Professionalduced between 1956 and 1964 by AT&T, the Bell Telecellphone Science Hour TV specials anticipate the literary zaniness of The Muppet Present and the scientific enthusiasm of Cosmos. The “ship of the imagination” in Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos reboot could in truth owe somefactor to the episode above, considered one of 9, directed by none other than It’s A Gainedderful Life’s Frank Capra. “Strap in your wits and hop in your magazineic automobilepet,” begins the special, “You’ve received one, : Your imagination.” As a information for our imagination, The Unusual Case of the Cosmic Rays enlists the humanities—particularly three puppets repredespatcheding Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, and, somewhat incongruously for its detective theme, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who performs the foil as an incurious spoilsport. The present’s host, Frank Baxter (“Dr. Analysis”) was actually a professionalfessor of English at UCLA and seems right here with Richard Carlson, clarifying scientific concepts with confidence.
The one-hour movies turned very popular as instruments of science education, however there are good causes—aside from their datedness or Dr. Baxter’s experience—to method them critically. At instances, the diploma of speculation indulged by Baxter and the writers strains credulity. For examinationple, writes Geoff Alexander in Academic Movies for the Classroom: A History, 1958’s The Unchained Goddess (above) “introduces the viewer to weird concepts such because the possibility of ‘steering’ hurricanes away from land by creating bio-hazards comparable to ocean borne oil-slicks and introducing oil-based ocean fires.” These grim, fossil gasoline industry-friendly scenarios nonethemuch less openly acknowledged the possibility of synthetic climate change and seemed forward to photo voltaic energy.
Together with some dystopian bizarreness, the collection additionally contains an excellent deal of explicit Christian execselytizing, because of Capra. As a condition for taking the job, “the famend director could be allowed to embed religious messages within the movies.” As Capra himself mentioned to AT&T president Cleo F. Craig:
If I make a science movie, I should say that scientific analysis is simply another expression of the Holy Spirit… I’ll say that science, in essence, is simply another aspect of man’s quest for God.
At instances, writes Alexander, “the religious perspective is taken to extremes,” as within the first episode, Our Mr. Solar, which begins with a quotation from Psalms and admonishes “viewers who would dare to question the causal relationship between photo voltaic energy and the divinity.” The Unchained Goddess, above, is the fourth within the collection, and Capra’s final.
Afterward, a director named Owen Crump took over duties on the following 4 episodes. His movies, writes Alexander, “didn’t overtly execselytize” and “relied much less on animated characters interacting with Dr. Baxter.” (Watch the Crump-directed Gatemethods to the Thoughts above, a extra sober-minded, but nonetheless unusually off-kilter, inquiry into the 5 senses.) The final movie, The Relaxationmuch less Sea was professionalduced by Walt Disney and directed by Les Clark, and starred Disney himself and Baxter’s exchangement, Sterling Holloway.
Observe: An earlier version of this submit appeared on our website in 2015.
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Josh Jones is a author and musician based mostly in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
