For the rap musician, see Z-Ro

Z-Ro

Joseph Wayne McVey , better known by his stage name Z-Ro, is an American rapper, singer and producer from Houston, Texas. He was named one of America's most underrated rappers by the New York Times.-Early life:...

.

Captain Z-Ro was a children's television show that ran locally on KRON

KRON-TV

KRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...

 in San Francisco beginning in November 1951, and was later nationally syndicated in the United States, ending its run of original episodes on June 10, 1956. It remained in syndication until 1960. Modeled on the science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 space opera

Space opera

Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to "soap...

s popular at the time (cf. Captain Video

Captain Video

Captain Video and His Video Rangers is an American science fiction television series. It was broadcast on the DuMont Television Network, and was the first series of its kind on American television...

 and Space Patrol

Space Patrol

Space Patrol has been the title of several science fiction works:*Space Patrol , the United States 1950s TV series with a concurrent radio version...

), it featured sets and costumes emulating the futuristic designs of Buck Rogers

Buck Rogers

Anthony Rogers is a fictional character that first appeared in Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. A sequel, The Airlords of Han, was published in the March 1929 issue....

 and Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...

.

Premise

Scientist Captain Z-Ro, working in his remote laboratory, safeguarded mankind and history from impending harm. He had a time machine

Time travel

Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...

, the ZX-99, both to view history and to send someone back in time. Each week, he and his teenage assistant Jet would view an episode in time and inevitably see that some event was unfolding contrary to history (e.g., King John

John of England

John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...

 not signing the Magna Carta

Magna Carta

Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...

). Captain Z-Ro would then send Jet back in time to intervene and ensure that history played out as originally recorded. Over the years, plots involved Z-Ro and Jet rescuing a wide range of historical figures, including Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....

, Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

, Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....

, William the Conqueror

William I of England

William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...

, and Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone was an American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits mad']'e him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of...

.

Like early episodes of Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

, which premiered in the UK more than a decade later, most episodes were melodramatic history lessons for children. No serious effort was made to explain how the time machine worked, and time travel conundra (such as the grandfather paradox

Grandfather paradox

The grandfather paradox is a proposed paradox of time travel first described by the science fiction writer René Barjavel in his 1943 book Le Voyageur Imprudent . The paradox is this: suppose a man traveled back in time and killed his biological grandfather before the latter met the traveler's...

) were likewise glossed over.

Each week after the last commercial, the announcer would intone: "Be sure to be standing by when we again transmit you to the remote location on planet Earth where Captain Z-Ro and his associates will conduct another experiment in time and space."

Format and effects

The special effect to represent time travel was a simple dissolve shot, set among flashing lights, blinking oscilloscopes and innumerable levers and knobs.

Captain Z-Ro was one of the first shows to be shot on videotape

Videotape

A videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...

. As a result, VHS and DVD copies of early episodes of somewhat higher than normal quality are available. Later episodes were shot on film, as the show moved from a 15 minute format on local station KRON in San Francisco to a 30 minute nationally syndicated format.

External links

• Captain Z-Ro official site
• Captain Z-Ro at Science Fiction on Television in the 1950s
• Captain Z-Ro at TV.com
  TV.com
  TV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...
  
  
• The ZX-99 time machine at TVacres.com
• Captain Z-Ro on "50's Sci-Fi Videos":