CAPTAIN VIDEO Master Of The Stratosphere / Columbia Pictures Corporation - 1951

It's another end-of-the-year Friday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots one of the last Columbia serials, so, there's a lot of familiar looking hardware. This serial gets high marks mainly for its gadgets and especially, their names. For example... The 'hose-inator' sucks up poisonous gas, an 'inertializer' that paralyzes the bad guys, bombs can be defused by an 'anti-detonator,' giant binoculars named 'scanning goggles,' the 'atmospheric locator,' the 'magnetic impulse detector,' the 'diathermic accelerator,' the 'cloak of invisibility,' a 'stethapod,' an 'interference ray,' and, don't forget the very popular.. 'cosmic vibrator!'

The tinted sequences seemed lame so I desaturated the pics. And, Eegah!! sent over a great lil' soundclip for our listening experience, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button over there, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's our audio offering for... CAPTAIN VIDEO!

Judd Holdren is Captain Video. Judd had an interesting film career, he played Larry Martin in ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE, Ranger Higgins in ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER and Commando Cody in COMMANDO CODY: SKY MARSHALL OF THE UNIVERSE. He was also in ROCKETSHIP X-M, THE LOST PLANET, THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and SPACE MASTER X-7. Here he is driving out of his hidden lair in the same futuristic wheels that Vena drove in Rocky Jones!

The Video Rangers are full of tricks when it comes to fighting crime, on Earth or otherwise!..

There's plenty of space travel, natcherly, and there's an Earth scientist, Dr. Tobor!, willing to help aliens conquer our world.

Gene Roth looks hilarious as dictator Vultura from the planet Atoma! He directs a bunch of meteors at the meddling Captain Video and his Ranger pal.

Meteors destroy their ship so they seek refuge in the tail section, and, end up safely on the surface of Atoma (Chatsworth)!

Hey Boss, lookit!.. Freakin' BINGO!!

Get this, animators from Columbia studios cartooned all spaceships whenever they were in space! They were always quickly whizzing by to make it hard to notice a lot of detail.

Hey, Vultura! Suck in that gut, will ya?!..

Weird gadgets, robots from RADIO RANCH and a frozen stiff Cap'n Video, this thing has it all!!

I'll give myself a little credit for this joke I came up with for their 'space platform,' so, here goes... When you poop in space, no one can smell it!