User Reviews

Warning: may contain spoilers.

Episode five: "The Terrible Toys"

A U.F.O. crashes into the ocean within hailing distance of the Big Sub, sinking a small boat. The crew rescues the salty captain of said craft, whose only surviving cargo (windup toys) is brought aboard the Seaview. The toys are possessed by aliens bent on world domination.

I recall hating this episode as a kid, (which was very unusual) and it hasn't aged gracefully. The upside is the misty interior of the alien craft, complete with eerie Therimen music. On the other hand, the toys are shoddy props, and the whole thing is unconvincing. I'm going to assume that his one was filmed toward the end of the season, and was a budget saver.

That having been said, I was still entertained despite myself, especially as Kowalski gets clobbered, but good .

Kowalski, in the circuit room.

The series really hit a high point, here with "Terrible Toys".

Incredible silent film superstar Francis X. Bushman, once known as the 'King of Hollywood', and who once whipped Ben Hur in a chariot race that actually killed horses, is paired for most of the time with a bemused Richard Basehart. They banter around, trading hard-nosed captain quips, Bushman needs a really good shave before that was cool, they co-pilot the Flying Sub, heck, Basehart for once even forgets to wear the leather jacket all Flying Sub pilots have to throw on, it's amazing seeing these pros trying to out-hambone each other.

Then things really start smokin'. Cause they have to fight TOYS. And Kowalski seems to be the object of all the toy's wrath. It's like every kid in the world gets a chance to take Kowakski down, man, and they do it all in unison, every evil little 6 year old brat running at Kowalski with his favorite robot, screaming DIE! You gotta understand something about Kowalski.

Del Monroe. Kowalski. "Ski".

The actor, the character, the poor sap in the red overalls. Hero of my youth. The toughest guy on TV, there just ain't even any competition.

Everybody in my sandlot wanted to be Kowalski. He was God to us. If Del Monroe had ever done a cereal commercial, we would have lived on the stuff. Too bad he never turned his considerable powers to the betterment of children, rather than adding to their already violent and dangerous behavior. Because of Kowalski, we almost exclusively lived and died in a playworld of monsters, guns, near-drowning, hospitalizations, fistfights, vaporizations, out-of-control nuclear core meltdowns, electrical explosions, acid disfigurement and of course finally crawling, at the edge of death, towards the emergency button that would save the entire ship.

There wasn't a single kid at recess who didn't get flushed out of a submarine's access tube, into the hungry arms of an Undersea Eyeball Monster. Not one of us would go anywhere in the schoolyard without a submachine gun, jury-rigged out of plastiscene and twigs. We knew better. Kowalski had taught us well.

So for just one episode, being able to watch TOYS, (cripes, the things we had scattered around our beds, our favorite machines of destruction!) sent against the indestructible Kowalski was our happiest dream come true. That he fell over in the first 3 seconds of a blast from a tin-toy robot was better yet. The happiest memory of my entire childhood was seeing 'Ski' hit the floor in a dead coma, with that tank marching away, smirking…

on the good ship Seaview.