Colorado Free Radio Old Time Radio Presents

We continue our presentation of Journey into Space, Jet Morgan and the Red Planet with episodes 3 and 4.

Journey Into Space was a science fiction series broadcast on BBC radio in the 1950s. It began in 1953 and lasted for three series by the end of which it had become a radio legend. The cliff-hanging adventures of Jet Morgan were broadcast on the Light Programme and enthralled millions of listeners in the age before television dominated home entertainment.

Besides Jet, the Captain, there was cockney radio operator Lemmy Barnett, Doc Matthews and engineer Steven Mitchell. Their first trip was to the moon in Operation Luna. They later travelled to Mars in The Red Planet. The final serial told the tale of The World in Peril. The three stories were written by the man responsible for creating and producing the series, Charles Chilton - a producer whose credits included the Goon Show and Riders of the Range. Chilton had the unnerving method of writing each half-hour episode only days before the recording and also made pioneering use of tape and electronic effects. When transcription recordings of the show were made, the trilogy was sold abroad to 22 different countries.

From 28th April 1956 a comic strip version of Journey Into Space appeared in the pages of Express Weekly and ran until 1957. It was written by Charles Chilton and drawn by Tacconi and later Bruce Cornwall and Terence Patrick.

The story that ran in the weekly pages was entitled Planet of Fear and began with Discovery blasting off from Moonbase IV on a routine mission to Mars in 1976. The drawings of Jet, Mitch, Doc and Lemmy were based on the actors who portrayed them in The World In Peril.

Journey Into Space was a BBC Radio science fiction programme, written by BBC producer Charles Chilton. Three series were produced, which have been translated into 17 languages[1] and broadcast worldwide.[1] In the UK it was the last radio programme to attract a bigger evening audience than television.

The first series was created in 1953, soon after Riders of the Range (a popular Western, also written by Chilton) ended its six seasons on the BBC Light Programme. Michael Standing, then Head of the BBC Variety Department, asked Chilton if he could write a sci-fi programme, and Journey to the Moon (later known as Operation Luna) was the result.

Each half-hour episode would usually end with a dramatic cliffhanger (a popular plot device used to increase the audience’s incentive to tune in to the next episode).

The Red Planet

The second series, The Red Planet, followed the adventures of the crew in their first attempt to reach and explore Mars. Several new characters were introduced, the most notable of which were Frank Rogers and James Edward Whitaker, the two original crewmen of freighter #2. Chilton took the name Whitaker from a copy of Whitaker’s Almanack which was sitting on his desk.

In addition to the main cast, other cast members in The Red Planet were:

David Jacobs – Frank Rogers and miscellaneous characters
Anthony Marriott
Miriam Karlin
John Cazabon
Madi Hedd
Don Sharp

Colorado Free Presents Episodes 1 and 2 of “Jet Morgan, Journey in to Space The Red Planet”, join your host Johnny Night as he takes you down Nostalgia Lane.