Captain Z-Ro
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Captain Z-Ro (pronounced "Zero", not to be confused with the rapper of the same name) was a children's television show that ran in one form or another from 1951 to 1955. Modeled on the science fiction space operas popular at the time (Captain Video, Space Patrol, etc), it featured futuristic sets and costumes of the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon school.
The premise was that scientist Captain Z-Ro, working in his remote laboratory, had a time machine that allowed him to view history, and to send someone back in time. Each week, he and his teenage assistant "Jet" would view an episode in history, and inevitably see that something was going "wrong" (e.g., King John wasn't going to sign the Magna Carta). Captain Z-Ro would then send Jet back in time to intervene and make history come out "right". It was a very thinly disguised history lesson, set among flashing lights, blinking oscilloscopes and innumerable levers and knobs. The time travel effect was a simple dissolve shot.
Over the years, Z-Ro and Jet saved the bacon of just about every historical figure, including Marco Polo, Magellan, William the Conqueror, and Daniel Boone, among many others. However, they never once explored the famous "grandfather paradox" inherent in all time travel schemes, or even tried to explain how the time machine worked (or for that matter where Captain Z-Ro got the money to run his laboratory; there was no apparent cash flow).
Each week, after the last Wheaties commercial, the announcer would intone: "Be sure to be standing by when we again transmit you to the remote location on planet Earth where Captain Z-Ro and his associates will conduct another experiment in time and space."
Captain Z-Ro was one of the first shows to be shot on video tape. As a result, VHS and DVD copies of early episodes of somewhat higher than normal quality are available. Later episodes were shot on film, as the show moved from a 15 minute format on local station KRON in San Francisco to a 30 minute nationally syndicated format.
