Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Review Part I: The History of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950-)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I have a book review for you today, but it's going to be a rather unusual review. I'm splitting it into two parts with part one, this part, being the history of the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet franchise as a whole, and part two being the actual review of the book Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: Danger in Deep Space. There will be spoilers for the book when I get to that review, so be aware of that when you move onto part 2. Let's get into it.

Tom Corbett is a space cadet, studying to become a member of the Solar Guard, the protection and exploration arm of the Solar Alliance, and takes on assignments onboard the rocketship, Polaris, alongside his friends and fellow cadets, Roger Manning and Astro, a Venusian. Originally created to be a radio program by an employee of the book publisher Grosset & Dunlap, who also published The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift among others, Joseph Greene in 1946. Nothing ever came of it though and eventually the radio show scripts were reworked into scripts for a Television series, known as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. The show ran from October 2nd, 1950 until June 25th, 1955 and it's one of the few shows to hold the distinction of airing on all four American networks at the time, CBS, ABC, NBC, and the DuMont Television Network, which went off the air in 1956, a year after Tom Corbett went off the air.

The show starred Frankie Thomas Jr. as Tom, Al Markim as Astro, Jan Merlin as Roger, Edward Bryce as Captain Strong, the commanding officer of the Polaris Unit, Margaret Garland as Dr. Joan Dale, Carter Blake as Commander Arkwright (a stand-in for Commander Walters I'm assuming), a young John Fiedler (the voice of Piglet in the original four Winnie the Pooh cartoon featurettes) as Alfie Higgins, who is a friend of Tom, Astro, and Roger, Frank Sutton as Cadet Eric Rattison, and Jack Grimes as Cadet T.J. Thistle, who was the replacement for Roger in the season that aired on DuMont, which was also the final season of the show. This show was Tom's first appearance.

In 1952, during the show's third season, Grosset & Dunlap began publishing a series of books based on the TV series though there's no indication in any of the books or on their covers that this series was directly based on the TV show. The first book of the series, Stand By for Mars! was published in 1952. The series was written by several authors under the pen name of Carey Rockwell though unlike The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, there doesn't seem to be any information on who these authors were.

Oddly enough this series doesn't have any women in it. At least not in the second book of the series, Danger in Deep Space. I haven't read the rest of the series, so I don't know if Dr. Dale shows up or not. I do find it weird that a character from the TV show isn't included in the books. I get that this series was meant for boys, but having Callie Shaw and Iola Morton, not to mention Laura Hardy and Aunt Gertrude, in the Hardy Boys books didn't make boys want to read the series any less. For some unknown reason the book series ended with book #8, The Robot Rocket, which was published in 1956 after the TV show had ended it's run.

Of course Tom Corbett, Space Cadet wouldn't be a Science Fiction TV show produced in the 20th Century without it also being adapted into several comic books. The first one was produced by Dell Comics from 1952 to 1954 which included stories published in the anthology series, Four Color Comics. 

After many attempts to publish comic book series, including a Manga adaptation, the most recent series was the four issue series, Danger in Deep Space, which I'm assuming is an adaptation of that novel. This series came out between 2012 and 2013. 

I'm not overly familiar with this franchise as I've only ever owned and read the second book in the series, Danger in Deep Space. But there's so much in here that had to have had some influences on Science Fiction TV shows and movies like Forbidden Planet, Star Trek, and The Orville because there are many similarities. For example, the Solar Guard is basically Starfleet and the Union Fleet, and the Solar Alliance is the Federation and the Planetary Union and of course Space Academy is Starfleet Academy and Union Point. Though the ships in this series are your typical 1950s rocketship design, much smaller than the Enterprise and the Orville. 

Alright folks, I'll be back with the actual review of this novel shortly so stay tuned!