Rocket Ship X-M

Rocket Ship X-M was Captain Video’s space ship on the Dupont Television Network, broadcast live from New York during the early 1950’s. With limited available special effects they simulated turbulence in space by having two technicians shake the pedestal that held the camera.

At one point, the picture starting leaning heavily and viewers saw a wild, far reaching pan across the entire studio as the camera slowly toppled to the floor, and knocked out transmission to sixteen states. In the final split second before all went black you heard the voice of Captain Video say, “Oh, my God,” and the Video Ranger say something that sounded like, “Oh, shit.”

That explosive episode reduced Dupont to just one working camera for its last seventy-two days in existence before the Network's collapse.

Following the demise of the television program Captain Video, the young Video Ranger, Don Hasting, spent the next fifty years as a working actor on the day-time soap, As the World Turns, also out of New York.

By calling this entry Rocket ship X-M, I have reduced the number of blog hits and Google searches dramatically. In fact, this last week there weren’t any searches for Rocket Ship X-M.

As a simultaneous tribute and retribution to my many years in advertising, none of the facts in the above were authenticated, for as the world has learned: It is the impact that counts.