latter's rare forays into live action, comes to inspect--and possibly condemn--the Academy's space-farming program.

Merchandise

In 1977, Aviva Toy Company manufactured and F.W. Woolworth distributed a set of four eight-and-a-half inch action figures based on Space Academy characters. The dolls in this set included Issac [sic] Gampu (described as "Instructor in 'Space Academy'"), Tee Gar Soom ("Almost Super Human Strength"), Chris Gentry ("Member of Space Academy") and Loki ("Everybody's Mascot").

Also available for the figures were special "adventure outfits", sold separately.

DVD release

BCI Eclipse, LLC (under license from Entertainment Rights), released Space Academy: The Complete Series as a 4-DVD (Region 1) box set on January 16, 2007. The collection presented episodes uncut and in order of their original airdates, as well as including special features about the making of the show.

As of 2011, the set had fallen out of print, as BCI Eclipse was closed down by its parent company, Navarre Corporation, in December 2008.

Spin-off

A spin-off of Space Academy came in 1978: Jason of Star Command (initially, a serialized segment of Tarzan and the Super 7), starring Craig Littler, alongside James Doohan of Star Trek: The Original Series, and versus Sid Haig. Star Command was deemed a special section of the Space Academy, which helped to explain the usage of the same sets, costumes and some special effects on both programs.

References

Companion booklet to Space Academy: The Complete Series 4-DVD box set (BCI Eclipse, 2007).

External links

• Space Academy at the Internet Movie Database