The birth of television was filled with trial and error as stations, networks, and producers tried to figure out exactly what they were going to do with this thing they'd decided was going to be America's babysitter. If you're getting a lot of mail about presold funeral plots and reverse mortages, well, you might remember the pioneering DuMont television network. DuMont aired perhaps the first science fiction TV show, all about a stalwart hero battling villains with his scientific wizardry, his dauntless courage, and his Army surplus uniforms - Captain Video!


So put on your 1920s style football helmet, grab your 1920s style death ray, and get ready for video thrills and action as Captain Video challenges the time when men could not walk! I'm guessing the situation is that darn pedestrian sign simply WOULD NOT CHANGE.


Captain Video! Electronic wizard, master of time and space, guardian of world safety, asker for no quarters, and useless from the waist down - at least that's what his girlfriend says! I'm joking, of course. There are no women in this story.


Captain Video's ingenious scanning device can capture images from designated areas around the world - YWCA locker rooms, women's college dormitories, saunas, steam baths, etc.


We're getting another channel frequency reporting notifying we us of more calamity disaster, he says talks!


If Captain Video needs to get somewhere fast, he merely climbs into a giant artillery shell and has himself whirlo-plummetted across the landscape. It just makes sense.


Washington DC incapacitated, American government paralyzed and incapable of action? Who says science fiction can't accurately predict the future?


Detroit and Pittsburg's industrial might silenced, their factories and mills no longer manufacturing American goods? Again, who says science fiction can't accurately predict the future? One thing's for sure, Captain Video could have stayed in his mountain hideout and used his ingenious scanning device to see these things. But that wouldn't let him show off the Whirlojet, now would it?


Obviously this leg paralysis business needs to be investigated by a general meeting of the medical board, who, for some reason, can't just telephone each other, they need to meet in person. And how are they going to do that if they can't walk? If only some scientific genius would use his mental wizardry and create the Americans With Disabilities Act, thereby mandating accomodations for people with mobility issues! Oh well. Say, that Whirlojet sure is nifty.


Captain Video is SO incredibly amazing that not only can he ram the Whirlo-Jet right into that tight-fitting, possibly Freudian tunnel, but his superior intelligence has enabled him to envision and create a revolutionary new device no one else in the history of the world could ever have dreamed up ever in a million years -a wheelchair with a motor.


Turns out that medical board was completely useless. Not only were they unable to solve the mystery, it happens there's already an amazing miracle cure! At least they all got those cool wheelchairs out of the deal.


Thank goodness this is a work of fiction. Imagine the horrible catastrophe if vital health care was priced out of reach for the ordinary citizen!


Here's where we find out if Captain Video gave his video pecs and video delts their share of crucial video gym time!


Crawl up the top side of those fire escape stairs? Not Captain Video, he's gotta do it the hard way, the big show off.

Pretty sure you wouldn't see this on the TV show, mostly because their sets were made out of cardboard.


"Sure, we charge a lot for this treatment, and we can't bill your insurance directly, but we're pretty sure they'll reimburse you. Probably."


Nothing says "let's solve this paralysis mystery" like whipping out your paralysis gun and paralyzing some goons!


Usually you see the phrase "surprisingly hairless" only in connection with somebody's new pet cat. But here it's used to describe Dr. I. Luap, the director of this whole million-dollar-treatment scheme. What an odd name. I wonder if we should spell it backwards.

Fun fact: on the Captain Video TV show, he often battles a recurring villain, the evil scientist Dr. Pauli. Just wanted to mention this here, I'm sure it has no bearing on our story.


Back before Wikipedia, people had to keep an entire office full of snappily-uniformed experts and research materials on call, day and night, to answer any random question that might come up.


It took the work of an entire World Orientation Section to help Captain Video figure out that somebody invented a bigger, more specialized version of the paralysis ray he uses every episode? Sometimes I think Captain Video might not be the towering intellect his PR makes him out to be.


Why that place is guarded by armed thugs! If only there was some way to render them immobile and helpless, some sort of ray that paralyzed. Oh well.


Sometimes Captain Video gets tired of paralyzing people with rays, and instead paralyzes them the old-fashioned chiropractic way!

And hey, take a tip from Dr. Luap here. Brag a little about your destination the next time you get into a taxi or an Uber. It's fun!


Turns out that this is indeed Captain Video's arch-nemesis Dr. Pauli, who is still surprisingly hairless.


Yeah, I'd accept defeat too if I got fooled by somebody spelling their name backwards!


Presently in the inner sanctum of Captain Video's mountain laboratory, the grim task of trying to figure out how to wreck a paralyzing machine is undertaken. Cut off the electricity? Send in the Marines? Bomb it back to the Stone Age? Which incomprehensible scientific formula will be the solution?


Quick, Video Ranger, don this headpiece. The Martians must hear no more of your thoughts!


Why, they're staring vacantly about, almost as if they had been exposed to episodes of "Captain Video."


Using all his towering intellect and amazing scientific wizardry, Captain Video... smashes a thing with a stick.

The Video Ranger wonders how this miracle was accomplished, and also if they will ever give his character a name other than "Video Ranger." (No, they won't. However, the Video Ranger actor Don Hastings would go on to a fifty year career as Dr. Bob Hughes on "As The World Turns," proving there is indeed life after Captain Video.)


Kind of an eerie smile on Captain Video's face here as he describes how he invented a new ray that makes everyone in the world forget everything, sort of a global electronic "roofie." Hope none of the billions of people on Earth were in the middle of doing anything important when he threw that switch!


Soon the sun rises on a new day as people resume their normal walking-around activities, proof that the incomparable genius of Captain Video, and his ability to whack things with a big stick, has succeeded in making man walk again! Also that one lady there, she's walking too.

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