Atom Squad
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Atom Squad was a live science-fiction 15-minute TV series broadcast by the NBC network, July 6, 1953 to January 22, 1954, Monday-Friday, 5:00 to 5:15 PM EST.
The Atom Squad was a secret government agency which dealt with Cold War threats to US security involving radiation and nuclear weapons. The Atom Squad scientists, Steve Elliot and Dave Fielding, were played by Robert Cortleigh and Bob Hastings, their chief by Bram Nossem. Bob Hastings played "Hal, the Ranger's brother" on Captain Video and was the actual brother of The Video Ranger, Don Hastings, while Bram Nossem had played the first incarnation of Captain Video's arch-nemesis, Dr. Pauli. The last actor to play Dr. Pauli was named Stephen Elliot, not to be confused with "Steve Elliot," the leading Atom Squad agent. Bob Hastings also appeared on Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.
The Atom Squad's secret New York City headquarters lab also looked very much like Captain Video's secret mountain headquarters control room, except that the Atom Squad, with an NBC rather than DuMont Television Network budget (DuMont having been the network that aired Captain Video), had many more controls and flashing lights on their panels. The program's opening sequence showed a man in a "radiation suit" lumbering very slowly toward the camera.
Storylines were usually completed in five, or sometimes 10 broadcasts. Paul Monash was the chief writer for the series and possibly its creator. The foes of the Atom Squad were usually mad scientists and evil Communist spies and saboteurs. However, the Squad ran into aliens from outer space in at least three different storylines.
Atom Squad originated from the studios of WPTZ in Philadelphia. The director was Joe Behar, and producers were Larry White and later Adrian Samish.
While Atom Squad kinescopes were probably made for West Coast rebroadcast, none are known to survive today. The series did not appear to have a sponsor and no tie-in toys or premiums are known to exist.
In later years Bob Hastings has told many stories about the mishaps that occurred during the live Atom Squad broadcasts. In rehearsals of a tense sequence in which Cortleigh, Hastings and another player escaped from a prison camp, Cortleigh (having neither barbed wire nor cutters) mimed the cutting of the barbed wire by saying "snip, snip, snip." Inevitably, on the live broadcast, as Cortleigh cut the wire, he loudly said, "snip, snip, snip..." causing Hastings and the other player to dissolve into helpless laughter.[citation needed]
