...Heh, you know, after reading how Euclid is supposed to work, it just dawned on me: we're sending up imaging satellites to escape the twinkling of little stars, only to wind up looking for them after all. :)

...Charles, just because you used the word "phlegmatic", I'll strongly urge you to submit an article - or two - regarding your experiences at IRO.

...Kids, as much as I hate to defend this movie - it's really nothing more than porn for the Moon Hoax Morons - there's one word to explain the whole issue of how this footage wound up on 16mm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope

...Normally, kinescopes of important events would be recorded on 35mm film, with the camera in front of a large TV - usually 27" or better, depending on what year we're talking about. When kinescoping was used in the days before and even after the arrival of videotaping, 16mm was the more commonly used film stock due to cost considerations. It was especially used for West Coast USA programming, where programs transmitted on the East Coast could be "kineyed" so they could be played to correstponding Pacific and Mountain Time Zones. that were 1-2 hours after they were aired in the Central and Eastern Time Zones.

...So, odds are strong that this "found footage", had it happened in real life, would have been from backup copies of the video downlink(s) done on 16mm stock, as that's what the film depicts. Of course, while the skeptic in me would easily predict the g00bers who made this drek to say "Uh...yeah, that's how the footage got back. We just forgot to tell you in the commentary", odds are strong this answer didn't even cross their minds. Which just adds to the porn effect for the MHMs and other trolls.

...Still, I have to admit they made it look pretty damn authentic. Which brings me to another question Dwayne raises. I know Global Effects did the space suits and some of the props:
http://globaleffects.com/B_02_frameset.html

...As far as the sets go, wasn't the Kansas Cosmosphere involved in the use of the LM and building the Gemini and Apollo CM mockups? It's been at least a decade since I had to think about where those sets originated, but again ISTR the guys at the Cosmosphere were involved.

...On a side note, in the 70s there were mockups of the Apollo CM and LM cockpits that were floating around after Apollo was terminated. These were sets that were either built for use in TV and movie production - Universal had their own CM set, which they first used for the opening sequence of a failed TV pilot called Earth 2 in 1971. It later got used on at least one episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, and last I heard it was still in storage at Universal collecting dust.

...And then there were the actual NASA sims that Peter Hyams got to work with on Futureworld and Capricorn One, thanks his working with the agency while working on See-BS' Apollo coverage. That same full CM mockup, IIRC, was the same one used in Stowaway to the Moon - which incidentally is on YouTube in both English and Rossia Yazik!

...And to throw more puzzles into the pieces, there were the sims at Grumman and North American that See-BS used - and the infamous Gemini mockup whose right hatch broke during the GT-9A EVA coverage and made a loud >bang< that Cronkite had to quickly cover for! - while ABC had their own cockpit mockups. I can't recall what NBC used right at the moment, tho. Considering the close ties Universal had with NBC at the time - hell, practically two-thirds of their dramas were produced by Universal between 1967 and 1980! - that CM set the studio had may have actually originated as part of NBC's coverage. That's something I'll have to ping one of my old contacts who worked for NBC at the time and see if he remembers anything about that one.

[thinks]

...Hmm. Doesn't Space Camp have an Apollo CM sim on display?

...It's obvious from his comments that Dwayne - shall I say, "was spared"? - from having to suffer through the second season of Space: 1999? Otherwise, he'd have had much better things to say about the series. Much of what made the first year a fairly enjoyable ride was jettisoned by the same [insert epithet here] who destroyed Star Trek and The Six Million Dollar Man in both their last seasons, one Fred Freiberger. Freddie decided to turn the show into another Star Trek, and while it did turn up the action a bit, the scripts basically got lobotomized and the filmed results are painful to watch. The truly damning factoids about this second and last season are the doodles and notes made on the scripts by Martin Landau, and the question raised about the hiring of Freiberger:

"If he's so good, why is he currently out of work?"

...It should have raised a red flag, but this was a Lew Grade decision. Which should explain a lot about why Space: 1999 died the way it did. In any case, the first series as a whole is actually a fairly good watch with excellent special effects, and a rather hidden plot-behind-it-all that pieces all the parts together after it's all said and done. It's the second series that I recommend watching only after administering about 20mg of Hydrocodone tossed back with a shot of your favorite Cruzan rum.

Side note: those wishing to find out more than they'll ever want to know about Space: 1999 should probably check out this site:
http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/index.html

...Also, the Wikipedia article is pretty concise, and surprisingly free of vandalism by teenagers hiding behind sock puppet admin accounts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999

...Heh, the irony of your last statement is that there *were* Italian people on that show. Due to RAI's participation in funding the first year, the Andersons had to cast actors who were well-known in Italy, but outside of the Former Roman Empire almost nobody knew who the frack they were. Especially when their voices were all overdubbed by voice artists to tone down the fact that these actors spoke little or no English whatsoever!

...Outside of Englandland, Scotlandland and Irelandland, most Anderson fans either aren't aware of The Protectors, much less have even seen an episode of it. The problem is that it's the *least* sf/fantasy show that the Andersons did, and as a result those looking up the old Anderson series prior to Space: 1999 tend to totally overlook it in the belief that all the Andersons ever did were sci-fi and/or puppet shows.

...Outside of Englandland, Scotlandland and Irelandland, most Anderson fans either aren't aware of The Protectors, much less have even seen an episode of it. The problem is that it's the *least* sf/fantasy show that the Andersons did, and as a result those looking up the old Anderson series prior to Space: 1999 tend to totally overlook it in the belief that all the Andersons ever did were sci-fi and/or puppet shows.

Hell, I remember one survey showing that more people in the US had see The Secret Service than The Protectors. Deep Joy, O! :)

...Heh, I wonder if anyone's notified Stephen Baxter about this book :)

...Oh God/Yahweh/Roddenberry. Otay, so ISA managed to not turn this into some sort of Pseudoislamic Jihadist agitprop against Israel. But couldn't they have accomplished this without ripping off the look-n-feel of South Park?

[shakes head in mild dismay]

...Really? Well, there goes my theory that some lowly Army draftee ignored a "No Smoking" sign about 15 billion years ago :( :( :(