Usually overlooked, this superior children’s puppet series from the early 1960s is not held in higher esteem, primarily because it reached the screen at the same time as Gerry Anderson’s futuristic adventures were beginning to take off (no pun intended) and shows like Supercar and Fireball XL5 overshadowed it.
The ABC series, created by Roberta Leigh (a pseudonym of romance novelist Rita Lewin), was set in the year 2100 and concerned the adventures of the United Galactic Organisation (UGO), a peacekeeping force formed by the natives of Venus, Mars and Earth.
The crew of Galasphere 347 – a UGO spaceship that spun like a spinning top and travelled at 800,000 miles per hour – comprised bearded human captain Larry Dart (voiced by the American-born comedy writer and actor Dick Vosburgh), the ever-hungry Martian engineer Husky, whose favourite delicacy was Martian sausages, and the meticulous and squeaky-voiced Venusian navigator Slim (both voiced by the versatile Ronnie Stevens).
Long-distance travel to outlying planets like Neptune or Pluto required the Galasphere 347 crew to place themselves in cryogenic sleep while a team of robots took over the operation of the ship.
At the New York headquarters, Colonel Raeburn (voiced by Canadian actor Murray Kash) gave the orders from his rotating desk, assisted by his beautiful and efficient Venusian secretary Marla (voiced by Kash’s wife, Libby Morris) and scientific advisor Professor Haggerty (Ronnie Stevens again), who was himself assisted by his daughter Cassiopeia.
“Don’t call me Pop!” he would often exclaim of Cassiopeia, who preferred to be called Cassie (another part for Morris).
Gabbler (short for Gabbladictum) was Husky’s pet Martian bird. Haggerty taught it to speak English, turning it into an unruly, conceited chatterbox.
Libby Morris’s vocal performance was a wonderfully comedic tour de force, as seen in episodes such as ‘The Forgers’ and ‘The Robot Revolution.’
Gabbler would inadvertently provide solutions in some episodes: “I told everyone I was clever, but no one believed me,” it laughed in ‘Force Field X.’ “If only I knew what I’d said!”
The puppets of Space Patrol were a step up in quality from Leigh’s previous series, Sara and Hoppity. ‘Walking’ was generally far better accomplished, and the puppets were also seen running around and even engaging in fist-fights.
Known as Planet Patrol in the USA to avoid confusion with the 1950s American series of the same name, Space Patrol was filmed in a church hall in Harlesden, North West London, with all 39 episodes written by Leigh herself.
Highlights included ‘Hairy Men of Mars’ (about a war between twin tribes of neurotic Martian hipsters); ‘The Telepathic Robot’ (in which Professor Haggerty invents a robot that is controlled by the human mind); and ‘Time Stands Still’ – a ludicrous caper where the Galasphere crew recover the stolen Mona Lisa and other loot from a fiendish Venusian using a ‘time watch’ from Professor Haggerty that speeds Captain Dart up sixty times normal speed.
Leigh enlisted science author Colin Ronan as a “space consultant” to keep stories more or less within the boundaries of the possible.
The Earth of 2100 utilised undersea farms for food production, with a robot workforce and had weather control. Venus was an idyllic – if hot – world, while Mars was essentially a desert with drought and energy issues.
The Moon had a base (Station One) and an observatory, but by 2100 had been largely mined out.
Asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, such as Pallas, were used as communication relays, although they occasionally became a threat when hit by comets.
To enable the Galasphere crew to survive on other planets was the “Molung” – short for mobile lung. This cylindrical helmet acted as a filter for poisonous gases (such as on Jupiter) or could be used in space or underwater as a protective helmet.
Communication with other species was via the “Elektran”, a chest-worn disc that translated languages programmed into it “by a system of microdots.”
Very little Space Patrol merchandise was produced. The best-known was a colour comic strip drawn by Bill Mevin, which ran for a year in the weekly TV Comic. This revealed that Martians had green skin, while Venusians were blue.
Two comic books were published, adapting the episodes ‘The Water Bomb’ and ‘Secret Formula,’ while another strip appeared in The Beezerfor twenty-six weeks from 1966 to 1967, drawn by Terry Patrick.
Considering her career as an author, Leigh only published one belated Space Patrol storybook in 1965, The Secret Weapon, which contained two colour-illustrated tales.
This was preceded by a seven-part text adaptation of the episode ‘The Evil Eye of Venus’ in the TV Times in 1964.
Sweet cigarettes with collectable cards featuring aspects of real space travel were also produced (pictured), and a few toys and activity books rounded out the offerings.
The series aired in Malta and Rhodesia, and also in Australia, where it clocked up five runs between 1964 and 1972. Japan aired the series as Supesu Patororu, airing in 1964 and 1966.
For many years, it was believed that the entire series had been lost until 1997, when Leigh (pictured above) was approached by a video company about a possible DVD release and discovered that she had a complete set of 16mm prints that she had stored away in a lockup decades earlier and forgotten about.
Rita Lewin turned her back on television in the early 1970s and returned to writing, eventually publishing over 150 novels (sometimes writing as Janey Scott, Rachel Lindsay, Rozella Lake and Roumelia Lane). She passed away in 2014, aged 87.
Captain Larry Dart Dick Vosburgh Husky/Slim/Professor Haggerty
Ronnie Stevens Colonel Raeburn
Murray Kash Marla/Cassiopeia Libby Morris (1)
Ysanne Churchman (2) Gabbler
Libby Morris
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The crew of Galasphere 347 – a UGO spaceship that spun like a spinning top and travelled at 800,000 miles per hour – comprised bearded human captain Larry Dart (voiced by the American-born comedy writer and actor Dick Vosburgh), the ever-hungry Martian engineer Husky, whose favourite delicacy was Martian sausages, and the meticulous and squeaky-voiced Venusian navigator Slim (both voiced by the versatile Ronnie Stevens).
The puppets of Space Patrol were a step up in quality from Leigh’s previous series, Sara and Hoppity. ‘Walking’ was generally far better accomplished, and the puppets were also seen running around and even engaging in fist-fights.
Leigh enlisted science author Colin Ronan as a “space consultant” to keep stories more or less within the boundaries of the possible.
Very little Space Patrol merchandise was produced. The best-known was a colour comic strip drawn by Bill Mevin, which ran for a year in the weekly TV Comic. This revealed that Martians had green skin, while Venusians were blue.
