Why so much hype?

Truly Dreadful Film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

On the heels of "Ark II," Filmation Studios put together another science fiction-oriented, Saturday morning, live-action show. Here, Harris (playing a 300 year-old character who doesn't look a day over 70!) plays the instructor of the title school, a large facility built into an asteroid, which collects all the brightest young minds and trains them for duty in space. Though the school contains red teams and yellow teams, the show focuses almost exclusively on the blue team. Psychic siblings Carrott and Ferdin, somewhat flippant Henderson, martial arts trained Tochi and dedicated, pretty Cooper made up the main team, though they were soon joined by pint-sized Greene, an orphan who was rescued from a dying planet. Also scooting around was a robot, Peepo, voiced in a deliberately monotone way by the daughter of the producer Scheimer. Each episode pitted the team against some sort of outer space emergency or an alien presence or perhaps a fellow team member with an attitude problem (one of these was portrayed by Paula Wagner, future power player and business partner of Tom Cruise!) The kids were practically all earnest and sweet to death, though occasionally a difference of opinion or a bit of mischief, primarily by Greene, would provide some conflict. Everything was lorded over by Harris in his inimitable over-the-top acting style. Sporting near "Baby Jane Hudson" level makeup and a hair helmet made up of combed over, fuzzy S.O.S pad, he did occasionally come off as a bit preposterous, especially when a significant amount of derring do was required. Carrott, though fresh-scrubbed looking, was actually quite a bit older that the others and had even done a T&A movie or two before this! His thick northern accent came out frequently. Ferdin was by now a veteran child star. Her voice had developed into an almost cartoonish delivery, no doubt a side effect of the animated voice-over gigs she had landed previously. Her career only lasted a year or two beyond this. She and Tochi had appeared together in an original "Star Trek" episode. Here, he is more than a little "on," constantly shaking his hair and reacting in a very over-eager way to everything. Considering the time this was made and the budget available, the special effects are actually quite good! The seekers, small ships the team took to explore other planets or phenomenon, were partially based on and constructed from the main vehicle from "Ark II." There's a bouncy theme song to grab the attention. It must be said that, though the uniforms of the students are well made and inventive, they really display some seriously bad panty lines, especially on the guys for whatever reason. It's an undeniably cheesy and goofy spin on "Star Trek," sort of "Star Trek Jr.," but it's also a fun throwback to the simpler style of kiddie television. It also, like most every Filmation program, encourages good moral judgment and the importance of doing right.

I remember watching this in my PJs around age 5 but for some odd reason I thought I remembered it running on Saturday late afternoons rather than Saturday mornings. A lot of things I only remember bits and pieces of from that period of time.Of this show, I only remember a few things with any certainty. One is me thinking "hey, the mean guy from Lost In Space is on the show" and "hey, Scotty is on this show". I also remember thinking why the engine on their ship looked like a television set with an orange screen. And the kids all having some special powers---they'd all get in a circle holding hands and chanting "concentrate, concentrate".I can remember being well entertained by this show. I'm sure it was cheesy as hell, but hey...what in the 1970s wasn't?

This was one of those shows that was produced by Filmation that tried to teach a weekly morals lesson in the guise of a science fiction show. The only memorable thing about this series was the fact that Jonathan Harris, who played the villainous Doctor Smith on a true classic in "Lost in Space", is cast as the 300 year old mentor to a group of teen-age cadets as they explore the universe and take time each episode to learn a valuable life lesson. Unfortunately, to me this show was just produced as a way to cash in on the monster success of the classic film Star Wars, which had come out earlier that year. The plots were dumb and the all the characters weren't memorable at all. Too bad Jonathan Harris had to waste his talents on this turkey.

Funny thing is, always thought it was 'My Favorite Martian' Ray Walston as the head here, not Jonathon Harris. Ah the things ya learn at IMDB! It was typical 70s TV Filmation fare-moralistic, hokey, low budget, had cutsie kids, robots, etc. Have not seen it since it's run.And yes, Pam Ferdyn was in about everything there ala Ike Eisenmann, sure.This was NOT a bad little show, by the way-those here who heap the criticsm of it, c'mon. It was okay for what it was.**1/2 outta ****