[Completely OT] Ping Dan C

Given that you're an ex-Navy guy of "about" my age and that you're
interested in science-fiction, I thought you'd be interested in learning
that I've just recently - i.e. as of two days ago - come across a number
of full-length episodes of "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea" on YouTube.
;-)

The following link is of the channel of one of the uploaders, but this
person is apparently not the only VTTBOTS fan on YouTube. Other people
have similarly uploaded full-length episodes - running time ~50 minutes
- while yet other episodes are cut up in shorter (but numbered) slices.
Several of the episodes are subtitled in Spanish, and some even have the
descriptive title translated to Spanish, but the audio is all in the
original English. But so, here is the link to one of the uploaders, and
you will find the other uploaders in the "related videos" column. ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/user/mona0825

I must have been around 3 to 5 years old or so when VTTBOTS first aired
over here, both on Belgian national television and on the Dutch national
television network. A lot of the stuff in the show didn't make sense
scientifically - such as the Van Allen Belt being on fire in the
original pilot movie (which had a different cast), or the internal
dimensions and organization of the Seaview not matching with its
external appearance - or the gun and fist fight scenes being way over
the top - such as knocking someone unconscious with a single blow to the
face or the pistols firing without a recoiling slide and ejected cases -
but when you're just a toddler who can't even read, watching all that
stuff on a black & white television set, you don't notice all the
discrepancies. And hey, it was an Irwin Allen show after all. :-)

It was all so long ago that I don't even remember how the episodes went
exactly - not even with my eidetic memory <lol> - but I do remember that
several episodes revolved around monsters and aliens, and one of the
episodes that seriously freaked me out as a little boy was "The Deadly
Toys". Back at the time, wind-up or battery powered robots first
started to appear in the toy market over here, and whenever I saw such
toys at a toy shop, it would freak me out and I would want to get out of
there. Hey, I was just a little boy, and on top of that I was an
undiagnosed autistic. ;-)

The "Deadly Toys" episode is up there on YouTube, along with the other
ones. I'm still looking around for some of the "monster" and "alien"
episodes, though. Like I said, I've only recently discovered these
videos on YouTube, and I've already watched several episodes again, but
I'm nowhere near done checking them all out. :-)

Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea was also what got me hooked on
submarines. I never had a toy or model Seaview when I was a little boy
- although I did build many of them using Lego and similar kits - but
I've also recently come across some professionally built model kits -
which you can buy either as a kit or pre-built - of respectable
dimensions, and suitable for (and sometimes equipped with) radio
control. There are even videos on YouTube by guys who own such a
Seaview model - both the original movie and first season version with
the eight bow windows and the seasons two through four version with the
four bow windows and the Flying Sub hangar - and who've taped their sub
in anything from a swimming pool to an open lake, both above and below
the surface.

One of the better model builders is De Boer Hulls. De Boer has also
done a new and re-imagined version of the Seaview, called the Concept
II. It's supposed to be much larger than the original Seaview by
adjustment of the scale, which is reflected in the smaller and
redesigned conning tower - or "sail", as it is referred to in nautical
terms - and the smaller (and equally redesigned) Cadillac tailfins.
They're not cheap though, and if you want them radio-controlled, they'll
cost even more, but I still think that it's a great idea that someone
makes these accurate models and even came up with a new model.

http://www.deboerhulls.com/

The Concept II is available in both the 8-window bow and 4-window bow
versions, but De Boer also makes similar models of the original Seaview
as it was seen in the movie and the TV series.

Of course, we may now expect "T i m" to make scathing comments towards
us again, because he probably considers this to be toys - which I
wouldn't exactly "throw out of the pram", given the pricetags involved -
just as he considers Lord Of The Rings to be children's books. Oh well,
we know better by now. ;-)

= Aragorn (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)