Sky King Official Box Set All 72 Episodes w/ Book Review

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(More customer reviews)Next to Clint Eastwood, Sky King (played by Kirby Grant) was my favorite Western star. Chasing bad guys in an airplane was his "schtick" and it certainly appeals to me now, as much as it did in my youth.
The early episodes were rendered in black-and-white, the later ones in color, to the best of my recollection. From Wikipedia:
"The television version (there was originally a radio 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. Unlike many "lawman-acquaintance" characters on other shows, Mitch was competent, intelligent and skilled. He was always coming to Sky for help, due to friendship and recognizing the utility of Sky's flying skills. Other recurring characters included Jim Bell, the ranch foreman, played by Chubby Johnson as well as Sheriff Hollister played by Monte Blue and Bob Carey played by Norman Ollestad.
Many of the storylines would parallel those used in such dramatic potboilers as Adventures of Superman with the supporting cast repeatedly finding themselves in near death situations and the hero rescuing them with seconds to spare. Penny was particularly adroit at falling into the hands of spies, bank robbers (the best place to hide stolen loot was apparently in the Arizona desert) and other n'er-do-wells. After taunting the doomed Penny and mocking her uncle, they would invariably leave her tied up at the bottom of an abandoned mine with (take your pick) a ticking timebomb, rapidly rising water, collapsing ceilings, or crackling flames licking at her chair. Inexplicably, the bad guys would leave Penny in easy reach of a radio transmitter that would not only be turned on but switched to the frequency used by Uncle Sky who at that very moment would be circling above in the Songbird with an anxious Clipper at his side. Working the device with her shoulders and tongue, Penny would shout out "Help, Uncle Sky, Help Help!" Sky would shoot a quizzical look to Clipper and proclaim, "That's Penny!! And it sounds like she's in trouble!" Uncle Sky would make a steep bank and fly over the bad guys who would be instantly thrown into a state of complete confusion. All looking upward in complete anguish and fear, they would fire up at the Songbird in vain before losing control of their escape vehicle and plowing into a culvert where, through another set of incredible circumstances, Sheriff Mitch would be waiting for them after being alerted by Uncle Sky. The action would then cut back to the ranch where the happy throng is reunited without any explanation about how they found Penny and got down the mine without all of them getting killed. It was never explained why anyone would have an FAA spec radio transmitter at the bottom of an abandoned mine or how it would work 300 feet underground but such was the glory of imagination in the mid fifties!
Like most TV cowboy heroes of the time, Sky never killed the bad guys, even though one episode had him shooting a machinegun into his own stolen plane."
"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."
"Though set in Arizona, the series was filmed in the high desert of 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 Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Interior filming was done at the General Service studio."
"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."
Now, the price of this package has caused me to put off my buying these fine episodes. You CAN buy "Voulme One" (in black-and-white) for about five bucks if you'd like to see what the series was all about:
Sky King:Vol 1 TV Series
My hope is that, someday soon, the entire series will be issued in similar releases but on that we'll just have to wait and see. In any case, this is a great old Saturday Morning Western for which I personally harbor a huge nostalgic reverence!

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