15 years after we lost the moon...

September 14, 2014 11:19 PM

With Saturday being the 15th anniversary of the tragic departure of the Moon from Earth orbit, it's a good time to visit The Boneyard, home to all the disassembled remains of the Eagles used in the Space 1999 series.

This is naturally, part of the Sci Fi Airshow site (previously), and is one of their best efforts to date.

Also, previously: (episode list). And previously- .

posted by happyroach (32 comments total)

It wasn't so bad losing the moon, but I've really missed Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and especially Barry Morse. (All those years on a wild goose chase in The Fugitive, and now this...)

I did hesitate on the link about "the disassembled remains of the Eagles", but I was relieved not tofind Don Henley there.

End Silly Transmission.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:27 AM on September 15, 2014 [8 favorites]

cute. Some wonky perspectives though.

Loved the show when it was on. Didn't quite appreciate the quality of design it featured at the time.
posted by Sintram at 12:27 AM on September 15, 2014

Fooled me until I started clicking around and saw the rest of the site. I don't know if that says more about my gullibility, or more about the awesome weirdness of growing up in Southern CA. We really have shit like that, around here. You want a junk yard with a bunch of rusted spaceship hulks from some obscure 1970s sci-fi show, you can find it!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 12:59 AM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

The Eagle is a great design, because it's functional and believable. It's made of girders, pipes, hydraulics with no concession to looking sleek for the sake of it.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 1:26 AM on September 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

Those ships look so fucking awesome covered in tags like that. It makes me think of like... cowboy bebop, and neuromancer, and space dandy, and firefly, and so many other semi-dystopian scifi future interpretations.

It's like yea, if these ships were landing at shady spaceports and far out colonies and bases all over the solar system they'd totally get covered in tags. They're like the space fairing version of brooklyn side street box trucks and beat up train cars.

I also totally agree that the eagle is shockingly realistic looking for it's era, and even for now. It looks like something spacex could build tomorrow. It somehow looks even more plausible than the space shuttle, and that actually existed. It just has a certain un-sleek realism to it. It looks like some kind of undersea research platform combined with a really basic space ship not designed for atmospheric flight.
posted by emptythought at 2:15 AM on September 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

It has always amazed me that Gerry Anderson's live action series managed to make the actors look more stiff than those in his marionette series.
posted by fairmettle at 2:45 AM on September 15, 2014 [5 favorites]

Yes, and I could make a crass stiffness-related joke about the girls in his UFO series, but I'm too classy for that.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:15 AM on September 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

fairmettle - yeah, but he gave us some awesome and much needed tv sci fi so we love him anyway.

This is ace, absolutely love it. The couple smiling crazily in every pic is superb. Thanks, happyroach.
posted by marienbad at 3:44 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Don't get me wrong, Gerry Anderson is altogether fab!

However, if I were to choose his best live action series, it would have to be UFO - excellent sci-fi design and it still gives me the willies.
posted by fairmettle at 3:59 AM on September 15, 2014

Yes, and I could make a crass willy-related joke about the girls in his UFO series, but I'm too classy for that.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 4:30 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think it's the shipping container modularity of the Eagle that makes it seem so real, and is one of the reasons it still seems feasible to our eyes, even today. Also, the design language of Space: 1999 has a continuity to it; I can imagine Jonny Ive growing up watching that shit and it having a definite impact on him.

That comlink is fucked up, dude.
posted by valkane at 4:48 AM on September 15, 2014 [3 favorites]

I hadn't seen the earlier link, so I assumed at first that these were actual sets or props from Space:1999, in the manner of the old Galileo shuttle prop from Star Trek that someone is restoring.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:29 AM on September 15, 2014

The Eagle is a great design, because it's functional and believable. It's made of girders, pipes, hydraulics with no concession to looking sleek for the sake of it.

And yet at the same time, it looks kind of gecko-like and cute.
posted by Foosnark at 6:18 AM on September 15, 2014

The Eagle is a great design, because it's functional and believable. It's made of girders, pipes, hydraulics with no concession to looking sleek for the sake of it.

It's also more than a little cribbed from 2001's moon bus.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:21 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've managed to avoid every watching this show before. The aesthetic I'm seeing so far is so much "let's get as close to 2001 as we can on this budget" . A most pleasant surprise , that.

Side note: my god, can you imagine the cost of hauling all that nuclear waste to the moon!?
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 6:58 AM on September 15, 2014

Very well done, but really a strange conceit - not that the events of Space: 1999 actually happened. They make clear that it was a TV show, but a show that for some reason built actual, huge, full-scale spaceships and then dumped them after production was wrapped.

Still, some really great work.



the girls in his UFO series

Oh. Gabrielle Drake in her silver lame and her purple wig... oh...

But was there ever even an attempt at an explanation for why all the women on the moonbase wore silver lame and purple wigs. (Purple wigs?!?!) We saw plenty of women on Earth and none of them wore purple wigs. It clearly wasn't a fashion thing. Was it just something you ... did... on the moon?
posted by Naberius at 7:03 AM on September 15, 2014

The visual future of the 1950s-1970s was all about silver lame, miniskirts, thigh-high boots, and purple wigs. Personally I blame Mary Quant.

Also: middle-aged men in skin-tight lycra or nylon who somehow never got love handles. Maybe it was all those food pills they were gobbling instead of burgers and sushi like us real people who come from the future?
posted by cstross at 7:28 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

(It is also the 20th anniversary of a runaway planet hurtling between the moon and the Earth, unleashing cosmic destruction. /Thundarr)
posted by blueberry at 7:38 AM on September 15, 2014 [4 favorites]

And yet at the same time, it looks kind of gecko-like and cute.

Coolest Toy Ever—Mattel Space: 1999's Eagle 1.

(I had one of those. I used to make-believe that the Alphans encountered the Planet of the Apes figures who, because of their size, ruled over the Fisher-Price people Land Of the Giants-stylee.)
posted by octobersurprise at 7:40 AM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Man I could have died happy after this show premiered. As long as I could have a plastic Eagle in the next world.
posted by thelonius at 7:49 AM on September 15, 2014

Dinky Toys made excellent quality die-cast metal Eagle Transporter and Eagle Lander toys at the time, I had a transporter and I still love the green.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 8:00 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Coolest Toy Ever—Mattel Space: 1999's Eagle 1.

My friend John had one of these when we were twelve or so. I coveted it greatly. Of course, I had a Millennium Falcon, so these ships had awesome adventures together.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:25 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Coolest Toy Ever—Mattel Space: 1999's Eagle 1.

The way the nose and engines could be removed and joined to make a little mini-spaceship was just the coolest thing ever. All my LEGO spaceship designs were influenced by that kind of modular design (although Battle of the Planets / G-Force was probably also an influence).
posted by straight at 9:21 AM on September 15, 2014

Something like this would be an interesting Burning Man attraction.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:48 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I loved the Eagles. So utilitarian! They look like a cross between a space ship and the contractor's temporary office trailer at a construction site.
posted by jfuller at 10:04 AM on September 15, 2014

They make clear that it was a TV show, but a show that for some reason built actual, huge, full-scale spaceships and then dumped them after production was wrapped.

To emphasize, they were functional full scale spaceships. As in "He still takes Eagle 4 on anniversary trips to the moon."

Also, I had both the Dinky Toy and the NPC model kits of the Eagle and Hawk. I would have gotten the model rocket version, but they were illegal to fly in my home town.
posted by happyroach at 10:24 AM on September 15, 2014

Coolest Toy Ever—Mattel Space: 1999's Eagle 1.

Wow, I had one of those toys too but had completely forgotten about it until seeing the linked picture of it. Good to know the old neurons can still fire!
posted by jabah at 10:52 AM on September 15, 2014

The visual future of the 1950s-1970s was all about silver lame, miniskirts, thigh-high boots, and purple wigs. Personally I blame Mary Quant.

Blame? I think you mean Thank!

What can we do to make that aesthetic happen? Please?
posted by rock swoon has no past at 11:08 AM on September 15, 2014

One thing that sticks in my mind was Space 1999 and the Muppets were both produced by ITC Entertainment. As a kid I would wait to see the ITC logo at the end of an episode of the Muppets, because it reminded me of Space 1999 years after Space 1999 was off the air. The logo was also white on black and sort of space-age like.
posted by xtian at 3:36 PM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Coolest Toy Ever—Mattel Space: 1999's Eagle 1.

I had that and many fine adventures. I must call my mom to search the basement.

Dinky Toys made excellent quality die-cast metal Eagle Transporter and Eagle Lander toys at the time, I had a transporter and I still love the green.

This was the end of my Disneyland Adventure.
Some kid in the toy store;
"that shit's stupid".
I punch!
Back to the hotel room.
Never diss the Space 1999 dinky toys you red headed little snot bitch!
posted by qinn at 10:25 PM on September 15, 2014

Wow. After five minutes of that, I want to watch the entire series. I caught some of it as a kid, but I've forgotten all of this.

But it's now really hard to see Martin Landau and not hear him say "Ed-dieeeeeee. Eddieeeeeeee." from Ed Wood.
posted by billder at 7:05 AM on September 16, 2014

5 Things that Space:1999 got right about the Near-Future
posted by fairmettle at 3:19 AM on September 22, 2014