My new episode on Cocktail Nation is live! This month I introduce the classic Sci-Fi series from Germany, Raumpatrouille (1966) and play the main theme by Peter Thomas. Raumpatrouille (Space Patrol: The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship Orion) made its debut a mere week after Star Trek appeared in the US. The show was set in a future when a unified Earth had evolved into a cohesive government and colonized in space, as well as under the seas, where their main base was located. The Orion was commanded by Major Cliff McLane and his crew, and as it was revealed, defended humanity against The Frogs, an eerie and mysterious alien threat. The series ran only seven episodes due to budget. Interestingly, scripts really struck a fierce tone of rebellion against bureaucracy and authority, which can tell us something about attitudes in societies around the world by 1966. In fact, the heroes of the Orion began the show with a dressing down by their superiors for bucking orders and were then sent out to a limited region of space with an official observer on board to make sure regulations were followed to the letter. Luckily for viewers, much suspense and adventure ensued!
Perhaps the most memorable element of Raumpatroulle was the show's jaw-dropping set designs. Interiors were highly modern in style, arranging geometric shapes in stark, minimal black and white. Imagine an ingenious Gerry Anderson world for a life-sized, tense, space adventure photographed for Ingmar Bergman! The influential 1963 Czech classic, IkarieXB-1, had a similar visual style, which I highly recommend checking out. One of the coolest designs in the series was the Starlight Casino, located in the undersea base (I misspoke in my radio intro; I meant to say 'base' rather than 'ship'). This lounge reminded me a bit of Ken Adam designs for 007, with its metallic surfaces and juxtaposition between angular floorspace and a circular ceiling. In this case, the ceiling was a glass aquarium-view with gigantic tropical fish swinging overhead (In fact, the glass ceiling covered other parts of the base, too, including McLane's own pad). See the infamous modern dance scene below for a closer look. The series also made great use of modern furniture designs by Eames, Saarinen, and others.
Composer Peter Thomas (Jerry Cotton, Edgar Wallace) brought his trademark combination of driving band and avant-garde jazz. He also used a very unusual piece of equipment to create the Orion's computer voice- a vocoder! According to Music in Science Fiction Television, Thomas had access to the vocoder at the studio from an electronics company in Munich called Siemens. Thomas recorded his own voice using the vocoder for the series. The famous countdown (and other computer dialog) appeared in episodes, but only appeared in front of the main title sequence for the soundtrack. Since the vocoder was so rare in those days, I wondered if such a device was also used for the Cybermen and Dalek voices in Doctor Who? I asked Mark Ayres from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, who shed some light on the matter: "No. Ring Modulator for Daleks. False Palate with speaker technique for Cybermen (similar to an Electrolarynx or Talk Box these days). Later Cybermen used a pitch-shifter. I cannot think of any monster voice done using the vocoder. Vocoder was used very rarely in Doctor Who. Peter Howell used it (the EMS Vocoder) on his version of the theme music in 1980, and it was also used for the “Thanks be to Ti” bits in Meglos. Those are the only specific instances I can recall, off the top of my head." Thanks, Mark! Outside the world of experimental music, I believe Thomas was a bit of a pioneer by bringing this cutting-edge sound to Raumpatrouille. Spy Vibers can probably find the episodes on-line, although I believe only a feature-cut made later has English subtitles. There are many subtleties to the plot and interactions between characters, so so try to watch it subtitled if possible. Hopefully we'll see an official release in translation someday. Spy Vibers can hear my brief intro and some music from the show at Cocktail Nation. Enjoy!
