Irwin Allen Fans Keep the Lights On

It has come to my attention that not everyone knows who Irwin Allen is. I suppose if you’re under twenty you might have an excuse but for everyone else I say – what?!? Gene Roddenberry and Rod Serling get all the credit for bringing scifi to the masses but it was Irwin Allen who had four scifi shows in production all at the same time.

Irwin Allen is the man behind Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. Today, we’d call him a showrunner – part producer, part creator, part writer – he was the guiding force behind all four of those hit shows.

If you weren’t around in the sixties and the early seventies, then you probably know Irwin as The Master of Disaster. He single-handedly created the all-star disaster genre (he wasn’t the first, but he made it hot) with Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno and a whole string of feature films and TV movies.

I’ve been a collector of Irwin Allen memorabilia since I was a kid and so it thrills me to see people continuing to promote the shows and the brand. Here’s what I found, just this week.

Dick O’Day is planning a Poseidon Adventure New Year’s Eve bash at the Music Box Theater in Chicago. The interactive experience is designed so you and the doomed folks on the film will hit midnight at the same time. I just hope the theater doesn’t flip over after that.

John William Law has written an interesting book on Irwin and his disaster films and he’s offering almost $10 off the retail price if you buy before the end of the year.

Thanks to a couple of model kit companies, the Irwin Allen ships are as popular as ever. Moebius just released an 18 inch Jupiter II – the most accurate of any ever released. This model is featured in the new issue of SciFi Fantasy Modeller. The magazine also has an article by my husband, Lars Liljeblad. His piece is all about the construction of an earlier Lunar Models of the Jupiter II.

If you’re a Lost in Space fan, you have to check out Bill Mumy’s (Will Robinson) online radio show, The Real Good Radio Hour (which is a play on Bill’s famous Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life”). I don’t know who owns KSAV, but poke around in the archives and you’ll find Time Tunnel’s Lee Meriwether guesting on another show along with more Bill Mumy and tons of other classic TV stars.

Want to know more? Follow our new Twitter called Flight612 where we post all of the random Irwin Allen related tweets from all over the globe.

My micromechanism thanks you, my computer tapes thank you, and I thank you.

Photo: Aplomb Publishing & Sci-Fi Fantasy Modeller