THE TIME TUNNEL, 60 years also

[HGN2001]

I know that many members here tend to look down their noses at the work of Irwin Allen back in the 60s, but one particular series of his caught my imagination as a teenager back in 1966. THE TIME TUNNEL premiered one day after STAR TREK, and really rang a bell with me. Yes, I recognize the silliness of the later episodes, but the idea of time travel is one that struck a chord and stayed with me.

So Happy 60th, TIME TUNNEL.

 

[A Koalaty of Mercy]

I didn't know they premiered pretty much concurrently until I watched Steve and the week before Trek was broadcast.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Saul]

I know that many members here tend to look down their noses at the work of Irwin Allen back in the 60s

Really? I personally don't think that many do. As for me, I love his stuff.

 

[HGN2001]

I don't post here often, but the few times the subject of THE TIME TUNNEL has come up, the opinions were often on the negative side - and I get that. Irwin had his ways and always opted for "cheap". I was still fascinated with the idea of time travel.

And let's face it - LOST IN SPACE was truly a mess, particularly most of that second season.

 

[flandry84]

Irwin Allen productions…best theme tunes ever!

 

[HGN2001]

Irwin Allen productions…best theme tunes ever!

For sure. As much as I look down on some of LOST IN SPACE's goofy episodes, I cannot deny the appeal of John Williams theme tunes. And all four of them were really great, even Paul Sawtell's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA theme.

 

[HIjol]

I loved the Time Tunnel, at the time!

I was 9 when it premiered, and the computer sounds and Tunnel sound effects are still with me!

Project Tic-Toc!!!

 

[Count Darcula70]

I know that many members here tend to look down their noses at the work of Irwin Allen back in the 60s, but one particular series of his caught my imagination as a teenager back in 1966. THE TIME TUNNEL premiered one day after STAR TREK, and really rang a bell with me. Yes, I recognize the silliness of the later episodes, but the idea of time travel is one that struck a chord and stayed with me.

So Happy 60th, TIME TUNNEL.

Love the Time Tunnel. It was more serious than LIs. It did use a lot of file footage but was a fun show. Too bad it only got one season.

 

[Christopher]

Love the Time Tunnel. It was more serious than LIs. It did use a lot of file footage but was a fun show. Too bad it only got one season.

The thing is, Irwin Allen shows tended to start out relatively serious and get goofier as they went. The Time Tunnel showed that to some extent, like doing an episode about Merlin late in the season, but it didn't last long enough to get as goofy as it probably would have with a longer run.

 

[Count Darcula70]

The thing is, Irwin Allen shows tended to start out relatively serious and get goofier as they went. The Time Tunnel showed that to some extent, like doing an episode about Merlin late in the season, but it didn't last long enough to get as goofy as it probably would have with a longer run.

Right. But like Voyage to the bottom of the sea I don't think TT would have gotten The Great Vegetable Rebellion bad ... ....TT and Voyage had their goofy episodes but nowhere on the scale of a talking carrot. ....

 

[Jedi Marso]

Reading the episode list for this series, it looks like Quantum Leap sorta kinda ripped off the concept. Maybe even that mid-80's gem, Voyagers! , too.

 

[Christopher]

Reading the episode list for this series, it looks like Quantum Leap sorta kinda ripped off the concept.

Every concept gets used more than once without any ripoffs being involved. But yeah, they do have a lot of parallels -- a secret time travel project in the desert is threatened with losing funding, so the lead scientist prematurely time travels and gets stuck bouncing around history. I mean, it's no wonder why the premise was reused, since it's a natural hook for an episodic series, a quest-for-home narrative with a different setting each week.

Plus, of course, they had notable differences despite the similarities of format. TTT generally focused on big events of the sort that ended up in history books (and in movies it could crib stock footage from), while QL usually focused on more personal, small-scale stories in more recent history.

Maybe even that mid-80's gem, Voyagers! , too.

Not so much, because there they traveled to their destinations by choice on specific missions, rather than being lost in time.

Although the premise of Voyagers! never made any sense to me. The lead character's pocketwatch alerted him when history was going "wrong," i.e. not the way the history books recorded it, so he went around making sure it went the "right" way. But what was causing it to go "wrong?" There were no other time travelers deliberately messing with history. And if those events had already happened a certain way, what could possibly cause them to be at risk of happening a different way? If they were spontaneously happening one way and Bogg took conscious effort to make them happen another way, doesn't that mean he was subverting the natural flow of history rather than "correcting" it? I know it was just an excuse to teach kids history (or at least the 1980s textbook-approved version of history, which was probably highly inaccurate and whitewashed), but even as a teenager, I found the concept annoyingly nonsensical.

 

[HGN2001]

Irwin Allen always wanted his series to be edge-of-your-seat excitement, but he was also hampered by network budgets. They didn't 'get' sci-fi at all and just wanted his shows to cost the same as Gunsmoke each week. So Allen was forced to cheap things out by hiring second-string writers as his series went along.

I should also point out that his first series, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, started out with lots of cold-war espionage stories that were middling in the ratings. But on those weeks where he threw in a monster, the ratings soared. So in an effort to keep the ratings high, he just had his writers do more monsters.

This week would be the 60th anniversary of STAR TREK and TIME TUNNEL's second episodes. NBC had them run "Charlie X" and TIME TUNNEL went with "One Way To The Moon".

I remember watching the first half of "Charlie X" because I just couldn't miss the first color episode of BEWITCHED on ABC at 9. And "One Way To The Moon" showed that the Time Tunnel could throw people into the future as well as the past.

 

[FredH]

Although the premise of Voyagers! never made any sense to me. The lead character's pocketwatch alerted him when history was going "wrong," i.e. not the way the history books recorded it, so he went around making sure it went the "right" way. But what was causing it to go "wrong?" There were no other time travelers deliberately messing with history. And if those events had already happened a certain way, what could possibly cause them to be at risk of happening a different way? If they were spontaneously happening one way and Bogg took conscious effort to make them happen another way, doesn't that mean he was subverting the natural flow of history rather than "correcting" it? I know it was just an excuse to teach kids history (or at least the 1980s textbook-approved version of history, which was probably highly inaccurate and whitewashed), but even as a teenager, I found the concept annoyingly nonsensical.

At the time, my dad pointed out almost right away that they weren’t fixing history, they were creating it.

 

[Christopher]

At the time, my dad pointed out almost right away that they weren’t fixing history, they were creating it.

I could imagine that Bogg's employers were actually attempting to change the timeline to fit their preferred future, and misleading Bogg that he was "fixing" a broken timeline. Except that the premise (going from Wikipedia, since I haven't watched it since first run) was that Bogg lost his manual (a lot of that going around in '80s sci-fi) and depended on Meeno Peluce's character to tell him how history was "supposed" to go according to his classroom lessons, which doesn't fit the premise of the timeline originally having a different form. Unless the kid was in on the conspiracy...

 

[Mr. Spook]

I don't post here often, but the few times the subject of THE TIME TUNNEL has come up, the opinions were often on the negative side - and I get that. Irwin had his ways and always opted for "cheap". I was still fascinated with the idea of time travel.

And let's face it - LOST IN SPACE was truly a mess, particularly most of that second season.

I love the Irwin Allen shows. The Time Tunnel is my second favorite behind Voyage.

Irwin Allen always wanted his series to be edge-of-your-seat excitement, but he was also hampered by network budgets. They didn't 'get' sci-fi at all and just wanted his shows to cost the same as Gunsmoke each week. So Allen was forced to cheap things out by hiring second-string writers as his series went along.

I don't think "cheap" is accurate. He spent money, but he front-loaded his seasons with bigger budgeted effects episodes and then when they got to the back 9, that's when you'd see the really cost cutting episodes. Voyage did that in the color years - be he also did simultaneous shooting on a few 1st season shows to catch up on both time and money. He'd rely on small cast episodes (skeleton crew episodes or, as he called them "one man shows"), stock footage to cut production time and so on. Voyage was a very effects heavy series. He relied on stock model shots, but every SF show did. Star Trek included.

The Time Tunnel's format had the movie footage baked into the concept. Otherwise, it never would have gotten done. The format changed 2/3 of the way through to chase ratings. LIS didn't use much stock footage, but stuck to a soundstage 98% of the time and had much smaller and lower run guest casts. Land of the Giants is where he want all out on money. Too bad it wasn't a very good series.

Irwin ran reports, did surveys and got a ton of data to see what people wanted. That and the budget generally dictated what we got. For Voyage, I loved it. Lost in Space, nah.

I should also point out that his first series, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, started out with lots of cold-war espionage stories that were middling in the ratings. But on those weeks where he threw in a monster, the ratings soared. So in an effort to keep the ratings high, he just had his writers do more monsters.

Well, yes and no. Voyage did great when it debuted. It was a solid hit for the first half of the first season, But then The Man From UNCLE was moved opposite and that sucked away Voyage's audience.

The following season, once they went to color, Irwin - still chasing the fads - made Voyage much more spy heavy. And THOSE episodes did poorly. The second season, now moved to 7pm Sundays, struggled when it came back. Even with terrific episodes like Jonah and the Whale, The Cyborg and Escape from Venice. The thing is, Voyage did Man From UNCLE poorly and that's not what kids were watching for. They had spies everywhere. They wanted what made Voyage unique. Then they upped the promotional spots, focusing on the monsters and action, so when they aired The Phantom Strikes with a ghost story and that brought the audience back. Most of Voyage's most highly rated episodes in the second season were in the back half. Monster/SF shows like Deadly Creature Below and the superb Leviathan were among the lowest rated. But, again, in that back half, episodes were padded with stock footage from The Enemy Below, The Lost World and prior episodes because he blew his wad early.

So when they were going into the 3rd season, Irwin felt all monsters all the time was what people wanted. And for a while, he was right. The series, after a weak premiere showing, brought in good numbers. Those lasted through past the halfway point. Then the back 9 were just in the cellar. People had enough and the late season episodes were really threadbare.

As for the writers, yes, people like Peter Packer and William Welch were hacks and not expensive. But they were also cooperative and that's what the issue was. Irwin was never going to pay Quinn Martin money for his writers, but the main issue was he was a tyrant. Willian Read Woodfield and Allan Balter couldn't deal with him and left for Mission: Impossible after contributing some great scripts (and a few not so great). But then they got in the weeds with M:I producer Bruce Geller and walked out of that show after a few seasons - so I think it was a Woodfield problem (he was a bull of a man apparently). And eventually, nobody really good wanted to work with him. And even if they did, the scripts were gutted by the story editor and Irwin to remove person al scenes to keep the focus on action, monsters and more action.

Right. But like Voyage to the bottom of the sea I don't think TT would have gotten The Great Vegetable Rebellion bad ... ....TT and Voyage had their goofy episodes but nowhere on the scale of a talking carrot. ....

Well Voyage did have a talking Lobster Man and a Terrible Leprechaun - which is my vote for worst episode of the series.

 

[HGN2001]

Well Voyage did have a talking Lobster Man and a Terrible Leprechaun - which is my vote for worst episode of the series.

Can't argue with that. Though I'd add the puppet episode "The Deadly Dolls" that was many years in advance of the recent STRANGE NEW WORLDS puppet episode. What goes around comes around.

Though I don't think TIME TUNNEL would ever get so goofy as to have talking carrots, they did manage to put Kevin Hagen in a "lettuce" head that was supposed to be something like hair, I guess.

 

[HIjol]

Wow!
I forgot this one...The Grand Nagus meets Balok!!!

 

[DarrenTR1970]

Willian Read Woodfield and Allan Balter couldn't deal with him and left for Mission: Impossible after contributing some great scripts (and a few not so great). But then they got in the weeds with M:I producer Bruce Geller and walked out of that show after a few seasons - so I think it was a Woodfield problem (he was a bull of a man apparently).

It's slightly more than that.

After Producer Joseph Gantman left M:I after the first two seasons, script editors William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter were promoted to Producers based on the scripts they had written during the first two seasons.

According to the people interviewed for the M:I book, as script writers and script editors, they turned out great scripts, but as Producers, they became dictatorial, especially Woodfield; not allowing for any changes or compromises in the scripts, casting or props, feeling it would hurt the look of the show.

There was actual open hostility on the set between Woodfield and Balter and the production crew charged with building the sets, props and makeup.

Woodfield and Balter's anger was directed at Executive Producer Bruce Geller, whom Woodfield claimed had no idea how the show worked and was constantly questioning Woodfield and Balter's scripts.

Woodfield at one point suggesting Geller hand over the Executive Producer role to Woodfield and Balter and walk away from the show.

The final blow up came with less than six episodes in the can when Geller walked into the office and asked that a line by Ambrose Bierce be inserted into the script, and Woodfield responded by asking if the actor would say, "As Ambrose Bierce once said," and Geller's response was "No" because he assumed the audience was smart enough to know it was an Ambrose Bierce quote.

What ensued was a shouting match so brutal that it was heard across the Paramount/Desilu lot that ended with Woodfield threatening to put Geller in the hospital.

Woodfield and Balter were immediately fired by Geller and escorted off the lot without having time to clean out their office.

 

[Count Darcula70]

I love the Irwin Allen shows. The Time Tunnel is my second favorite behind Voyage.

I don't think "cheap" is accurate. He spent money, but he front-loaded his seasons with bigger budgeted effects episodes and then when they got to the back 9, that's when you'd see the really cost cutting episodes. Voyage did that in the color years - be he also did simultaneous shooting on a few 1st season shows to catch up on both time and money. He'd rely on small cast episodes (skeleton crew episodes or, as he called them "one man shows"), stock footage to cut production time and so on. Voyage was a very effects heavy series. He relied on stock model shots, but every SF show did. Star Trek included.

The Time Tunnel's format had the movie footage baked into the concept. Otherwise, it never would have gotten done. The format changed 2/3 of the way through to chase ratings. LIS didn't use much stock footage, but stuck to a soundstage 98% of the time and had much smaller and lower run guest casts. Land of the Giants is where he want all out on money. Too bad it wasn't a very good series.

Irwin ran reports, did surveys and got a ton of data to see what people wanted. That and the budget generally dictated what we got. For Voyage, I loved it. Lost in Space, nah.



Well, yes and no. Voyage did great when it debuted. It was a solid hit for the first half of the first season, But then The Man From UNCLE was moved opposite and that sucked away Voyage's audience.

The following season, once they went to color, Irwin - still chasing the fads - made Voyage much more spy heavy. And THOSE episodes did poorly. The second season, now moved to 7pm Sundays, struggled when it came back. Even with terrific episodes like Jonah and the Whale, The Cyborg and Escape from Venice. The thing is, Voyage did Man From UNCLE poorly and that's not what kids were watching for. They had spies everywhere. They wanted what made Voyage unique. Then they upped the promotional spots, focusing on the monsters and action, so when they aired The Phantom Strikes with a ghost story and that brought the audience back. Most of Voyage's most highly rated episodes in the second season were in the back half. Monster/SF shows like Deadly Creature Below and the superb Leviathan were among the lowest rated. But, again, in that back half, episodes were padded with stock footage from The Enemy Below, The Lost World and prior episodes because he blew his wad early.

So when they were going into the 3rd season, Irwin felt all monsters all the time was what people wanted. And for a while, he was right. The series, after a weak premiere showing, brought in good numbers. Those lasted through past the halfway point. Then the back 9 were just in the cellar. People had enough and the late season episodes were really threadbare.

As for the writers, yes, people like Peter Packer and William Welch were hacks and not expensive. But they were also cooperative and that's what the issue was. Irwin was never going to pay Quinn Martin money for his writers, but the main issue was he was a tyrant. Willian Read Woodfield and Allan Balter couldn't deal with him and left for Mission: Impossible after contributing some great scripts (and a few not so great). But then they got in the weeds with M:I producer Bruce Geller and walked out of that show after a few seasons - so I think it was a Woodfield problem (he was a bull of a man apparently). And eventually, nobody really good wanted to work with him. And even if they did, the scripts were gutted by the story editor and Irwin to remove person al scenes to keep the focus on action, monsters and more action.


Well Voyage did have a talking Lobster Man and a Terrible Leprechaun - which is my vote for worst episode of the series.

I don't remember the lobster man talking....even if he did it was still played straight. Yeah the leprechaun one was the worst of the series. But still played straight....