Captain Midnight

Captain Midnight was based on a WWII era Radio Show of the same name (just updated for TV). The Radio show and the original TV Airing was sponsored by Ovaltine which marketed "Secret Decoder Ring" and Badge tie-ins during the Radio show (and I think the TV Show). There was also a fan club that allowed you to be a member of Captain Midnight's "Secret Squadron". They owned the character name. When the show went into syndication, they were no longer the sponsor so the syndicated versions had to have the name altered (to Jet Jackson). One of the changes that was made in the TV Show (from the Radio Version) was the alteration of the Secret Squadron serial numbers from SS-X (Captain Midnight was of course SS-1) to SQ-X due to the SS reference being in poor taste due to WWII Nazi associations.

One of my favorite shows from my youth, in the 1980s I was bought some tapes of it, watching them took me back 30 years. I note the plane was the Doulgas Skyrocket, not the Bell X-1, even as a 5-7 year old I recognized it. I have an older brother who built a model of it, and we had a neighbor who was a pilot and knew the various aircraft. No, I never did get my decoder ring, the show premiered in September, 1954, I had just turned 5, that was a little above my head. And yes I was puzzled when I few years later I saw an episode of "Jet Jackson" and was puzzled as to why the program I knew as "Captain Midnight" was being aired under another name. Richard Webb said that was the strangest syndication deal in TV. The programs hold up, like most quality children's entertainment, it tries to introduce its young viewers to adult (in the older sense of that word) concepts, in my favorite episode "The Secret Room" the Captain plays along with a phony medium, telling Ikky "He's a crook. And a very clever one. I want to find out what he's really up to."

Does anybody remember what kind of plane Captain Midnight flew in the 50's show? They used to identify it in the closing credits--as I recall it was a Douglas aircraft. I barely remember the show from it's run as "Captain Midnight". I watched it quite a bit when it was syndicated as "Jet Jackson".

Looking back, the convenient appearances of Secret Squadron members whenever and wherever Captain Midnight got into trouble was pretty contrived. I remember an episode where the Captain and Icky were locked in a basement. A sweet little old lady was toddling by, saw them through the window, reached into her little bag, and pulled out her Squadron communicator to call SQ 3. From the perspective of the paranoid 21sr century it seems sort of creepy. Loved it at the time, though.

For a kid in the 1950s, this show was cool. Over the passage of 50 years, only a few general images have endured, hopefully unaffected by the nasty tricks that memory plays on a person! Captain Midnight's base of operations was perched atop a mountain or plateau and included a landing strip that extended over a precipice. His jet plane, with the short, straight wings, might have been modeled after one of the Bell "X" planes (such as the ones flown by test pilot Chuck Yeager). I think there were circles on the plane's wings, and they reminded me of the popular breakfast cereal "Cheerios." Captain Midnight's goofy sidekick, Ichabod Mudd, was an idiot, but his white-coated laboratory technician/inventor, played by Olan Soule, was a technical genius.

Yes, I proudly wore my secret decoder ring---ordered by mail, perhaps with coupons obtained from jars of "choclaty" Ovaltine---but it disappeared long ago. I wonder how many messages I decoded with it. Ovaltine, a drink powder resembling the kind used to make hot chocolate, was sold in a dark brown glass jar with a yellow label and a wide opening (for easy spooning of its contents). Its flavor was unlike that of any other drink and I never enjoyed it much.

The "Jet Jackson" dubbing later on amused and confused me but I took it in stride, not having a clue as to the legal requirement for the name change.

When I was a kid watching this show, the names of the actors meant little to me. Today, though, I like to see who played what on the shows I enjoyed as a kid and try to see the context of their careers at that time. Although it's interesting to see what Richard Webb did before the show, it is simply amazing to see all the movie and TV work that Olan Soule did over the years---he was everywhere! No doubt I saw him back then in other shows, but I can't remember if I recognized him as Captain Midnight's lab person.

CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT had been a popular kids' adventure program which started in 1938 and ran locally in Chicago, in Syndication and in varying times on the NBC, Blue, Mutual and ABC Radio Networks. It was long-lived and very popular; surviving the waning years of Great Depression Years as well as World War II. The series had undergone a continuous metamorphosis in scheduling, time slots, sponsor and ownership.

With the rights of the show being owned by Ovaltine, the series was adapted to Television in 1954. It was a production of Screen Gems, the Television Subsidiary of Columbia Pictures Corporation. By this time, the origin and identity was get just a little long in the tooth and the series underwent some cosmetic surgery, in order that he will seem a little more up to date.

For one thing, the name of "Captain Midnight" was hung on the hero following a desperate mission he completed in The World War (as the European Conflict of 1914-1918 was called prior to 1939.). In this engagement with the enemy, the hero left for his appointment with destiny at the very stoke of 12 Midnight. 12 Midnight, Captain Midnight; hmmmm, they're clever, these Americans! In "modernizing" a character, a lot must be jettisoned away from the character and the core elements of the story line. Hence, we had a mountain top secret headquarters and a newly updated Jet Aircraft, dubbed 'The Silver Dart. Supporting characters resident Scientist Aristotle "Tut" Jones and side-kick/airplane mechanic Ichabod "Ikky"Mudd were portrayed by Olan Soule and Sid Melton, respectively.

Tall and tan, young and lovely, with an excellent speaking voice and excellent acting credentials, athletic Richard Webb garnered the title role of the good Captain. I can well remember thinking that Mr. Webb would have made an excellent choice to portray the DC Super Hero, Green Lantern (Silver Age); but before we knew it, he was off and portraying Chief Don Jagger on BORDER PATROL TV Series.

Our "modernized" fighting team had gone through the same sort of revamping that is oh so common in the Comic Book business does all the time. Be it at DC or over at Marvel, they are all big on keeping their charges up to date. And after all, be it a Comic Book, Pulp Magazine Character or Radio/TV/Motion Pictures, they are all pretty much alike.

The TV series did not have any sightings of old nemesis of the Captain's, the evil Ivan Shark. Nor were there any continuities in story requiring continued story lines as we always saw in the Movie Serials.* Because of the rights to the Captain Name, likeness and all related material was in the hands of the Ovaltine people, Columbia/Screen Gems could do nothing to put the old series episodes into syndication. So we saw another case of celluloid, not plastic, surgery. All they did at Screen Gems was to change the name of the character and the show to "JET JACKSON and they were in business.

They got the series out in syndication, but it had the worst case of obvious dubbing in the history of sound film. It was so obvious and jerky when for example, Mr. Webb would sign off mouthing "This is Captain Midnight", but the dubbed sound said, "This is Jet Jackson" that is was laughable, even to us dumb kids.

NOTE * Yes there was a cliffhanger serial of CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT (Columbia, 1942)starring stuntman-actor Dave O'Brien in the title role.