USOS SEAVIEW - Ship Of The Week #9 1/16/15
- Thread starter Admiral2
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They had the film on over Christmas. It's been a while since I'd seen it.
When I lived in St. Louis in the 80s, I was driving down some major street (maybe in Jennings, I think I'd been to Village Inn Pizza), and caught a glimpse of a large Seaview model behind someone's house. I never stopped to ask them about, but after a few other drives past it, it obviously wasn't one of the original models as I'd hoped. Apparently it was some fan built vehicle for a parade float or something. It was convincing enough on first glance to be a WTF moment though, with only the bow visible, the rest hidden by the house.
My first encounter with Voyage was a Flying Sub model.
When I was a kid I used to like building models all the time, and when I saw the Flying Sub on the shelf I thought it was cool so I bought it and built it, but at the time I hadn't seen either the movie or the show, so I didn't how the FS fit into it.
Of course, after I'd built it the first thing I saw was the movie, so there I am like an idiot waiting for them to whip out the Flying Sub and instead get the dinky two-manner and one-manner and I thought "What the hell?"
Yes, my iconic sci-fi experience is often disjointed...
When I was a kid I used to like building models all the time, and when I saw the Flying Sub on the shelf I thought it was cool so I bought it and built it, but at the time I hadn't seen either the movie or the show, so I didn't how the FS fit into it.
Of course, after I'd built it the first thing I saw was the movie, so there I am like an idiot waiting for them to whip out the Flying Sub and instead get the dinky two-manner and one-manner and I thought "What the hell?"
Yes, my iconic sci-fi experience is often disjointed...
Meh...
Never a fan of this one.
Never a fan of this one.
Meh...
Never a fan of this one.
I expect a lot of Meh votes with this one. She always looked to me like a submarine designed by Cadillac in the fifties.
I will say this. That sub cruises like a mutha' in the swimming pool!
A built the Aurora kit a few times over the years. Around 1973 to '74, I would take one of the models I assembled to the community pool for the apartment complex where I lived. Immersing it into the water and making sure all air was dispelled, I'd give it a gentle tap upon the stern. All those silly fins (the manta ray shapes at the bow, the diving planes upon the "sail", the "Chevy" fins aft...) made the craft "fly" straight as an arrow! Of course, like the "sun dive" stunt ship mentioned in "HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy", it may have swum like a fish, but it steered like a cow. But as a kid, you didn't care about practicalities like that. It just looked d*mned cool!
Sincerely,
Bill
A built the Aurora kit a few times over the years. Around 1973 to '74, I would take one of the models I assembled to the community pool for the apartment complex where I lived. Immersing it into the water and making sure all air was dispelled, I'd give it a gentle tap upon the stern. All those silly fins (the manta ray shapes at the bow, the diving planes upon the "sail", the "Chevy" fins aft...) made the craft "fly" straight as an arrow! Of course, like the "sun dive" stunt ship mentioned in "HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy", it may have swum like a fish, but it steered like a cow. But as a kid, you didn't care about practicalities like that. It just looked d*mned cool!
Sincerely,
Bill
My brother! I did that all the time in our swimming pool.
And the Aurora Flying Sub did a nice "falling leaf" maneuver when it sank.
Here's my build of the Lunar Models 32" vacuform Seaview:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/seaview_lm1.html
And a little fun I had with Moebius Models reissue of the classic Aurora kit:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/seaview_pl1a.html
http://www.inpayne.com/models/seaview_lm1.html
And a little fun I had with Moebius Models reissue of the classic Aurora kit:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/seaview_pl1a.html
Is it just me or does the front look like Darth Vader's helmet? Or more accurately, Lord Helmet's helmet.
Honestly, I think it looks long and hard and filled with seamen, if you know what I mean!
Thread winner!
Don't seem as appearant on the second kit, but the downward slop on the manta-wings on the bow in the first to me suggest it would be very hard to keep level.
To me they would have the same effect as diving planes and being angle down and thus force the bow down and down.
Unless the bow actually wanted to rise in which they'd be necessary to keep it from forcing the Seaview to the surface.
That makes the most sense. A RL Los Angeles class sub's reactor is so heavy that when the subs are at rest on the surface they go down noticeably at the stern. Seaview might have had the same problem, especially when you consider that instead of a heavy sonar at the bow she had a big empty living room where people can look out windows.
Meh...
Never a fan of this one.
I expect a lot of Meh votes with this one. She always looked to me like a submarine designed by Cadillac in the fifties.
I can't recall the source, but I THOUGHT that I read somewhere that the show's creator, Irwin Allen, told the Seaview's designers that he wanted the sub to have fins on the back that looked like the ones on his own Cadillac. Early designs apparently lacked the manta wings at the bow. A diagram of the sub hung on the back wall of the observation nose during the first season (back when it was a separate room 'downstairs' from the control room) that showed a bow view without fins and also an odd window arrangement. Maybe the blueprint was created during the early planning stages of the show and was mistakenly used without an update.
I had the Remco VTTBOTS play set as a preschooler. I played with it and played with it until I broke everything breakable off of it (propeller, rear diving planes, wheels [yes, the toy sub had wheels!]). It bugged me as a 4 year old that REMCO included a mini-sub that was NOT the proper Voyage mini-sub, plus the mini-sub and the driver were almost as large as the Seaview in the set. I still have the main hull that survived my childhood! It was the best Christmas ever.... VTTBOTS play set AND the Fireball XL-5 play set!
ME TV channel is currently running VTTBOTS. Still makes me laugh when an episode from a later season (post-Seaview nose-job) uses stock footage from season 1 showing the sub with the eight windows. Bugged me as a kid. Just like the original Battlestar Galactica using the shot of the Viper pilot's hand on the joystick hitting the button over and over and over and over..... !
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I never knew this toy even existed!
http://www.vttbots.com/collectibles_remco_set.htm
http://www.vttbots.com/collectibles_remco_set.htm
I had that. I still have the wind-up crank.
Had the Fireball XL-5 Space City playset too, and I have the windshield from that. That's all that survives!