Is Spock the first non-human character to make regular TV appearances?

[scotpens]

kkozoriz1 wrote:

---

My Mother the Car

I think a human reincarnated in some other physical form qualifies as a quasi-ghost.

BTW, My Mother the Car has a somewhat undeserved reputation as the worst sitcom ever shown on American TV. IMHO, there are plenty of other shows that were just as bad, and even a few that were worse.

Captain Robert April wrote:

---

. . . yeah, I think Superman is the leading candidate for first alien character on television. Of course, that all depends on how you think of Milton Berle...

Uncle Miltie an alien? What could possibly give anyone that idea?

[Therin of Andor]

Christopher wrote:

---

Does Howdy Doody qualify as nonhuman?

Australia's "Mr Squiggle" dates back to 1959 and was not only a marionette and an alien artist with a pencil for a nose, but he lived on the moon and traveled to Earth in a rocket! His long-running TV show ended in 1999, but he continues to make TV guest appearances (including next Friday night on "Collectors"). I was a guest on the show in 1980, demonstrating how to make "Space Age Kites".



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Squiggle

[skylark14]

Mr. Ed, the talking horse. Cleo, the talking basset hound, (Jackie Cooper show, "The People's Choice") - I'm really digging around in my toddler brain for this one.

[hofner]

If we can include movie series there was Tarzan's sidekick, Cheetah.

Robert

[Christopher]

If we extend it to nonsentient animals, that pretty much becomes too broad to be useful, since you'd have to throw in every horse in every Western, every pet dog or cat, etc.

(Well, granted, chimps are basically sentient, but I think the original question had speaking characters in mind.)

[Potemkin_Prod]

Plenty of aliens in FIREBALL XL-5.

[Isis]

For this answer, I'll assume the intended meaning here of "non-human" is "non-Earthling." In any case, I found this URL interesting: http://sci-fi.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Aliens_on_Television It doesn't say definitively who was the first alien to make regular TV appearances, but does say My Favorite Martian was among the earliest.

Also, how are we defining "regular TV appearances"? If the character has to be a series regular, I can't add anything to previous posts. However, if it means a recurring character, there's Marvin the Martian of Looney Tunes (and his illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator, of course [http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0030547/quotes]). According to imdb (http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0030547/), he's made 24 appearances, and many, if not all, have made their way to TV, particularly via a few of the features being made for TV, as well as many of them being repeated on 1968's Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour. The earliest was Haredevil Hare in 1948 and the most recent was Bah Humduck!: A Looney Tunes Christmas in 2006, although maybe we haven't seen the last of this character.

[Christopher]

Well, Wikipedia claims that the 1949-55 series Captain Video featured a robot named I TOBOR as "an important, semi-regular character," but that's an exaggeration, since it only appeared in a few episodes. So I don't think that counts as making regular appearances.

Astro from Tom Corbett, a human born on Venus, has already been mentioned, but he would only count as an alien culturally rather than biologically. There was a Flash Gordon TV series in 1954-5, so I was thinking maybe it might've had Ming and Aura as regulars, but instead it just had Flash, Dale, and Zarkov on various far-future space adventures. They visited lots of alien planets, but no aliens made regular appearances as far as I can tell.

Ahh, wait, here we go! In 1954's Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, the main recurring antagonist was Queen Cleolanta or Cleolanthe (Patsy Parsons), ruler of the planet Ophiuchius. Her earliest listed appearance on IMDb is April 10, 1954.

I found another couple of puppet aliens, Johnny Jupiter and his compatriots, from a 1953-4 kids' show. As the name suggests, they were from Jupiter.

Still, I think the prize for first regular TV alien goes to George Reeves as Superman, beginning in September 1952.

Meanwhile, over in Japan in 1963, we've got a couple of famous cases of dead people being resurrected as androids, namely Mighty Atom (Astro Boy) and 8 Man. Plus various other aliens in '60s anime such as Tezuka's The Amazing 3.


So a list of regular or recurring nonhuman characters in science fiction television prior to Star Trek would look something like this (limiting it to sentient aliens and robots):

Sep. 1952: Kal El/Clark Kent/Superman (The Adventures of Superman, US)
Mar. 1953: Johnny Jupiter et al. (Johnny Jupiter, US)
Apr. 1954: Queen Cleolanta (Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, US)
Jul. 1959: Mr. Squiggle (Mr. Squiggle, Australia)
Sep. 1962: Rosie (The Jetsons, US)
Oct. 1962: Robert the Robot (Fireball XL5, UK)
Jan. 1963: Mighty Atom/Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu/Astro Boy, Japan)
Sep. 1963: Uncle Martin (My Favorite Martian, US)
Nov. 1963: 8 Man (Eitoman, Japan)
Nov. 1963: The Doctor (Doctor Who, UK)
Sep. 1964: AF709/Rhoda Miller (My Living Doll, US)
Feb. 1965: Adam Suisse (The Stranger, Australia)
May 1965: Space Ace (Uchuu Esu/Space Ace, Japan)
Jun. 1965: Popi (Planet Boy Popi/Prince Planet, Japan)
Jun. 1965: Bokko, Nokko, and Pukko (The Amazing 3, Japan)
Sep. 1965: Robot B-9 (Lost in Space, US)
Jul. 1966: Ultraman (Ultraman, Japan)

This is probably not an exhaustive list, but it's clear that Spock was a latecomer.

[Captain Robert April]

And the winner is...

[Gov Kodos]

Mr Ed

[Tan Ru]

The Great Gazoo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gazoo

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Also known as "Francisco Cervelli's Batting Helmet."

[Christopher]

Tan Ru wrote:

---

The Great Gazoo.

I love it that Wikipedia includes Gazoo under the category "Ancient astronauts in fiction." Kinda blurring the definition there, but okay.