As it’s the final episode of the classic vintage TV series The Time Tunnel on the U.K. Horror Channel tonight, I thought I'd do a little piece on the show, however, I should point out that just like the
series I might not get all the historical facts right!
The Time
Tunnel is Irwin Allen’s third television series following on from Voyage to the
Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space. It comprised of 30 episodes, and was
produced between 1966 and 67. It stars James Darren as Dr Tony Newman and
James Colbert as Dr Doug Phillips.
Tony and
Doug are directors of a secret government time travel experiment, code named
Project Tic-Toc, which is housed beneath a vast underground complex, 800 floors
deep, and situated in Arizona. The man
in charge is Lt General Heywood Kirk,(
played by Whit Bissell), who is assisted by electronics expert, Dr Raymond
Swain (played by John Zaremba) and electro-biologist , Dr Ann MacGregor (played
by Lee Meriwether).
At the heart
of Project Tic-Toc is The Time Tunnel, a huge receding elliptical tube which
creates a pathway to anywhere in time, although, it does seem to be quite a
temperamental device. (As seen in all of Irwin Allen’s TV series the futuristic
hardware used is prone to spectacularly shorting out at inopportune times
during the action. It would appear that the submarine Seaview, the space ships,
Jupiter 2 and Spindrift and the Time Tunnel don’t appear to use
fuses)
At the point the audience catches up with Time
Tunnel, Project Tic-Toc has been in development for ten years, and has cost
$7.5 billion dollars. The opening episode, ‘Rendezvous with Yesterday’, which
is set in the then future year of 1968, shows the giant complex with 800 floors deep, joined by walkways and
staffed by 36,000 employees.
The designs of some of these miniatures are direct
homages’ to the underground Krel
machines seen in the 1956 film ‘Forbidden Planet’.
The Time
Tunnel idea itself was inspired by the 1964 film, ‘The Time Travelers’, in
which two scientists, their female assistant, and an electrician are
transported though a 3-dImentional time portal over a hundred years into an
intriguing but ultimately bleak future.
Tony and
Doug, spend most, although not all of their adventures in the past, beginning
with their first in which they both end up on the ill-fated Titanic ocean
liner, shortly before the Time Tunnel transports them into the future and the
hold of a spacecraft about to take off to Mars.(This was the ‘teaser’ for the
following week’s episode, however the ‘teaser’ at the end of the final episode,
‘Town of Terror’, shows Tony and Doug landing on the deck of the Titanic once
again, implying that both the scientists are trapped in some sort of a time loop.
Extensive
use of stock footage and re-used props from other shows were used throughout
the series, with only one permanent set, The Time Tunnel main control
room. This was, however relocated to a
smaller sound stage following the completion of the pilot episode. The prop computer
seen on the set was actually a U.S. Air Force decommissioned Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE)
system computer. These props turned up in several films and TV series around
that time.
Like all of
Irwin Allen’s TV series, I watched and enjoyed the series as a youngster living
in the UK, but once off the screen it lost some appeal for me .The problem was
there was a lack of spin-off merchandise here in the UK. No toys or model kits to make of the Time
Tunnel, or even an annual, something which might have reprinted at least one of
the two Gold Key comic stories that fans in America got.
Nowadays, I
get the impression that fellow Time Tunnel fans in America had their pick of
vintage games, colouring books and even a Viewmaster set at the time.
This kind of
merchandise would have kept the series alive for me. I had my Voyage to the bottom of the Sea and Land of The Giants annuals. Even Lost in Space had one of sorts, although it wasn’t actually based
on the TV series, but simply used the TV logo, replacing the original Space Family Robinson title due to a
copyright agreement with Irwin Allen’s production.
As far as
I’m aware neither of the two paperback books, written by Murray Leinster (a non
de plume for William Fitzgerald Jenkins) were widely distributed in Britain, and
there were no exclusive UK editions, like we saw for Land of The Giants.
More
importantly for me no British comics published any home grown comic strips,
unlike Voyage and Land of The Giants, which would have helped with continuity
once the series was off the air.
Over time
I’ve managed to find the odd bit of original spin-off material, as well as some
contemporary items like the Blu-ray set and the CD soundtrack. I’ve got the two paperbacks now, including one
edition with an alternative cover on the first one which originally featured as
the cover of a previous 1964 Murrey Lienster book titled Time Tunnel. Apart
from that, there are no other connections with the 1966 TV series.
The Time
Tunnel, unlike Irwin Allen’s other TV series had no vehicle to exploit as a
kit. The only regular piece of futuristic technology seen on screen was the
Time Tunnel itself. Exciting dioramas
from several American kit companies showing scenes from Lost in Space, Land of
the Giants and Star Trek for example were produced but no Time Tunnel diorama.
However, a
little known model kit was produced by Fugimi
Mokei Co. in 1967, which would have been hard to get hold of at the
time.
While it’s
still pretty difficult to find, at least these days, there’s plenty of Irwin
Allen web sites, which show the kit and give a little information about it.
From what I
can gather reading about the kit it was a bit of a disappointment, with very
little in the way of diorama, and rather cheap.
The tunnel
itself was just a just an elliptical tube with black paper decals to create the
receding black and white strips seen in the show.
It was more
or less a slide projector, with a film strip showing scenes fed into the back
which is illuminated from behind.
Lunar Models
did do a limited run of the kit using resin rather than plastic.
Re-watching
it these past few weeks, like all of Irwin Allen’s series, it’s certainly still
a glossy and entertaining show.
Cue the
opening narration (voiced by Dick Tufeld) that can be heard at the beginning of
most of the episodes;
“Two American scientists are lost in the
swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on
America's greatest and most secret project, the Time Tunnel. Tony Newman and
Doug Phillips now tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere
along the infinite corridors of time.”
