Bill Mumy (born February 1, 1954) is an American actor and musician and a figure in the science-fiction community/comic book fandom. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a child actor, when he was credited as Billy Mumy—an era which included his appearing on television in The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and on film in Dear Brigitte, followed by an iconic three-season role as Will Robinson in the 1960s CBS sci-fi series Lost in Space.

He later appeared as lonely teenager Sterling North in the Disney film Rascal (1969) and Teft in the film Bless the Beasts and Children (1971).

In the 1990s, he performed the role of Lennier in all five seasons of the syndicated sci-fi TV series Babylon 5 and narrated A&E Network's Emmy Award-winning series Biography.

Mumy is also known for his musical career as a guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer: he is an Emmy nominee for original music in Adventures in Wonderland (1991). As a musician Mumy performs as a solo artist, an occasional guest performer, and as half of the duo Barnes & Barnes. From 1988 through the 90s he performed at the San Diego Comic-Con and other comics related events as part of the band Seduction of the Innocent (named after the book by Fredric Wertham) along with Miguel Ferrer, Steve Leialoha, Max Allan Collins and John "Chris" Christensen. The band released one CD, The Golden Age.

Early life and career

Mumy was born in San Gabriel, California to Charles William Mumy, a cattle rancher, and Muriel Gertrude Mumy (née Gould). He began his professional career at age six, and has worked on more than four hundred television episodes, eighteen films, various commercials, and scores of voice-over projects. He has also worked as a musician, songwriter, recording artist, and writer.

Television and film career

Among Mumy's earliest television roles was six-year-old Willy in the "Donald's Friend" (1960) episode of the NBC-TV family drama series National Velvet, starring Lori Martin. He starred in three episodes of CBS-TV's original Twilight Zone: "It's a Good Life" (November 1961), as a child who terrorizes his town with psychic powers (a role he later reprised along with his daughter Liliana in the It's Still a Good Life episode of the second revival series); "In Praise of Pip" (September 1963), as a vision of Jack Klugman's long-neglected dying son; and "Long Distance Call" (March 1961) as Billy Bayles, who talks to his dead grandmother through a toy telephone.

In 1961, Billy was cast on CBS-TV's Alfred Hitchcock Presents series in "The Door Without a Key", featuring John Larch, who played his father in "It's a Good Life". The same year, Mumy starred as little Jackie in the episode "Bang! You're Dead", featuring Marta Kristen, who later played his sister Judy on Lost in Space. Mumy was cast as Mark Murdock in the "Keep an Eye on Santa Claus" (1962) episode of the ABC-TV drama series Going My Way, starring Gene Kelly. His fellow guest stars were Cloris Leachman (who played his mother in "It's a Good Life"), Steve Brodie, and Frank McHugh.

At age eight, Mumy appeared in Jack Palance's ABC-TV circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth (1963); he was cast as Miles, a parentless boy, in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Shifty Shoebox" (1963); and he portrayed Freddy in the "End of an Image" (1963) episode of NBC-TV's modern Western series Empire, starring Richard Egan.

In 1964, he was cast as Richard Kimble's nephew in ABC-TV's The Fugitive episode, "Home Is the Hunted"; as Barry in the NBC-TV medical drama The Eleventh Hour episode "Sunday Father"; as himself three times in the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; in the Disney film For the Love of Willadena; and as a troubled orphan taken in by the Stephenses in the Bewitched fantasy sitcom episode "A Vision of Sugarplums" (December 1964), on ABC-TV.

Mumy was reportedly the first choice to portray Eddie Munster in the 1964 CBS situation comedy The Munsters, but his parents objected to the extensive makeup requirements. The role instead went to Butch Patrick. Mumy appeared in one episode as a friend of Eddie's.

Mumy guest starred in an episode of NBC-TV's I Dream of Jeannie, "Whatever Became of Baby Custer?" (1965). That same year, he also appeared in an episode of Bewitched entitled "Junior Executive" (1965), in which he played a young Darrin Stevens.

Mumy starred in Dear Brigitte (1965), a film adaptation of the novel Erasmus with Freckles, as Erasmus Leaf, a child mathematical genius who develops a crush on Brigitte Bardot (played by herself in the film). His parents, played by James Stewart and Glynis Johns, attempt to manage his obsession.

Lost in Space and beyond

While noted for several roles as both a child and adult actor, Mumy is perhaps best known for his iconic television role the 60s science fiction series. From 1965 to 1968, Mumy portrayed Will Robinson in Lost in Space, who was the recipient of numerous warnings, (most famously "Danger, Will Robinson") from the show's robot character, voiced by Dick Tufeld.

Mumy was later cast in Bless the Beasts and Children (1971) as Teft, a leader in a group of misfit teenage boys resolved to save a herd of bison from hunters. He also played a musician friend of Cliff DeYoung's character in the TV movie Sunshine (1973), and later reprised the role in Sunshine Christmas and in the TV series Sunshine. In 1974, he played Nick Butler in the pilot episode of NBC's The Rockford Files and also made an appearance in a later episode in season 1, as a sidewalk artist. In 1988, he played Ben Matlock's genius nephew, Dr. Irwin Bruckner, on Matlock.

In 1996, Mumy was a writer and co-creator of Space Cases, a Nickelodeon television show with themes similar to those of Lost in Space. Between 1994–1998 he played the ambassadorial aide Lennier in the syndicated science fiction series Babylon 5. In November 1998, he played Kellin, a Starfleet officer, in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Siege of AR-558", in which he assists in defeating a Jem'Hadar detachment. To Mumy's delight, his character was human this time; while playing Lennier in Babylon 5, he was required to wear prosthetic makeup. He was more recently seen in a 2006 episode of Crossing Jordan and in the Sci Fi original film A.I. Assault.

In 2018, Mumy appeared in the pilot episode of the Netflix remake series, Lost in Space. His character's name is Dr. Z. Smith, in homage to the character played by Jonathan Harris in the 1965 television series.

Voice acting career

Mumy has narrated over 50 episodes of the Arts & Entertainment Channel's Biography series, as well as hosted and narrated several other documentaries and specials for A & E, Animal Planet network, The Sci-Fi Channel, and E!. His voice acting talents can be heard on animated shows like Ren and Stimpy, Scooby-Doo, Batman: The Animated Series, Steven Spielberg's Animaniacs, Little Wizard Adventures, The Oz Kids and Disney's Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Doc McStuffins. He has done voice over work in national commercials for such businesses as Bud Ice, Farmers Insurance, Ford, Blockbuster, Twix, Oscar Mayer and McDonald's.

Music

Mumy is an accomplished musician who plays the banjo, bass, guitar, harmonica, keyboards, mandolin, and percussion. His various musical credits include songs he has written and recorded with America, performed on tour with Shaun Cassidy, and played with Rick Springfield's band in the film Hard to Hold. He created the band The Be Five with other Babylon 5 actors.

Mumy has released a number of solo CDs, including Dying to Be Heard, In the Current, Pandora's Box, After Dreams Come True, Los Angeles Times and Ghosts, as well as nine albums with music partner Robert Haimer as Barnes and Barnes. Their most famous hit is the song "Fish Heads", which Rolling Stone magazine named one of the top 100 videos of all time. He also performs with the Jenerators, a blues-rock band based in Los Angeles featuring Tom Hebenstreit on vocals, electric guitars, and keyboards; Mumy on vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica, keyboards and percussion; Gary Stockdale on vocals and bass; Miguel Ferrer on vocals, percussion and drums; David Jolliffe on guitar, percussion and vocals; and Chris Ross on drums and percussion. Additionally, Mumy released a Byrds-tribute song, "When Roger Was Jim" (2012). In 2017, along with John Cowsill (The Cowsills) and Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) he founded the band Action Skulls. Their first CD (Angels Hear), which also included posthumous contributions from the bassist Rick Rosas, was released on September 27, 2017.

Mumy produces and hosts The Real Good Radio Hour, a weekly series on KSAV Internet Radio focusing on various styles of music and the artists who pioneered them.

Lost in Space activities in later years

In 1996, Mumy and his Lost in Space costar Jonathan Harris were reunited at a Walt Disney convention in Orlando, Florida. Mumy worked again with Harris on the retrospective special Lost In Space: Forever (1998), where they reprised their roles in a scene written by Mumy (Harris rewrote his own lines). This occurred the year after the rest of the cast (including both Mumy and Harris) stated in a TV Guide article that the Sci Fi Channel planned to do a Lost in Space marathon while promoting a new movie. Harris was to appear in the planned TV movie, Lost in Space: The Journey Home, but died before production was scheduled to start, in 2002, and it was subsequently cancelled. Mumy read the eulogy at Harris' funeral and was asked to narrate an account of his longtime friend's life on A&E Biography that year.

In a 2010 interview on Blog Talk Radio's Lessons Learned, Rick Tocquigny was asked if Mumy was a Jonathan Harris fan before they appeared together on Lost in Space. Tocquigny said that at age five, Mumy was too young to watch his mentor's show The Third Man, which would have been aired late at night, but he was old enough to see The Bill Dana Show.

On June 14, 2006, Mumy got to work with Harris one last time, though posthumously. Years before Harris died, he recorded voice work for the animated short The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas, narrating the film and playing the part of The Bolt. As a tribute to Harris, writer-director John Wardlaw added a scene that reunited Lost in Space cast members Mumy, Marta Kristen, and Angela Cartwright as the animated Ratchett family.

In May 2013, 11 years after Harris' death in November 2002, Mumy commented on his connection with his friend and acting mentor offscreen and their onscreen connection while working in character as Will Robinson and Dr. Smith onscreen, in Lost in Space. Mumy noted: "I never really had too many uncomfortable moments working with any actor. I was comfortable working with most everybody. It's just the more that Jonathan and I did together, the more he changed the character. He really changed the character of Dr. Smith himself. He really turned him from a snarling saboteur villain to this bumbling insulting kook. The more he played it for comedy, the more Irwin Allen liked it. The show really went the way that Jonathan led it. But we had great chemistry together, and we never had a bad day. We were always prepared, as was Bobby May who was inside the robot. When we had our work to do—and I think this is a very big reason [for] the way it went—they’d get us done in a couple of takes. Nobody screwed up. It was easier for the crew and it was easier for us, and people seemed to like it."

Mumy attends Lost in Space reunions and shows, and co-authored a 2015 book, Lost (and Found) in Space with Angela Cartwright.

Other work

Mumy and co-author Peter David published a short story, "The Black '59" (1992), in the anthology Shock Rock, edited by F. Paul Wilson.

He has also written a number of comics. With his friend Miguel Ferrer Mumy created Comet Man and Trypto the Acid Dog. They also co-wrote the Marvel Graphic Novel The Dreamwalker.

Personal life

Mumy, his wife, Eileen, and their two children, Seth (b. 1989) and Liliana (b. 1994), live in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles.

Year	Film/Television	Role	Notes
1961	The Twilight Zone	Billy Bayles	Episode: "Long Distance Call"
1961	The Twilight Zone	Anthony Fremont	Episode: "It's a Good Life"
1962	House Guest	Tony Mitchell
1962	Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color	Petey Loomis	Episode: "Sammy, the Way-Out Seal"
1962	The Jack Benny Program	34-Lb Boy	Episode: "Jack and the Crying Cab Driver"
1963	A Child Is Waiting	Boy counting Jean's pearls
1963	A Ticklish Affair	Alex Martin
1963	Palm Springs Weekend	'Boom Boom' Yates
1963	The Twilight Zone	Young Pip Phillips	Episode: "In Praise of Pip"
1963	Perry Mason	Miles Jefferson	Episode: "The Case of the Shifty Shoebox"
1964	Bewitched	Orphan Boy	Episode: "A Vision of Sugar Plums"
1964	The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet	Billy	3 episodes
1965	The Virginian	Willy
1965	Dear Brigitte	Erasmus Leaf
1965	I Dream of Jeannie	Custer	Episode: "Whatever Became of Baby Custer?"
1965	The Munsters	Googie Miller	Episode: "Come Back Little Googie"
1965	Bewitched	Darrin the Boy	Episode: "Junior Executive"
1965–68	Lost in Space	Will Robinson	84 episodes
1968	Wild in the Streets	Boy	Uncredited
1969	Rascal	Sterling North
1970	Here Come the Brides	Simon Bill	Episode: "Break the Bank of Tacoma"
1971	Bless the Beasts and Children	Teft
1973	Papillon	Lariot
1974	The Rockford Files	Nick Butler	"Backlash of the Hunter" (pilot)
1975	Sunshine	Weaver	15 episodes
1983	Twilight Zone: The Movie	Tim (Segment #3)
1984	Hard to Hold	Keyboard Player
1988	Matlock	Dr. Irwin Bruckn
1990	Captain America	Young General Fleming
1991	The Flash	Roger Braintree
1991–92	Superboy	Tommy Puck	3 episodes
1994	Animaniacs	The Farmer (voice)
1994	The Ren & Stimpy Show	Dr. Brainchild (voice)
1994–98	Babylon 5	Lennier	109 episodes
1995	Batman: The Animated Series	The Fox/Warren Lawford (voice)
1997	The Weird Al Show	UPS guy
1997	Space Ghost Coast to Coast	Himself (voice)
1998	Star Trek: Deep Space Nine	Kellin	Episode: "The Siege of AR-558"
1998	Lost In Space Forever	Himself/Will Robinson	TV Special
2000	Buzz Lightyear of Star Command	Eon	2 episodes
2003	The Twilight Zone: Series	Adult Anthony Fremont	Episode: "It's Still A Good Life"
2004	Comic Book: The Movie	Himself	Video
2005	Holly Hobbie and Friends: Surprise Party	Bud Morris (voice)	Direct to DVD
2009	The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas	Knob Ratchett	Theatrical Short
2013–14	Bravest Warriors	Beth's father (voice)	Web Series 4 episodes
2014	Transformers: Rescue Bots	Vigil (voice)	2 episodes
2018	The Loud House	Timothy "Tim" McCole (voice)	Episode: "A Fridge Too Far"
2018–2019	Lost in Space (2018)	Dr. Zachary Smith	2 episodes

Lost in Space is an American science fiction television series created and produced by Irwin Allen. The series follows the adventures of a pioneering family of space colonists who struggle to survive in a strange and often hostile universe after their ship is sabotaged and thrown off course. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between 1965 and 1968. The first season was filmed in black and white, with the second and third seasons filmed in color.

Although the original concept (depicted in the pilot episode "No Place to Hide", not aired until 1997) centered on the Robinson family, many later storylines focused primarily on Dr. Zachary Smith, played by Jonathan Harris. Smith and Robot B-9 were both absent from the unaired pilot, as the addition of their characters was only decided upon once the series had been commissioned for production.

Originally written as an utterly evil (if careless) saboteur, Smith gradually became the troublesome, self-centered, incompetent character who provided the comic relief for the show and caused much of the conflict and misadventures. In the unaired pilot, what caused the group to become lost in space was a chance encounter with a meteor storm, but in the first aired episode it was Smith's unplanned presence on the ship that sent it off course into the meteor field, and his sabotage that caused the Robot to accelerate the ship into hyperdrive. Smith is thus the key to the story.

Overview

On October 16, 1997, 32 years in the future from the perspective of viewers in 1965, the United States is about to launch one of history's great adventures: man's colonization of space. The Jupiter 2 (called Gemini 12 in the unaired pilot episode), a futuristic saucer-shaped spacecraft, stands on its launch pad undergoing final preparations. Its mission is to take a single family on a five-and-a-half-year journey (altered from 98 years in the unaired pilot) to a planet orbiting the nearest star, Alpha Centauri (the pilot show had referred to the planet itself as Alpha Centauri but this error was corrected for the series), which space probes have revealed possesses ideal conditions for human life. All of this is presented as a news report of a real space expedition, with news commentators informing us of the mission's backstory.

The Robinson family, selected from two million volunteers for this mission, consisted of Professor John Robinson, played by Guy Williams, his wife, Maureen, played by June Lockhart, their children, Judy (Marta Kristen), Penny (Angela Cartwright), and Will (Billy Mumy). They are accompanied by their pilot, U.S. Space Corps Major Donald West (Mark Goddard), who is trained to fly the ship when the time comes for the eventual landing. Initially the Robinsons and Major West will be in freezing tubes for the voyage, with the tubes opening when the spacecraft approached its destination. Unless there is a problem with the ship's navigation or guidance system during the voyage, Major West was only to take the controls during the final approach and landing on the destination planet, while the Robinsons were to strap themselves into contour couches on the lower deck for the landing.

Other nations are racing to colonize space, and they would stop at nothing, not even sabotage, to thwart the United States's effort. It turns out that Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), Alpha Control's doctor, and later said to be a psychiatrist and environmental control expert, is secretly an agent for one of those competing nations. After disposing of a guard who catches him on board the spacecraft, Smith reprograms the Jupiter 2's B-9 environmental control robot (voiced by Dick Tufeld) to destroy critical systems on the spaceship eight hours after launch. Smith, however, unintentionally becomes trapped aboard at launch and his extra weight throws the Jupiter 2 off course, causing it to encounter a meteor storm. This, plus the robot's rampage that causes the ship to prematurely engage its hyperdrive, causes the expedition to become hopelessly lost in the infinite depths of outer space.

Smith's selfish actions and laziness frequently endanger the expedition. After the first half of the first season, Smith's role assumes less sinister overtones, although he continues to display many character flaws. In "The Time Merchant" Smith shows he actually does care about the Robinsons, when he travels back in time to the day of the Jupiter 2 launch, with the hope of changing his own fate by not boarding the ship, so allowing the Robinsons to start the mission as originally planned. However, he learns that without his weight altering the ship's course, the Jupiter 2 will be destroyed by an uncharted asteroid. So he sacrifices his chance to stay on earth, electing to re-board the ship, thus saving the lives of the family and continuing his role amongst them as the reluctant stowaway.

The fate of the castaways is never resolved, as the series was unexpectedly canceled at the end of season 3.

Season 1

The astronaut family of Dr. John Robinson, accompanied by an Air Force/Space Corps pilot and a robot, set out in the year 1997 from an overpopulated Earth in the spaceship Jupiter 2 to travel to a planet circling the star Alpha Centauri with hopes of colonizing it. The Jupiter 2 mission is sabotaged by Dr. Zachary Smith – an agent for an unnamed foreign government – who slips aboard the spaceship and reprograms the robot to destroy the ship and crew. However, when he is trapped aboard, his excess weight alters the craft's flight path and places it directly in the path of a massive meteor storm. Smith manages to save himself by prematurely reviving the crew from suspended animation. The ship survives, but consequent damage caused by Smith's earlier sabotage of the robot leaves them lost in space. In the third episode the Jupiter 2 crashlands on an alien world, later identified by Will as Priplanus, where they spend the rest of the season and survive a host of adventures. Smith, whom Allen had originally intended to write out, remains through all three seasons, as a source of comedic cowardice and villainy, exploiting the eternally forgiving nature of Professor Robinson. Smith was liked by the trusting Will, and tolerated by the women, but he was disliked by both the Robot and the suspicious Major Don West.

Season 2

At the start of the second season the repaired Jupiter 2 launches into space once more, to escape the destruction of Priplanus following a series of cataclysmic earthquakes, but in the fourth episode the Robinsons crash-land on a strange new world, to become planet-bound again for another season. This replicated the format of the first season, but now the focus of the series was more on humor than on action/adventure, as evidenced by the extreme silliness of Dr. Smith amidst a plethora of unlikely aliens who began appearing on the show, often of a whimsical fantasy-oriented nature. One of these colorful visitors even turned out to be Smith's own cousin, intent on swindling him out of a family inheritance with the assistance of a hostile gambling machine. A new theme tune was recorded by Warren Barker for the second season, but it was decided to retain the original.

Season 3

In the third season, a major format change was introduced, to bring the series back to its roots as solid adventure, by allowing the Robinsons to travel to more planets. The Jupiter 2 was now allowed to freely travel space, visiting a new world each week, as the family attempt to return to Earth or to reach their original destination in the Alpha Centauri system. A newly built "Space Pod", that mysteriously appeared as though it had always been there, provided a means of transportation between the ship and passing planets, as well as being a plot device to launch various escapades. This season had a dramatically different opening credits sequence and a new theme tune – which, like the original, was composed by John Williams – as part of the show's new direction.

Cast and characters

Main cast

• Dr. (Professor) John Robinson (Guy Williams): The expedition commander and the father of the Robinson children. He is an astrophysicist who also specializes in applied planetary geology.

• Dr. Maureen Robinson (June Lockhart): John's biochemist wife. Her role in the series is often to prepare meals, tend the garden, and help with light construction while adding a voice of compassion. Her counsel is sometimes the only thing that prevents the Robinsons from leaving Dr. Smith behind after some of his particularly heinous actions, because she finds it unthinkable to condemn any human being to a life of total isolation from his own kind. Her status as a doctor is mentioned only in the first episode and in the second-season episode "The Astral Traveler".

• Major Don West (Mark Goddard): The military pilot of the Jupiter 2. He is Dr. Smith's intemperate and intolerant adversary. His mutual romantic interest with Judy was not developed beyond the first few episodes. In the un-aired pilot, "Doctor Donald West" was a graduate student astrophysicist and expert in interplanetary geology, rather than a military man.

• Judy Robinson (Marta Kristen): The oldest child of the Robinsons. She is about 19 years old at the outset of the series. In the unaired pilot, she is described as having given up a promising career in musical theater to go with her family instead.

• Penny Robinson (Angela Cartwright): The middle child. An imaginative 11-year-old in the first season, she loves animals and classical music. Early in the series, she acquires a chimpanzee-like alien pet with pointy ears that made one sound, "Bloop". While it is usually referred to by Will and Professor Robinson as the bloop, Penny named the creature "Debbie". Most of Penny's adventures have a fairy-tale quality, underscoring her innocence. She is described in the unaired pilot, "No Place To Hide", as having an IQ of 147 and an interest in zoology.

• Will Robinson (Billy Mumy): The youngest child. A precocious 9-year-old in the first season, he is a child prodigy in electronics and computer technology. Often, he is a friend to Smith when no one else is. Will is also the member of the family closest to the Robot.

• Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris): Acting as Alpha Control's flight surgeon in the first episode, he is later referred to as a Doctor of Intergalactic Environmental Psychology, expert in cybernetics, and an enemy agent (roles that are rarely mentioned after the initial episodes). His attempt to sabotage the mission strands him aboard the Jupiter 2 and results in its becoming lost.

• The Robot: The Robot is a Class M-3, Model B9, General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Robot (G.U.N.T.E.R.), which had no given name. Although a machine, endowed with superhuman strength and futuristic weaponry, it often displayed human characteristics, such as laughter, sadness, and mockery, as well as singing and playing a guitar. The Robot was performed by Bob May in a prop costume built by Bob Stewart. The voice was dubbed by Dick Tufeld, who was also the series' narrator. The Robot was designed by Robert Kinoshita, who was also the designer of the iconic Robby the Robot for the 1956 sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet who made extensive appearances in subsequent films and productions.

Guest stars

During its three-season run, many actors made guest appearances, including familiar actors and/or actors who went on to become well-known. Among those appearing in Lost in Space episodes: Kevin Hagen, Alan Hewitt, Sherry Jackson, Werner Klemperer, Warren Oates, Don Matheson, Kurt Russell, Wally Cox, Grant Sullivan, Norman Leavitt, Tommy Farrell, Mercedes McCambridge, Lyle Waggoner, Albert Salmi, Royal Dano, Strother Martin, Michael J. Pollard, Byron Morrow, Arte Johnson, Fritz Feld, John Carradine, Al Lewis, Hans Conried, Dennis Patrick, Michael Rennie among many others. Future Hill Street Blues stars, Daniel J. Travanti (billed as "Danny Travanty") and Michael Conrad, made guest appearances on separate episodes. Jonathan Harris, although a permanent cast member, was listed in the opening credits as "Special Guest Star" of every episode of Lost in Space.

Production

Development

In 1962, the first appearance of a space-faring Robinson family occurred in a comic book published by Gold Key Comics. The Space Family Robinson, who were scientists aboard Earth's "Space Station One", are swept away in a cosmic storm in the comic's second issue. These Robinsons were scientist father Craig, scientist mother June, early teens Tim (son) and Tam (daughter), along with pets Clancy (dog) and Yakker (parrot). Space Station One also boasted two spacemobiles for ship-to-planet travel.

The television show launched three years later, in 1965, and during its run CBS and 20th Century Fox reached an agreement with Gold Key Comics that allowed the use of the name "Robinson" on the TV show; in return, the comic was allowed to append " – Lost In Space" to its title, with the potential for the TV show to propel additional sales of the comic.

Writing

Following the format of Allen's first television series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, unlikely fantasy-oriented adventure stories were dreamed up that had little to do with either serious science or serious science fiction. The stories had little realism, with, for instance, explosions happening randomly, merely to cover an alien's arrival or departure, or sometimes merely the arrival of some alien artifact.

Props

Props and monsters were regularly recycled from other Irwin Allen shows, as a matter of budgetary convenience, and the same alien would appear on Voyage one week and Lost in Space the next. A sea monster outfit that had featured on Voyage would get a spray paint job for its Lost in Space appearance, while space monster costumes would be reused on Voyage as sea monsters. The clear round plastic pen holder used as a control surface in the episode "The Derelict" turned up regularly throughout the show's entire run both as primary controls to activate alien machinery (or open doors or cages), and as background set dressing; some primary controls were seen used in episodes such as Season 1's "The Keeper (Parts 1 and 2)", "His Majesty Smith", and Season 3's "A Day At The Zoo", and "The Promised Planet".

Spacecraft models, too, were routinely re-used. The foreboding derelict ship from season 1 was redressed to become the Vera Castle in season 3, which, in turn, was reused in several episodes (and flipped upside down for one of them). The Fuel Barge from season 2 became a Space Lighthouse in season 3, with a complete re-use of the effects footage from the earlier story. The derelict ship was used again in season 3, with a simple color change. Likewise the alien pursuer's ship in "The Sky Pirate", which itself was an Earth ship lifted from the 1958 film War of the Satellites, was re-used in the episode "Deadliest of the Species". Moreover, the footage of Hapgood's ship launching into space in episode 6 of season 1 was re-used for virtually every subsequent launch in the following three years, no matter what shape the ship it supposedly represented had had on the ground (such as the launch of the alien ship in Season 1's "The Space Croppers", Nerim's ship's launch in the Season 2 opener "Blast Off Into Space", Season 2's "The Colonists" - which featured a landing approach scene, in which the landing was aborted and a reversal of film showed the ship heading back into space, this after Will, the Robot, and Smith sabotage Niolani's landing pad for her people's colonization of the planet, and Season 3's "A Day At The Zoo" when Farnum B.'s ship takes off at the end if the episode). While several of the episodes listed do not show the space ship on the ground (or partial ship, such as Nerim's), they all use the same footage as seen for Hapgood's ship.

Character development

By the end of the first season, the character of Smith is permanently established as a bungling, self-serving, greedy, manipulative coward. These character traits are magnified in subsequent seasons. His haughty bearing, and ever-present alliterative repartee, were staples of the character. While he and Major West repeatedly clashed over his goldbricking, or because of some villainy he had perpetrated, the Robot was usually the preferred victim of his barbed and acerbic wit.

Despite Harris being credited as a "Special Guest Star" on every episode, Smith became the pivotal character of the series. Harris was the last actor cast, with the others all having appeared in the unaired pilot. He was informed that he would "have to be in last position" in the credits. Harris voiced discomfort at this, and (with his continuation beyond the first few episodes still in doubt) suggested appearing in the last position as "Special Guest Star". After having "screamed and howled", Allen agreed. The show's writers expected that Smith would indeed be a temporary villain, who would only appear in the early episodes. Harris, on the other hand, hoped to stay longer on the show, but he found his character as written very boring, and feared it would quickly bore the audience too. Harris "began rewriting his lines and redefining his character", by playing Smith in an attention-getting, flamboyant style, and ad-libbing his scenes with colorful, pompous dialogue. Allen quickly noticed this, and liked it. As Harris himself recalled, Allen said, "I know what you're doing. Do more of it!" Mumy recalls how, after he had learned his own lines, Harris would ask to rehearse with him using his own dialogue. "He truly, truly single-handledly created the character of Dr. Zachary Smith that we know," said Mumy. "This man we love-to-hate, a sniveling coward who would cower behind the little boy, 'Oh, the pain! Save me, William!' That's all him!"

Catchphrases

Lost in Space is remembered, in part, for the Robot's oft-repeated lines such as "Warning! Warning!" and "It does not compute". Smith's frequent put-downs of the Robot were also popular, and Jonathan Harris was proud to talk about how he used to lie in bed at night dreaming them up for use on the show. "You Bubble-headed Booby!", "Cackling Cacophony", "Tin Plated Traitor", "Blithering Blatherskyte", and "Traitorous Transistorized Toad" are but a few alongside his trademark lines: "Oh, the pain ... the pain!" and "Never fear, Smith is here!" One of Jonathan Harris's last roles was providing the voice of the illusionist praying mantis "Manny" in Disney's A Bug's Life, where Harris used "Oh, the pain ... the pain!" near the end of the film.

The catchphrase "Danger, Will Robinson!" originates with the series, but was only ever used once in it, during season 3, episode 11: “The Deadliest of the Species”, when the Robot warns young Will Robinson about an impending threat. It was also used as the slogan of the 1998 movie, whose official website had the address www.dangerwillrobinson.com.

Legal issues

In 1962, Gold Key comics (formerly Dell Comics), a division of Western Publishing Company, began publishing a series of comic books under the title Space Family Robinson. The story was largely inspired by The Swiss Family Robinson but with a space-age twist. The movie and television rights to the comic book were then purchased by noted television writer Hilda Bohem (The Cisco Kid), who created a treatment under the title, Space Family 3000.

In July 1964, science fiction writer and filmmaker Ib Melchior began pitching a treatment for a feature film, also under the title Space Family Robinson. There is debate as to whether or not Allen was aware of the Melchior treatment. It is also unknown whether Allen was aware of the comic book or the Hilda Bohem treatment.

As copyright law only protects the actual expression of a work, and not titles, general ideas or concepts, in 1964 Allen moved forward with his own take on Space Family Robinson, with characters and situations notably different from either the Bohem or the Melchior treatments (none of the three treatments contained the characters of Smith or the Robot).

Intended as a follow up to his first successful television venture, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Allen quickly sold his concept for a television series to CBS. Concerned about confusion with the Gold Key comic book, CBS requested that Allen come up with a new title. Nevertheless, Hilda Bohem filed a claim against Allen and CBS Television shortly before the series premiered in 1965.

A compromise was struck as part of a legal settlement. In addition to an undisclosed sum of money, Western Publishing would be allowed to change the name of its comic book to Lost in Space.

There were no other legal challenges to the title until 1995, when New Line Cinema announced their intention to turn Lost in Space into a big budget motion picture. New Line had purchased the screen rights from Prelude Pictures (which had acquired the screen rights from the Irwin Allen Estate in 1993). At that time, Melchior contacted Prelude Pictures and insisted that Lost in Space was directly based upon his 1964 treatment. Melchior was aided in his efforts by Ed Shifres, a fan who had written a book entitled Space Family Robinson: The True Story (later reprinted with the title, Lost in Space: The True Story). The book attempts to show how Allen allegedly plagiarized Melchior's concept, with two outlines presented side-by-side.

To satisfy Melchior, Prelude Pictures hired the 78-year-old filmmaker as a consultant on their feature film adaptation. This accommodation was made without the knowledge or consent of the Irwin Allen Estate or Space Productions, the original copyright holder of Lost in Space. Melchior's contract with Prelude also guaranteed him 2% of the producer's gross receipts, a provision that was later the subject of a suit between Melchior and Mark Koch of Prelude Pictures. Although an Appellate Court ruled partly in Melchior's favor, on November 17, 2004, the Supreme Court of California denied a petition by Melchior to further review the case.

No further claim was made and Space Productions now contends that Allen was the sole creator of the television series Lost in Space.

Melchior died on March 14, 2015 at the age of 97.

Irwin Allen (June 12, 1916 – November 2, 1991) was an American film and television producer and director, known for his work in science fiction, then later as the "Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. His most successful productions were The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He also created and produced the popular 1960s science fiction television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants.

Biography

Early life

Irwin Allen was born in New York City, the son of poor Jewish immigrants from Russia. He majored in journalism and advertising at Columbia University after attending City College of New York for a year. He left college because of financial difficulties caused by the Great Depression.

Radio and Journalism

He moved to Hollywood in 1938, where he edited Key Magazine followed by an 11-year stint producing his own program at radio station KLAC. The success of the radio show led to him being offered his own gossip column, Hollywood Merry-Go-Round, which was syndicated to 73 newspapers.

Allen produced his first TV program, a celebrity panel show also called Hollywood Merry-Go-Round with announcer Steve Allen (no relation), before moving into film production.

Film Producer at RKO

Allen became involved in film production at a time when power was beginning to shift from studios to talent agencies. He put together packages consisting of directors, actors and script, and sold them to film studios.

Allen's first film as producer was Where Danger Lives (1950) at RKO with Robert Mitchum, directed by John Farrow and written by Charles Bennett. Allen produced it with Irving Cummings Jr.

The two men made two more films for RKO: Double Dynamite (1951) with Jane Russell, Groucho Marx and Frank Sinatra, and A Girl in Every Port (1952), again with Marx and William Bendix.

Allen made his directorial debut with the documentary, The Sea Around Us (1953), at RKO. This was based on Rachel Carson's best-selling book of the same name. It was made with largely stock footage and won the 1952 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.:87 Carson was so disappointed with Allen's final version of the script that she never again sold film rights to her work. The film includes gory images of whales being killed that are more shocking to modern audiences than they were at the time. It was a success, making a profit of over $2 million.

Allen returned to producing with the 3-D film Dangerous Mission (1954), his final film for RKO. It starred Victor Mature, Bendix, Piper Laurie and Vincent Price.

Warner Bros

Allen directed a semi-documentary about the evolution of life, The Animal World (1956). Again he made heavy use of stock footage, but he also included a nine-minute stop-motion dinosaur sequence by Ray Harryhausen. Before release, he toned down the gore from both the live action and the animation.

The film was released by Warner Bros. So was Allen's next film, The Story of Mankind (1957), a very loose adaptation of the Hendrik Willem van Loon book of the same name. It featured many well-known actors including the Marx Brothers, Ronald Colman, Hedy Lamarr, Vincent Price, and a young Dennis Hopper. The actors were each paid $2,500 for a single day's work with Allen relying on stock footage for the rest of the film.

Allen co-wrote (with Bennett) and produced The Big Circus (1959) for Allied Artists Pictures with Mature, Red Buttons, Peter Lorre and Price. Allen was interested in making "an exciting colourful show - something the public can't see on television."

20th Century Fox

Films as director

Allen went to 20th Century Fox where he co-wrote (with Bennett) produced and directed three films: The Lost World (1960), from the novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), and Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962).

Willis O'Brien, who had worked on the pioneering special effects of the original Lost World (1925) and King Kong (1933) films, was disappointed when Allen opted to save time by using live alligators and lizards instead of stop-motion animation for the film's dinosaurs. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was a scientifically dubious, Jules Verne-style adventure to save the world from a burning Van Allen belt. It was the basis for his later television series of the same name. The family film, Five Weeks in a Balloon was a loose adaptation of the Verne novel. Lost World was a moderate hit and Voyage was very successful. Five Weeks was a box office disappointment.

Television Series

With 20th Century Fox scaling back their film productions due to the massive expenditure on films like Cleopatra (1963), in the mid 1960s Allen concentrated on television, producing several overlapping science fiction series for 20th Century Fox Television. They featured special effects by L. B. Abbott who won three Emmys for his work.:204 Allen used many of the same craftsmen on his TV shows as he did on his films, including composer John Williams as well as costume designer and general assistant Paul Zastupnevich.:6

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964–68, ABC TV) established both Allen's and 20th Century Fox's reputation as television producers. The financial viability of the series was enormously helped by the re-use of many of the sets from the film; the cost of the Seaview submarine sets alone exceeded the budget of a typical pilot show of the era.:11 The series also benefited from Allen's by now notorious use of stock film footage, particularly from Hell and High Water (1954), The Enemy Below (1957) and Allen's The Lost World.:16

Allen had originally intended Lost in Space (1965–68, CBS TV) to be a family show, a science fiction version of The Swiss Family Robinson.:116 It quickly developed into a children's show with episodes concentrating on the young Will Robinson, the robot, and, especially, the comic villain, Dr. Smith.:36–7 The show popularized several science fiction elements that have since become widespread, such as the comic robot (e.g. Silent Running, Star Wars) or android (Logan's Run, Star Trek: The Next Generation), the heroic child (Voyagers!, Meeno Peluce), and the wacky lovable alien (Albert in Alien Nation, Vir in Babylon 5).:124

The Time Tunnel (1966–67, ABC TV), with each episode set in a different historical time period, was an ideal vehicle for Allen's talent for smoothly mixing live action with stock footage from films set in the same period. A change in network management led to the show being cancelled after just one season.:204

Land of the Giants (1968–70, ABC TV) was the most expensive show of its day at roughly $250,000 per episode. As another castaway themed show, Allen incorporated some of the successful elements from Lost in Space, although this time he did not allow the treacherous character to dominate the series.:273

TV Movies

Allen also produced several TV movies, such as City Beneath the Sea, which recycled many props and models from Voyage, Lost in Space, and Man From The 25th Century. Both were intended as pilots for new TV series projects, but his small-screen success from the 1960s largely eluded him in the 1970s.

Lost in Space's Bill Mumy said of Allen that, while he was very good at writing television pilots that sold, his unwillingness to spend money hurt his shows' quality once on the air. A monster costume that appeared on one of his shows, for example, would appear on another a few weeks later with new paint. Writer Jon Abbott described Allen as paradoxical. "Here was a man who, when told the cost of a spaceship for a Lost in Space alien, snapped, 'Let him walk!' ... and then let the show be canceled rather than take a cut in the budget".

In 1969 Allen signed a three-picture deal with Avco Embassy to make The Poseidon Adventure, Mo Man's World and Almost Midnight. However the deal did not lead to any films.

The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno

In the 1970s, Allen produced the most successful films of his career: The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974), directing the action scenes for both. Their showmanship was compared to that of P.T. Barnum and Cecil B. DeMille, and they prompted scholarly analysis of the subsequent popularity of the disaster genre.

The Poseidon Adventure was based on the Paul Gallico novel of the same name and directed by Ronald Neame. Unable to find a studio to fully back the venture, Allen raised half the $5 million budget, with 20th Century-Fox putting up the rest; the film eventually grossed over $100 million. L. B. Abbott and A.D. Flowers won a Special Achievement Academy Award for the film's optical and physical effects.:38

Allen hoped to follow up on the success of The Poseidon Adventure with a film based on the novel The Tower, but the film rights had already been taken by Warner Bros. He looked for an alternative and found a similar story in The Glass Inferno. Rather than produce competing movies, 20th Century-Fox and Warner Bros. agreed to coproduce The Towering Inferno with a script based on both novels and a $14 million budget. It was the first time two major studios made a film together, splitting the costs. Despite its nearly three-hour running length, the film, directed by John Guillermin, was a hit and won three Academy Awards.:39

Final TV Movies for Fox

The success of the films led to Allen receiving an offer to make three TV movies. "I missed television," said Allen. "There's a hysteria and an excitement in television that exists nowhere else in business."

Each was made for Fox television at a budget of $1 million with a view to possibly going to series. They screened on different networks: Adventures of the Queen (1975), The Swiss Family Robinson (1975) and Time Travelers (1976). Only Swiss Family was picked up for a series, running for 20 episodes.

Warner Bros

Allen left 20th Century Fox when a change in management cancelled the remaining three planned disaster films. He was offered a deal at Warner Bros. by Jon Calley, who built an office building for Allen. Allen continued to work there for the remainder of his career.

The rise of new filmmakers like George Lucas reportedly caught him off guard. According to one book, the success of Star Wars (1977) bewildered him; he could not understand how a film with apparently no stars or love story could enrapture audiences so fervently.

Allen produced three made-for-TV disaster movies: Flood! (1976), Fire! (1977), and Hanging by a Thread (1979). He also made Viva Knievel! (1977), The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978), and The Memory of Eva Ryker (1980).

For theatrical release, he produced and directed The Swarm (1978) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), and produced When Time Ran Out (1980). These three films were box office disappointments.

"No, I'm not going to run out of disasters," he said in a 1977 interview. "Pick up the daily newspaper, which is my best source for crisis stories, and you'll find 10 or 15 every day... People chase fire engines, flock to car crashes. People thrive on tragedy. It's unfortunate, but in my case, it's fortunate. The bigger the tragedy, the bigger the audience."

Final films

Allen later went to Columbia to make a short lived TV series, Code Red (1981–82). His last films for Warners were The Night the Bridge Fell Down (1982), and Cave-In! (1979, though not released until 1983). Shortly before Cave-In! made its TV debut, Allen was awarded a Worst Career Achievement Golden Raspberry Award.

While at Columbia, Allen made a $14 million TV version of Alice in Wonderland (1985). His last credit was the TV movie Outrage! (1986).

Allen planned to make a star-studded musical of Pinocchio, but his declining health forced his retirement in 1986. He died from a heart attack on November 2, 1991.

Legacy

The "Irwin Allen rock-and-roll" is when the camera is rocked as the on-screen cast rushes from side to side on the set, simulating a ship being tossed around. It is employed in many episodes of Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. This camera technique was employed in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "First Spaceship on Venus". Here the camera tilts to simulate the spacecraft being hit. During this scene, Joel shouts out "Irwin Allen presents...".

Allen's career in film and TV was the subject of a 1995 documentary, The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen, produced and directed by Kevin Burns, co-founder of Foxstar Productions, originally set up as the production unit responsible for creating a series of Alien Nation movies for television. Numerous cast members and associates from various Irwin Allen projects appeared in the film, lending recollections of their time working with him.

In 1994, while Senior VP of Foxstar, Burns founded Van Ness Films, a non-fiction and documentary production unit. That same year, he met Jon Jashni, a Fox film executive who shared Burns' interest in Allen's works.

In 1998, the two collaborated on a TV retrospective special, Lost in Space Forever. Hosted by John Laroquette, it chronicled the series' creation and run on TV in the 1960s and beyond, and featured appearances by Bill Mumy, Jonathan Harris, June Lockhart, Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen, as well as film footage of vintage interviews with Guy Williams. Also appearing were Bob May, who donned the Robot suit, and Dick Tufeld, who supplied the character's voice. The flight deck set of the Jupiter 2 spacecraft from the series was recreated as the backdrop for parts of the special.

It also was used as a vehicle to promote the 1998 Lost in Space film version of the original television series, starring William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, Lacey Chabert, Mimi Rogers and Heather Graham.

Burns and Jashni later formed Synthesis Entertainment and began developing and producing remakes of, and sequels to, several Allen properties, including a 2002 Fox Television pilot for an updated version of The Time Tunnel, which did not sell, and remakes of films including Poseidon (2006) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The 2002 TV pilot was included as a bonus feature on Volume 2 of Fox's 2006 DVD release of the 30-episode Time Tunnel (1966–67) TV series.

Partial filmography

Year	Film	Director	Producer	Writer	Notes
1953	The Sea Around Us	Yes	Yes	Yes	Documentary Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
1954	Dangerous Mission		Yes
1956	The Animal World	Yes	Yes	Yes	Documentary
1957	The Story of Mankind	Yes	Yes	Yes
1960	The Big Circus		Yes	Yes
	The Lost World	Yes	Yes	Yes
1961	Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea	Yes	Yes	Yes
1962	Five Weeks in a Balloon	Yes	Yes	Yes
1972	The Poseidon Adventure		Yes		Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama
1974	The Towering Inferno		Yes		Directed action sequences Nominated—Academy Award for Best Picture
1978	The Swarm	Yes	Yes
1979	Beyond the Poseidon Adventure	Yes	Yes
1980	When Time Ran Out		Yes

In popular culture

On January 3, 2008, BBC Four showed a night of Allen's work which included the 1995 documentary The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen along with episodes of Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Episode 57 of the Disney TV series Duck Tales screened December 8, 1987, titled "The Uncrashable Hindentanic" features a character called "Irwin Mallard" who films the destruction of Scrooge McDuck's airship called the Hindentanic in the disaster movie style of Irwin Allen.

"The Irwin Allen Show" was a skit on SCTV. The Irwin Allen Show was a Johnny Carson-style talk show with Allen as the host. The guests were stars in Allen's movies, and they were each individually victims of an Irwin Allen-style disaster while a guest on the talk show (e.g. Red Buttons was attacked by a swarm of bees).

In the film Ocean's Thirteen (2007) Linus Caldwell (played by Matt Damon) announces aloud to a catatonic Reuben Tishkoff that Rusty Ryan is doing an 'Irwin Allen' which is a reference to the fake earthquake they stage later in the story.