Wednesday, October 10, 2012

BEST OF BARRY - "THE TIME TUNNEL" - ORIGINAL POSTING: MARCH 20, 2008


The Time Tunnel ran just one season (on ABC) back in 1966 to 1967. Because of this, unless one caught it on first air-dates then you were to hear of it only described to you; in my case, by a friend. In 1974 or abouts, he told me of The Time Tunnel and proceeded to describe an episode where "these guys", Tony and Doug, the two handsome leads of this series, end up on the Titanic just as it was about to sink. I had more than heard of the ocean liner Titanic, I was a fanatic at an early age, but I could not pull any memories from the memory bank to reward my friend's noble feat to jog my memory. I just did not remember any television based time machine other than Doctor Who's Tardis. (What my pal was describing was the pilot episode, "Rendezvous with Yesterday", starring some dude by the name of Michael Rennie.)

Eventually, I did see a couple of episodes in the mid 1980s courtesy of CKVR's summer classic television programming. I found The Time Tunnel to be boring and without much merit. Why, I asked, do Tony and Doug always end up at a time and place where some major event is happening, such as Krakatoa during the volcano incident, or the War of 1812? Why did they not end up in Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada, during tobacco harvest season?

I should mention that a television budget could only realize such ambitious scenarios through the use of 20th Century Fox's stock library. By duping sections from films such as The Buccaneer (1958), or The 300 Spartans (1962) the tv epic could realize its lofty goals.

Irwin Allen admitted that The Time Tunnel was his favourite of his own series'.

Check out this original promo...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFpybNImA38&NR=1

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