SPACE PATROL #02 - Lew Spence - "The Race For Radurium" (1951)

So try this one on, it's 1951, World War II just got over, and your neighbor was one of them lucky families that got a TV, so you go over to spend the night with your best pal, and "Space Patrol" comes on the toob, and it's one of the most far-out futuristic, scientific things you have ever seen in your short life, and so you sit there in awe and rapture for 30 minutes as you're transported to a future you've never even dreamed of! Tonight's feature is the second of some some 157 episodes, entitled the extra super scary "The Race for Radurium" where Cadet Happy gets afflicted by a mega dangerous cosmic ray!!

Ed Kemmer as Commander Buzz Corry and Lyn Osborn as Cadet Happy are here to take you on at least 4 years of adventures!! It's no big secret how Happy got his name!!

Oh, Man, Cadet Happy touched that wire and got burned by the mighty cosmic ray, a mysterious concept covered on many levels before, and he ain't lookin' too happy right here!!

Besides being Tonga for 154 episodes of "Space Patrol," Nina Bara has the distinct honour of starting her career in "The Mummy's Curse" and ending it in "Missile To The Moon!" In The Dungeon, it doesn't get much better than that!!

We're talkin' speaker phone 1951, not just some hole cut in a cardboard box!! Don't matter, Tonga's lookin' good, and I can't quite figger out why her and Tabonga never got together!

Side story line includes bad guy Crane Whitley as the mad fugitive Kessler (but not a bad whiskey!) Crane Whitley had a career that went back all the way to 1938 and included titles like "The Invisible Man Returns" and "Spy Smasher!"

Time to put that Kessler on the rocks!!! Dude was out of control!!

Tonga's got that Radurium Glove all ready to go just in time to save Happy's life!

Dirty Ratzafratz!! Lyn Osborn left this planet way too soon, but in the short amount of time that he was here, he managed to get in all 157 episodes of "Space Patrol" and roles in the classics, "Invasion Of The Saucer Men," "The Amazing Colossal Man," and "The Cosmic Man!"

Lew Spence was the fellow working in the Music Department, but there really wasn't a whole lot of music going on, more just rocketship white noise that I'm sure fans of Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music," and the space in between the cuts on any Mile Davis LP will enjoy! Oh, Yeah, some things don't change, "Buy Bonds!" or the whole dream's going in the crapper!

There's only like 6 people in any given story, but as a lad, it never dawned on me that the rest of civilization as we know it had been most likely DEE-stroyed, and I wouldn't even be here today to write this! Here Kessler gets the jump on Happy!

There's no way we're going to attempt to tackle all 157 episodes of "Space Patrol" here, but there will be a few more in the future for your enjoyment, but besides this, there's also the UK marionette version, and we've still got to go back and cover the German version, "Raumpatrouille" in proper style, with better sound and pictures, and none of it would be possible without some generous donations from Professor Grewbeard, thank-you very much, that cat just rocks!!

At the end of this adventurous tale, Happy turns the tables, and gets the jump on Dopey Kessler using the Radurium Glove to his complete advantage, by conking Kessler on the noggin for the amazing tie-in of the two stories!