Sky King
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Sky King was a 1940s and 1950s American radio and television adventure series featuring Arizona rancher and aircraft pilot Schuyler (or Skyler) "Sky" King.
Although it had strong cowboy show elements, King always captured criminals and even spies as well as finding lost hikers using his plane.
King's personal plane was called the Songbird. Though he changed from one plane to another over the course of the show, the later plane was not given a number (i.e., "Songbird II"), but was simply known as Songbird.
He and his niece, Penny (and sometimes Clipper, his nephew) lived on the Flying Crown Ranch, near the (fictitious) town of Grover City, Arizona. Penny and Clipper were also pilots, though still relatively inexperienced and looking to their uncle for guidance and mentoring. Penny was an accomplished air racer and rated multiengine pilot, who Sky trusted to fly the Songbird.
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[edit] Radio
The radio show, the brainchild of Robert Morris Burtt and Wilfred Gibbs Moore, who also created Captain Midnight, first aired in 1946. Several actors played the part of Sky, including Earl Nightingale and John Reed King.
The radio show ran until 1954, being aired simultaneously with the television version.
[edit] Television
The television version starred Kirby Grant as Sky King and Gloria Winters as his teen-aged niece Penny. Other regular characters included his nephew Clipper, played by Ron Hagerthy, and Mitch the sheriff, played by Ewing Mitchell. Mitch was always coming to Sky for help.
Like most TV cowboy heroes of the time, Sky never killed the bad guys.
Largely a show for kids, although it sometimes aired in primetime, Sky King became an icon in the aviation community. Many pilots (including American astronauts) who grew up watching Sky King name him as an influence.
Though plot lines were often simplistic, Grant (being a pilot) [1] was able to bring a casual, natural treatment of technical details which led to a level of believability not found in other TV series involving aviation or life in the American West. Likewise, villains and other characters were usually shown as intelligent and believable, rather than as two-dimensional. The writing was generally well above the standard for contemporary half-hour programs.
The television show was notable for its dramatic opening with an air-to-air shot of the Songbird banking sharply away from the camera and its engines roaring, while the announcer proclaimed "From out of the clear blue of the Western sky . . .comes Sky King!" The short credit roll which followed was equally dramatic, with the Songbird swooping at the camera across El Mirage dry lake, then pulling up into a steep climb as it went away. The end title featured a musical theme, with the credits superimposed over an air-to-air shot of the Songbird, cruising at altitude for several moments then banking to the left and turning away (similar to the opening shot).
The show began airing on Sunday afternoons on NBC between September 16, 1951 and October 26, 1952. Then, ABC took over on November 8, 1952 and kept it on Saturday afternoons until September 21, 1953, when it made its prime-time debut on ABC's Monday night lineup, before it aired twice-a-week in August and September of 1954, before ABC pulled the plug on it. After a five-year absence, CBS began airing reruns of the show on early Saturdays afternoons (at 12 pm Eastern/Pacific times; late Saturday mornings at 11 am Central/Mountain times) on October 3, 1959 and continued to do so until September 3, 1966.
A few episodes of the series have been released on DVD in North America.
[edit] Production notes
At the beginning of the television series, Sky flew a Cessna T-50 twin-engine "Bamboo Bomber." The plane was made of wood and eventually became unsafe to fly.
The best-known Songbird was a twin-engine Cessna 310B. There were actually four of these planes, one which crashed (killing the pilot) and three others, one of which had its markings modified for filming so that the numbers would match stock footage. One of the other 310s was used as a camera ship, thus to match the flight characteristics of the plane being filmed as well as providing an additional backup plane, and the other was primarily used for promotional purposes.
The Cessna T-50 and one of the 310Bs belonged to Kirby Grant, who did much of the flying himself. Legendary stunt pilot Paul Mantz flew the Songbird in other flying scenes.
A unique introduction featured the triangular Nabisco logo flying across the screen, accompanied by the sound of the Songbird flying past.
Though set in Arizona, the series was filmed in California. The ranch house used for exterior shots of the Flying Crown Ranch is an actual home in Apple Valley, California. Other locations were shot in and around Apple Valley and the nearby San Bernardino Mountains, George Air Force Base and China Lake Naval Air Station.
While expensive for a kids' show, most of the budget went into aircraft, vehicles and sets. This meant that some standard production methods had to be abandoned, giving the series a more realistic look. For instance, in some shots, actors actually did taxi aircraft rather than the more common (but time-consuming, thus costly) method of simulating movement by towing or dolly shots.
The budget issue also forced the frequent reuse of stock footage, sometimes flipped over to show planes banking the opposite direction, thus sometimes letters and numbers were seen in mirror-image.
The black-and-white film masked the actual paint scheme of the Cessna 310 Songbirds, which were done in a rich multi-color pattern of gold, bronze, black and white.
The show was filmed and shown during three periods as sponsors changed: 1951-52 (Derby Foods), 1955-56 and 1957-62 (Nabisco, though the copyright notices continued to name Derby Foods). It continued in syndication for years afterward, and was a staple on Saturday morning television into the mid-1960s. There are 72 episodes available for sale on DVD.
The series Sky King ended production in February of 1959. There were no additional episodes filmed after that date.
There has long been a rumor that a vault fire destroyed the only prints of 64 other episodes. This is incorrect, though. There were only 72 episodes produced in total.[1][2]
Remarkably, Nabisco sold rights to the series to Grant in 1959. In later years, Grant considered bringing back the series and even a "Sky King" theme park, but nothing ever happened on either of these projects. At least one writer has boilerplated a "Sky King" film, but none has been produced.
[edit] Regular cast
- Schuyler "Sky" King = Kirby Grant
- Penny = Gloria Winters
- Sheriff "Mitch" Mitchell = Ewing Mitchell
- Clipper = Ron Hagerthy
