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46-561: From 1955 to 1957, Science Fiction Theatre , a semi-documentary television series, explored the what if's of modern science. Placing an emphasis on science before fiction, television viewers were treated to a variety of complex challenges from mental telepathy, robots, man-eating ants, killer trees, man's first flight into space and time travel. Hosted by Truman Bradley , a radio/TV announcer and 1940s film actor, each episode featured stories which had an extrapolated scientific or pseudo scientific emphasis based on actual scientific data available at

92-572: A 1957 Disneyland episode, was featured in the episode "Time is Just a Place". The program never aired over a network. All 78 half-hour episodes were syndicated across the country in package deals of 39 episodes each. This meant the program could air on Saturday evening over a television station in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while the program aired on Wednesday evenings over a station in Newark, New Jersey. Every station featured regional sponsorship and depending on

138-573: A baby in June." A July 14, 1946, column by Jimmie Fidler reported, "The Truman Bradleys ... got a six-pound baby girl." Bradley died July 28, 1974, in Hollywood, California , at the Motion Picture Home . Ziv Television Programs Ziv Television Programs, Inc. was an American production company that specialized in productions for first-run television syndication in the 1950s. The company

184-500: A bullet in his brain but finds himself changed. A young geologist discovers an ancient spider enclosed in a piece of transparent rock. A scientist uses an experimental strength serum to murder a man who is blackmailing him. A telepathic chimpanzee saves a scientist and his wife from a killer. While doing field work in a desert, a mining engineer finds the payload from a high altitude rocket experiment. He takes it home and leaves it in his wife's care while he goes into town to contact

230-711: A loss for some time". Needing more space to accommodate increasing production, in December 1954 Ziv purchased 92 percent of American National Studios in Hollywood. The trade publication Billboard said that the six-acre purchase was reported to have exceeded $ 2 million. It had more than double the space of Ziv's previous facility. As the Big Three television networks began offering programs outside of prime time, Ziv's popularity and business began to decline. The market for first-run syndicated television programming began to dwindle, and

276-478: A machine for generating high energy photons. He believes the photons, similar to those ejected from the Sun, were the origin of life on Earth. When his "photon gun" generates living matter, he uses it to treat his wife's degenerated endocrine system with positive results. But was it the technology or his renewed love for his wife that caused her to rally? "Project Torch", an experimental missile containing an artificial sun,

322-553: A method to mine the Earth's oceans. But as they begin to share their theories and devices, the materials suddenly vanish. They notice that not only equipment and files are gone, but time has also disappeared. A brief conversation begun at 11 pm ends more than an hour later, with no awareness of the intervening time having passed. A spy has found a way to move among the scientists at will and take what he wants without anyone perceiving him. In an effort to capture this thief, "Operation Flypaper"

368-402: A number of episodes. The first season was filmed on 35mm Eastmancolor negative, which was then not considered the best color available for television, often fading over time due to vinegar deterioration. Syndication packages for a second season were renewed at an 80 percent retention ratio, borderline for color production. In March 1956, producer Ivan Tors agreed with Frederick Ziv to produce

414-403: A rage he shatters his machine and is captured. The man was a brilliant but paranoid scientist who wanted to be recognized for contributions to science and was stealing mining ideas and equipment he would later "invent". Ironically, his sleep machine, now totally destroyed, would have insured his place in scientific history as the greatest method of surgical anesthesia ever invented. A picture of

460-443: A similar environment will reverse his condition. He is placed in a wheelchair in the "Cone of Silence", consisting of a raised circular platform suspended by 3 wires tied to a common vertex. Although the cone's surface is open, anyone sitting inside would experience silence due to the phased ultrasonic noise generators located just below the vertex. Anyone speaking inside the cone could not be heard outside. With Dr. Harcourt's guidance,

506-430: A top secret government project is found murdered in a hotel room. The notes and formulae for the project have been stolen by foreign powers. The project's brilliant engineer is arrested and imprisoned for the murder, and for espionage, because a number of witnesses heard him asking by telephone the senior scientist for a meeting in the hotel room shortly before the murder occurred. To prove his innocence and his theory of how

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552-676: Is found to reproduce sounds from 2000 years ago. A murder and the secrets of the Pyramids combine. A dying scientist needs time to finish his experiments. The survivors of a submarine disaster claim that they saw a city on the sea floor, but are ridiculed by investigators. Professor Richard Sheldon has been returned to the United States in a confused, altered state of mind after enemy agents hypnotized him in an environment of absolute silence while visiting Milan . His friend, psychiatrist Dr. Elliott Harcourt, reasons that placing Professor Sheldon in

598-427: Is launched during early evening over a desert. When the craft mysteriously fails to return to Earth, the intense light creates artificial daylight. Fortunately, the extended daylight prevents an unscrupulous housing developer from attacking an ex-convict's family to force them out of his newly constructed neighborhood. The developer sees the light and has a change of opinion. But what caused the artificial sun to remain in

644-399: Is organized. A false laboratory is outfitted with hidden cameras and microphones, and technicians begin simulated work on another piece of vital equipment. As the room is observed, the occupants suddenly freeze in mid-stride. A man enters with a device that can put subjects into total sleep with no after effects, and begins to steal the equipment. The observers reveal he is being watched, and in

690-593: The Continental Air Defense Command is alerted. They fear that the "radar" that protects bats from collision has somehow been deactivated. The Magnetic Pole Weather Station receives a strange distress message and initiates one of the greatest rescue missions of all time. Two uranium prospectors meet a stranger from another land who is searching for oxygen-producing plants. A biologist and his staff test synthetic foods, that have proved fatal to animals, on themselves. A police sergeant escapes death from

736-572: The 1930s as a radio broadcaster. Working at WBBM in Chicago , Illinois , some considered him "the Mid-West's leading news commentator." He was selected by Henry Ford to be the announcer for the Ford Sunday Evening Hour , for which he flew to Detroit , Michigan , each weekend. With his distinctive, authoritative voice, he soon became a radio actor as well as a narrator in numerous movies. In

782-900: The American legal drama Perry Mason entitled "The Case of the Madcap Modiste" playing a grey-haired television interviewer and the episode's narrator. He then retired. In 1937, Bradley and his sister bought the Chicago-based Mme. Huntingford Cosmetic Company . He was the company's president, and Elene Bradley was general manager, "active in the sales end of the business." Bradley married Evelyn Jane Esenther of Oak Park, Illinois , September 8, 1937. He married actress Myra Bratton January 12, 1940, in Las Vegas, Nevada . Bratton filed for divorce in Los Angeles, California , March 17, 1941. The divorce

828-536: The Arctic for 500,000 years. A team of scientists trying to develop a new antibiotic are driven to hostility by exposure to the drug. A freak super-hurricane, more powerful than any hurricane than has ever occurred before, threatens the Miami coastline. Then, just when it seems that Miami is doomed, a freak high-pressure system forces the storm back out to sea, where it dissipates over colder waters. Subsequent tests reveal that

874-559: The Divorce in 1942. He was also in Northwest Passage (1940), Millionaires in Prison (1940) and Murder Among Friends (1941). Bradley was the host of the 1950s syndicated TV series Science Fiction Theatre . He occasionally worked as an actor in films (including two Charlie Chan mysteries in the 1930s) and live theater. He made his final acting appearance in a 1960 episode of

920-408: The Earth. The tale of a strange little boy who can communicate with animals. A medical researcher isolates a compound that regenerates damaged tissue. When he tries it on a terminally ill patient, she recovers completely in three days and now has the ability to change her appearance and fingerprints seemingly at will. An obsessive scientist is unaware his wife is gravely ill as he works to develop

966-703: The Flying Saucers (1956). Posters, paintings and electronic gadgets appeared that were used previously as props in producer Ivan Tors' The Magnetic Monster (1953), Riders to the Stars (1954) and Gog (1954). The Bendix Aviation Corporation supplied computer equipment seen in the episode "Survival in Box Canyon". Garco the Robot, used to publicize the Rocky Jones, Space Ranger television series, and featured prominently in

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1012-411: The authorities. As soon as he's gone, his wife examines the payload and inadvertently releases a toxic gas. Two top freelance photographers go to Mexico to photograph mysterious flying objects and find a dead alien. A retired man confides to a fellow research chemist that he is more than two centuries old. The story of a beekeeper whose bees manufacture a wonder drug instead of honey. A paperweight

1058-575: The camera panned over a science laboratory . Then, Truman Bradley showed a simple scientific experiment which was related to the topic of that week's show. Bradley's demonstrations were often staged, but yielded results consistent with the outcome of true experiments. He was always careful to point out that the story presented was fictional: that "it did not happen". The pilot episode was filmed in July 1954, but Bradley's on-screen duties were not filmed until September 11, which also included off-screen narration for

1104-447: The company, to attempt to save its business, began to produce programs which aired over the networks in 1956. In 1960, the company was purchased by United Artists and merged with their television unit to become Ziv-United Artists, but two years later, the name changed back to United Artists Television after the TV studio phased out Ziv Television Programs' operations. In 1962, shortly before

1150-435: The crimes were committed, the accused engineer constructs a voice synthesizer. He uses it to have himself released from prison by duplicating the voice of a government official by telephone. The engineer also calls the other members of the team to the government official's office and uses the machine to trick the guilty team member into confessing. A group of scientists from many disciplines are met in secret conclave to develop

1196-403: The daughter of a respected astronomer, watching the stars one evening from their parked car, see what they consider a flying saucer. A stranger appears at the door of the car saying he too saw the light in the sky, and asks if he can be given a lift down the hill into town. Later, the astronomer refuses to believe the couple saw anything more than an optical illusion. To prove the existence of UFOs,

1242-457: The episode in abbreviated form (21 and one half minutes instead of 26) to make more room for commercials. In the 1985 film Back to the Future , Science Fiction Theatre is mentioned as George McFly's favorite television program, from which Marty McFly gains the idea to dress up as an alien in order to scare George into asking his mother Lorraine to the school dance. Traveling at three times

1288-505: The far side of the Moon finds creatures from other worlds at work on its surface. Truman Bradley (actor) Truman Bradley (February 8, 1905 – July 28, 1974) was an actor and narrator in radio, television and film. Bradley was born February 8, 1905, in Sheldon, Missouri . Although he wanted to be an actor, he followed his parents' desires and studied law. Bradley began his career in

1334-428: The highest paid actors for the series, earning $ 2,500 each for a three-day filming, followed by Gene Lockhart (2ep.), Don DeFore , and Howard Duff who were paid $ 2,000 each. Most actors were paid between $ 150 and $ 500 depending on the size of their role. Each episode was introduced by a stirring brass, string, and woodwind fanfare (most likely composed by Ray Bloch , longtime music director for Ed Sullivan ), while

1380-741: The mid-1940s, Bradley was a newscaster with KERN in Bakersfield, California . Bradley was the announcer for Red Skelton's program , Burns and Allen Easy Aces , the Frank Sinatra Show and Screen Guild Players . A newspaper columnist wrote in 1942 that representatives of the film industry "had stalked him [Bradley] in Chicago, pouncing on him with such enthusiasm and rich offers that he could not, in honesty to himself, refuse." He received critical praise for his work in The Night Before

1426-402: The name change, Ziv-UA tried a hand in changing its focus on independent television producers. Today, most of the rights to Ziv's TV shows are distributed by MGM Television and SFM Entertainment , while some of them have fallen into the public domain . ZIV International , on the other hand, was established as an unrelated production company and distributor of Americanized anime shows in

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1472-424: The pilot and the second episode produced, "Y-O-R-D-", which did not go into production until December 1954. Bradley's duties included visits to the studio for hosting assignments, often filmed in batches of two, three and four episodes in a single day. On February 28, 1955, for example, Herbert Strock directed Bradley for all the pick-ups and off-screen narrations for episodes three, four and five. Bradley returned to

1518-507: The price tag, Truman Bradley was hired to film commercials for those local spots as inserts. The program was re-titled Beyond The Limits for later syndication in the 1960s. From 1996 to 1998, Science Fiction Theatre aired weekly on Friday evenings over the Sci-Fi Channel on cable TV. The picture quality was above average and the same provided to PBS stations in the 1980s. While PBS aired the program uncut and unedited, Sci-Fi Channel aired

1564-913: The program in black and white to offset production expenses in return for a second season. Like the syndicated Out There and Tales of Tomorrow anthology series before it, Science Fiction Theatre was a predecessor to later science-fiction anthology shows such as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits . The show had no fixed cast other than the host, although a number of actors appeared in multiple episodes in different roles. Michael Fox (7ep.), Dick Foran (4ep.), Marshall Thompson (7ep.), Dabbs Greer (3ep.), Arthur Franz (5ep.), Whit Bissell (3ep.), Judith Ames (6ep.), and Bruce Bennett (5ep.) appeared in more episodes than most. The show also featured stars such as Basil Rathbone , Kenneth Tobey (2ep.), Victor Jory , Gene Barry (2ep.), DeForest Kelley (3ep.), Phyllis Coates and Vincent Price (2ep.). Edmund Gwenn (2ep.) and Ruth Hussey (2ep.) were

1610-442: The reporter films a documentary of witnesses, while the astronomer promptly demonstrates scientific explanations for each witness's sightings. But the mysterious stranger has left a photograph at the astronomer's lab- a photograph of our solar system taken from space. The stranger has disappeared, but left a forwarding address: Centauri 6. The sixth planet of the star Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light years from Earth. The senior scientist of

1656-415: The research. The doubting wife of a psychic researcher locates a missing colleague through clairvoyance. A scientist discovers a species of termites that consume minerals instead of wood. A scientist dies suddenly from heart failure. While examining his laboratory and unfinished work, workers of his institute discover he had been receiving his discoveries from extraterrestrials orbiting 1,500 miles above

1702-446: The scientific, and not-so-scientific apparatus appears again and again as props with many different functions. A few of the electrical gadgets such as the computerized chess game, were fake—magnets inside the chess pieces with a technician under the table to move the pieces. One anti-gravity device featured in the episodes "Beyond" and "Y-O-R-D" was a primary device for a key scene in Earth vs.

1748-485: The sky long after it should have fallen? A new rocket fuel makes interplanetary travel possible. But the effects of the hostile environment of outer space on mankind are still unknown. "Project 44" gives a husband and wife research team one year to determine if a select group of specialists can travel safely to Mars. But something seems to be undermining the project. Is it bad luck or sabotage ? "That which we do not understand sometimes causes apprehension." A reporter and

1794-445: The speed of sound, a test pilot ejects claiming that another craft was about to collide with his. A young couple discovers that their neighbors, who possess a sonic broom and many other technologically advanced household items, are fugitives from the future who have fled to the past to escape an oppressive government. Adapted from Jack Finney's short story, " Such Interesting Neighbors ". When bats begin colliding with skyscrapers,

1840-470: The storm was triggered by the explosion of an exceptionally large meteor when it splashed into the ocean, whose unusually warm waters were unable to drain off the meteor's excess heat energy (built up by atmospheric friction) fast enough to prevent the blast. The prevailing weather conditions at the time combined with the blast to produce the super-storm. After a researcher dies in an explosion trying to create water from tritium, his friend attempts to complete

1886-454: The studio two weeks later for pick-ups and off-screen narration for episodes six and seven. After the first two episodes were filmed, an oversight was discovered: Bradley wore a different tie on September 11, 1954 and December 1954. Afterwards, Bradley followed instructions to wear the same suit and same tie for every episode moving forward. Because of the limited budgets and intense production schedules of ZIV episodic television shows, most of

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1932-459: The time. Typically, the stories related to the life or work of scientists, engineers, inventors, and explorers, the program concentrated on such concepts as space flight, robots , telepathy , flying saucers , time travel , and the intervention of extraterrestrials in human affairs. With few exceptions, the stories were original concepts based on articles from recent issues of Scientific American , issues of which can be seen on Bradley's desk in

1978-539: The treatment works, and Sheldon regains his memory. After a near-fatal electric shock from a computer, a technician exhibits enhanced sensory and intellectual abilities. A pilot lost in a geomagnetic storm is forced to navigate by a thermometer, a coffee pot and the Earth itself. The eccentric Dr. Pliny visits a university where he builds a device purported to provide free energy from cosmic rays. A radar expert suspects his next-door neighbors are spies from another planet. A baby mammoth revives after being frozen in

2024-428: Was founded by Frederick Ziv in 1948 and was a subsidiary of his successful radio syndication business, which had begun in 1937. The company produced recorded programs and sold them directly to local television stations. The television syndication service proved lucrative during the late 1940s and early 1950s, as local television stations wanted to fill their schedules during hours outside of " prime time ". By 1955, Ziv

2070-435: Was granted November 17, 1941. He later had a complex relationship with actress Phyllis Ruth , whom he married in 1942. Three years later, she announced plans to file for divorce. Early in 1946, however, a newspaper columnist reported: "The judge who ruled that Starlet Phyllis Ruth and Radio Announcer Truman Bradley could live in the same house, though separated, did a smart thing. They are reconciled now and are going to have

2116-638: Was producing more than 250 half-hour TV episodes a year. Ziv expanded beyond the United States, establishing four European subsidiaries in the fall of 1954. The company's first sale in Europe was Mr. District Attorney , bought by Radio Diffusion Francaise, with Ziv International of France overseeing dubbing of episodes into French. The trade publication Variety reported in February 1955 that Ziv's overall international budget had been increased to $ 2 million, which meant that its international activities "will operate at

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