On Wednesday, April 27, 1966, TV kids were faced with a difficult choice. At 7:30 pm, they had to choose to watch the last episode in the first season of
Lost In Space, "
Follow the Leader," or
Batman, which was airing the 31st episode of the season, "
Death in Slow Motion." Since
Batman would be showing the second part the next night, and was ending its first season the following week, I suspect most youngsters chose to watch
Lost In Space and flip over to
Batman during the commercial breaks. The choice was between seeing if possessed Father Robinson would push Will off a cliff, or watching the Riddler make a silent movie with the help of lovely
Sherry Jackson, which also included past silent film star,
Francis X. Bushman, in the cast. Nowadays most children have access to some sort of recording mechanism so they don't have to contend with such choices.
1966 was a good year to be a TV kid, with shows like
Lost in Space, Bewitched, Batman, Get Smart, and
Star Trek to keep a youngster tied to the tube. It was certainly a magical time, and I will be celebrating the 50 year anniversaries with episodes from some of the
TV series of this year. It's possible that some strange TV time portal will open up by watching these episodes on the same day and same time they originally aired. Fire up these episodes at 7:30 pm tonight and see if it happens. Which episode will you choose?
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