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George brett dennis franz11/20/2023 Bill carts Mel around in a special valise rigged with a pilot’s chair and a round window so he can see out. Mel continues to work with his former partner Agent Bill Winters (Arthur Franz). At least one episode has Mel learning that, yes, the medical experts still haven’t found a way to reverse the process: ‘Breaking News! - You’re still a shrimp.” This back story happens off screen, and is recounted several times in dialogue in later episodes. He survived but then started to shrink the experts stopped the process at six inches. On assignment somewhere in Eastern Europe, Federal Counter-Espionage Agent Mel Hunter (Marshall Thompson) was caught in a rocket fuel explosion. The special effects are also limited in the first two half-hours, but later shows become much more adventurous.Įvery show begins with a stock shot (from the 1940’s!) of a Government building housing an intelligence agency that fights foreign spies from behind the Iron Curtain. We like it for the personnel involved, and the chance to see its makers improve their product greatly over a very few episodes.Įvery episode is introduced on screen with the booming voiceover “WOG – World of Giants.” The early shows feel underproduced, with a lot of dialogue. What ClassicFlix Rare Television presents here is an entire short-run Sci-fi series, an amusing Cold War spy show featuring a six-inch secret agent. ClassicFlix has been presenting former ZIV programming on disc, seemingly through a relationship with the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. ![]() UA TV (now MGM Television) owns many but not all of the shows, and World of Giants is not among their holdings. ZIV was sold to United Artists Television in 1960, reportedly because the 3 networks were now producing more of their non- prime time programming. The thirteen World of Giants episodes premiered in early September 1959, finished up at Thanksgiving time and rattled about in spotty syndication for years thereafter. ZIV backed away as well - did they decide to roll the dice on the more expensive but also more topical Men into Space? ZIV itself would soon cease operations. According to the ClassicFlix disc notes, momentum for the project fell off after the networks passed, even though CBS was involved in the show’s development. World of Giants did not attain full syndication status. The producer of World of Giants was former Universal-International Sci-fi mainstay William Alland, who had recently done some additional fantastic film producing over at Paramount. A third ZIV sci-fi show was derived from the ‘shrinking-giant’ subgenre of matinee thrillers, most notably Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man. Much more elaborate was Tors’ Men into Space (1959), which featured extensive special effects. Producer Ivan Tors’ Science Fiction Theater ran for two years starting in 1955. ZIV was behind three science fiction shows of the 1950s. It was a complicated set-up, likely very insular and politics-minded. Network affiliates had non- prime time hours to fill as well, and also booked shows from ZIV or one of its competitors. ZIV partnered with some independents, and some shows not picked up by CBS, NBC and ABC were retained by ZIV for syndicated playoff. Independent producers that pitched ideas to the big three networks often had to make a number of episodes, sometimes on their own dime. It’s interesting that this review should follow so closely after the drive-in monster movies made by Texas radio magnate Gordon McLendon, because ZIV TV, the producers of scores of syndicated TV shows, began in syndicated radio as well. Sanford Wolfe, Donald Duncan, Fred Freibergerĭirected by Nathan Juran, Jack Arnold, Byron Haskin, Harry Horner, Otto Lang, Monroe P. Writers include Meyer Dolinsky, Irwin Winehouse, A. Collisįilm Editors: Thomas Scott, Charles Craft, George E. ![]() ![]() Set Designers / Art Directors: Robert Kinoshita, Jack T. Starring: Marshall Thompson, Arthur Franz, Marcia Henderson, John Gallaudet, Peggie Castle, Gavin MacLeod, Allison Hayes, Tom Brown, Berry Kroeger, Bill Walker, Pamela Duncan, Narda Onyx, Edgar Barrier, Gregg Palmer, Ziva Rodann, Nestor Paiva, Harry Lauter, Alex Montoya, Brett Halsey, Byron Morrow.Ĭinematography: Monroe P. Street Date Novem/ Available from ClassicFlix / 39.99 The guest actors are a fun bunch and the directors include Byron Haskin, Nathan Juran, Jack Arnold and Eugène Lourié.ġ959 / B&W / 1:33 Television / 338 min. Vintage special effects see them battle oversized animals and giant telephones, to keep us safe from enemy agents. Sci-fi completists and diehard fans of ‘fifties TV fun will want to know about this remastered disc containing all 13 episodes of the short-lived 1959 TV series, starring Marshall Thompson as America’s ‘tom thumb in a suitcase’ superspy, and Arthur Franz as his full-sized secret agent partner.
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