CBS (October 2 to December 29, 1950) ABC (January 1, 1951 to September 26, 1952) NBC (July to September 1951, December 1954 to June 25, 1955) DuMont (August 1953 to May 1954)
Release
October 2, 1950 (1950-10-02)– June 25, 1955 (1955-06-25)
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet is an American TV series that aired between 1950 and 1955, depicting the character Tom Corbett.[1] Episodes were 15 minutes (weekdays) and 30 minutes (Saturdays).
The initial concept for the series followed the scripts by Joseph Greene originally proposed as a comic strip in 1945, and then as a proposed radio serial in 1946, titled "Space Cadets" (with a young hero named Tom Ranger), and 1947, titled "Space Academy". When Greene began work with Rockhill Studios on developing his idea into a television show in 1949, the title Tom Ranger, Space Cadet was floated for a time.[2]
In 1950, Rockhill Studios licensed the "Space Cadet" name from Robert A. Heinlein's 1948 young-adult novel Space Cadet for the series then in development.[2]
The initial installment of the series was edited into the 88 minute long The Mercurian Invasion, which was released in 1998.[3]
Roger Manning – Jan Merlin: A smug, egotistical cadet with an inordinately high opinion of his own abilities, although he occasionally proved himself to be nearly as skilled as he imagined himself to be. Roger occasionally made condescending, racist remarks about Astro but gradually came to like and respect the Venusian, although he sometimes maintained his bigoted attitude as a distancing mechanism (October 1950-May 1954).
Cadet T. J. Thistle – Jack Grimes (December 1954-June 1955)
Michael Harvey[who?] played Captain Strong for the first six episodes of the CBS series; Pat Ferris played Dr. Dale for two episodes of the DuMont series.
On January 1, 1952, one year after the ABC television network began airing the show, a short-lived radio version began on ABC radio.[6] This radio version employed the same actors as the TV show. The series ran twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at 5:30p.m. (the TV show aired on a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule). The radio version ran from January 1 to July 3, 1952.[6]
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