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Director: Max Fleischer
Release Date: 1920
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘All Aboard for a Trip to the Moon’ is a very early educational animation short. The short was animated by Max Fleischer at the Bray Studios, and apparently part of a series called ‘Goldwyn Bray Pictograph – The Magazine on the Screen’. For this short Fleischer got assistance of the Popular Science Monthly for the scientific details.
In less than 8 minutes ‘All Aboard for a Trip to the Moon’ tells about a hypothetical trip to the moon, telling us how far the moon is, and how to overcome the Earth’s gravity by using a radium-propelled rocket. Fleischer depicts quite a hard, bouncing landing of the rocket on the moon, and it’s never revealed how the vessel would be able to return to Earth, but we get some nice and convincing shots of the moon’s landscape and earth from the moon itself.
Fleischer’s drawings and animations are combined with live action footage, e.g. of a man handling radium, and another one getting dressed for the trip. Apparently in 1920 the scientists deemed a thick fur coat and a gas mask enough protection in outer space…
The short also states that radium alone can create the force to overcome the Earth’s gravity, while the Saturn V rockets that eventually would put man on the moon were fueled by a modified form of kerosene, and in 1920 kerosene itself was already well-known…
Anyhow, scientific errors aside, ‘All Aboard for a Trip to the Moon’ is an entertaining piece of infotainment. It not only predates Disney’s similar futurist television specials, like ‘Man and the Moon‘ (1955) with a staggering 35 years, it also gives an insight look in how space travel was perceived in the 1920s.
‘All Aboard for a Trip to the Moon’ is available on the Thunderbean Blu-Ray ‘Fleischer Rarities’
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing Date: March 3, 1961
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★
When Betty gets an address wrong, Fred and Barney line up at the army recruitment office instead of the physical examination for an insurance company.
Before they realize it, the neighbors have joined the army, for three years… Inside the army Fred and Barney volunteer for a space program lead by a German-sounding professor without realizing it. After the professor has conducted some weird experiments on them, Fred and Barney are shot away in a wooden rocket by a giant slingshot, only to land some yards further, in an artillery range, which they think is the moon.
‘The Astra’ Nuts’ has one of the weakest plots of all Flintstones episodes. The whole series of events which lead to the boys joining the army for no less than three years is very unconvincing. One suspects all these plot twists are only introduced to get Fred and Barney inside a rocket.
When the four realize Fred and Barney have enlisted, we get a series of rather poorly drawn double-takes. Much better are the bizarre tests, but the best gag is when we’re set up to expect an enormous band only to see the conductor conduct just one trumpet player. This episode features a sergeant with the same voice as the Snorkasaurus had in ‘The Snorkasaurus Hunter‘.
Watch ‘The Astra’ Nuts’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Flintstones Season One Episode 22
To the previous Flintstones episode: Love Letters on the Rocks
To the next Flintstones episode: The Long, Long Weekend
‘The Astra’ Nuts’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Flintstones: The Complete First Season’
Director: Albert Barillé
Airing date: November 27?, 1982
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
‘Le long voyage’ is a nice episode about space travel.
Star of the episode is an ancient forefather of Maestro who, after a journey of more than a 1,000 years, awakes near Omega, only to be greeted by descendants of humans who had made the trip after him, with better, larger and faster spaceships.
This episode excels in beautiful backgrounds and designs, especially of the spaceships. Highlight, however, are the ancient Maestro’s fantasies about extraterrestrial life, just before he encounters the all too familiar inhabitants of Omega.
With ‘Le long voyage’ we firmly return to the main story of ‘Il était une fois… l’espace’. The strange incident from episode 1 is mentioned again, and in this episode we learn that earth still exists, ultimately leading to our heroes visiting their mother planet in episode 17. It also contains an unclear mystery about a hijacked ‘train’, indicating more troubles to come. Moreover, this episode shows Psi’s psychic powers in full, saving Pierrot who has become adrift in space.
Maestro’s ancestor is a great character and he would return to the screen in episodes 17 (‘Terre!‘) and 18 (‘L’Atlantide‘).
Watch ‘Le long voyage’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is the 8th episode of ‘Il était une fois… l’espace’ (Once Upon a Time… Space)
To the 7th episode: La planète Mytho (The Planet Mytho)
To the 9th episode: À Cassiopée (In Cassiopeia)
Director: Ward Kimball
Airing date: December 28, 1955
Stars: Walt Disney, Ward Kimball, Wernher von Braun
Rating: ★★★
Review:
After ‘Man in Space‘ (1955), ‘Man and the Moon’ is the second of three Disneyland broadcasts documenting man’s plans to conquest space.
‘Man of the Moon’ deals with the conquest of the moon, and consists of four parts. The first, largely animated, tells about man’s fascination for the moon, depicting the moon in mythology, in literature, in folklore, in nursery rhymes and in song. This sequence is a highlight of ‘cartoon modern’ style, and is full of director Ward Kimball’s trademark zany humor. It’s also the highlight of the documentary, despite the studio’s efforts to evoke the first mission to the moon in the fourth part. The folklore section is the most bold part featuring a highly stylized man, but even better are the charming animated children’s drawings in the nursery rhyme section. The sequence ends hilariously with a silly tin pan alley song about the moon, in which the writers throw in every obvious rhyme word (June, swoon, spoon, honeymoon, and even Daniel Boone).
After 18 minutes of great animation, the live action sections start, beginning with the second part. This is the shortest of the four, and features Ward Kimball in real person, telling us facts about the moon. The third part is hosted by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, who tells about a possible mission to the moon. Surprisingly, Von Braun does not try to land on the moon, but merely wants to fly around it. His plans involve the assembly of a giant wheel-like space station before even one vessel is flown to the moon.
His plans are shown in the fourth part as an “on the spot account of the first expedition to the moon”. Unfortunately, this is not as exciting a finale it possibly was in 1955, despite the dramatic music and the inclusion of an emergency scene in which a small meteor hits one of the fuel tanks. Nevertheless, the special effects are quite good, showing the space station rotating, and smaller reparation vessel leaving the moon rocket. Especially, weightlessness within the moon rocket is shown quite convincingly.
In 1957 Disney even showed more ambitious space plans, in ‘Mars and Beyond’.
Watch ‘Man and the Moon’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Ward Kimball
Airing Date: March 9, 1955
Stars: Walt Disney, Ward Kimball, Wernher von Braun
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Man in Space’ is a Disneyland special about man’s conquest of space, which, two years before the launching of Sputnik, was still a dream at that time.
The documentary includes information about rockets, weightlessness and concludes with an exciting account of man’s first space travel, based on the designs by rocket engineer Wernher von Braun. Von Braun is one of three German scientists featured in the program, the others being Willy Ley and Heinz Haber, demonstrating the enormous influence of German scientists on American science. Ley had fled Nazi Germany in 1935, but Haber stayed there till the end of the war, and Von Braun was even responsible for the deadly V2 rocket, a technical tour-de-force, but also the Nazi regime’s most fearful weapon.
‘Man in Space’ is shortly introduced by Walt Disney himself, quickly giving the presentation to director Ward Kimball, who remains the main host of the program. Kimball is clearly in his element here. His own wacky cartoon animation style is featured in a short history of man’s attempts to enter space, and in Haber’s accounts of ‘space medicine’. Indeed, he later called the space series, of which ‘Man in Space’ is the first entry, the creative high point of his career.
Throughout the movie, the use of animation is sparse, however, and the animation itself very limited. Nevertheless, its use is very effective, especially in the visionary concluding part, with its typical fifties science fiction designs.
‘Man in Space’ would be followed by ‘Man and the Moon‘ (1955) and ‘Mars and Beyond’ (1957), taking ideas on space travel even further.
Watch ‘Man in Space’ yourself and tell me what you think:
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