The UFO paperbacks, U.K. and U.S. editions.
Before the days of video, reading these, (the British ones in my case) the single UFO annual, Countdown comics and the occasional piece of ephemera was the the only way to relive UFO when it wasn't on TV.
I loved reading the paperbacks, which were based on several of the episodes. They are dated 1971, and written by Robert Miall, one of the pen names of John Frederick Burke..
Just like the UFO dot-to-dot book in my earlier activity book post, and the U.K. edition of the #2 paperback, the photo of SID isn't how we saw it on TV . No up or down in space I suppose.
I wonder why the page designer used a photo of a UFO escape pod rather than an actual UFO on the cover of #1? Unfamiliar with the actual series, perhaps!
Countdown was a big deal when it first came out, and seen as a successor to the classic TV 21. Unsurprising, as most of the editorial staff were ex-TV21 employees.
The middle pages helped to introduce the main characters and the vehicles.
The first time I saw any footage of UFO on TV was a advert for Countdown, which showed a clip of a SHADO Interceptor firing it’s missile.
I received the annual before I'd seen a single episode, and didn't know anything about the series' premise, apart from a brief mention in Joe 90: Top Secret comic. Apart from the much later Fanderson annual, this was the only UFO annual produced at the time.
The Countdown annual appeared after I'd finally watched the show, and featured photos from the last batch of episodes that hadn't been screened on TV at that point.
(I believe the story behind those later episodes and reason for a delay in production was Ed Bishop had injured his leg, and filming was postponed for a while. When filming re-commenced the MGM studio where the first batch of episodes had been shot had closed, so the series had to be relocated to Pinewood)
The second annual still had UFO as the lead story.
A nice publicity photo Look In cover from 1971. No real UFO content though, apart from a competition.
TV Times Christmas Holiday Special with a feature on Unbeatable Fashion Opportunities. Another piece of ephemera I got prior to UFO being shown in my local TV region, Granada.
These are great. I loved countdown and I still have my original UFO annual, I always kept it. So unusual on that it was all photos and text, no questionable artwork!
ReplyDeleteYes interesting about the UFO annual content, Kev. Also, names of characters were mentioned in the text stories that didn't appear in the series or had name changes, like Jon Karlin, and Paula Harris. Karlin would, of course become Peter Carlin, presumably after Peter Gordeno, and Paula Harris , became Gay Ellis, presumably named after Gabrielle Drake, after the original actor to play the Moonbase Commander, Franco De Rosa was fired.
DeleteOf course, both Peter Carlin and Gay Ellis do feature in the annual, but I'm thinking the editors had mixed up some of the early publicity writings with newer stuff.