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ARK II
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Pow
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:18 pm    Post subject: ARK II Reply with quote

"For millions of years Earth was fertile and rich. Then pollution and waste began to take their toll.

Civilization fell into ruin.

This is the world of the 25th century.

Only a handful of scientists remain, men who have vowed to rebuild what was destroyed.

This is their achievement : Ark II, a mobile storehouse of scientific knowledge manned by a highly trained crew of young people.

Their mission: to bring the hope of a new future to mankind."

This was the opening narration to Filmation's Saturday morning science~fiction TV show Ark II.

The series was created by Martin Roth with assistance from Ted Post and produced by Norm Prescott and Lou Scheimer.

Ark II ran from September 11 to December 18,1976 and was 30-minutes long. It comprised 15-episodes.

It was shot at the Paramount Ranch near Malibu Creek State Park in Calabasas, CA.

The cast : Terry Lester played Jonah the Ark II commander.
Jean Marie Hon played Ruth.
Jose Flores was Samuel .

The final member of the crew was a talking chimpanzee called Adam whose real name was Moochie.

The Ark II was an impressive looking futuristic looking vehicle created for the show.

It was 44 feet long with a fiberglass body placed on a dump truck chassis.

The Ark II operated off hydrogen and was thus non-polluting.

Aside from having sophisticated laboratory on board the Ark II also had other features to help it on its travels.

It had a defensive force-field that could surround the vehicle to protect it when needed.
The force-field could also be projected outwards away from the Ark if need be.

The Ark II also possessed a laser cannon located on the front of the vehicle.

The Roamer was carried in the back of Ark II. It was a 4-person vehicle able to travel in places that were inaccessible for the ark due to its size.

The Jet Jumper was a jet pack that was operated by Jonah anytime their mission require he has to take to the air.

The crew wore uniforms and all had high tech armbands and belts. These offered audio-visual communications,could act as trackers and remote control the Ark II itself.

The crew had a handheld device that could temporarily blind a foe.

They also had a large tablet device that acted as a laser.

I found this to be an interesting show given that it was set in a post-apocalyptic future in 2476 A.D.

Not exactly the atmosphere you'd think the network would want to present to the kids for Saturday morning television.

The show dealt with the destruction of the Earth's environment. Again,a premise for a kid's series that you would have figured any network would take a pass on.

I give CBS credit for attempting to address the topic of environmental pollution even if some of the episodes come off as simplistic with too easy solutions offered up.

The show did lots of location work outdoors which makes it a refreshing change of pace from other Saturday morning sci~fi shows such as "The Land Of The Lost''or "Space Academy'' which were filmed on sound stages.


Last edited by Pow on Fri Aug 02, 2024 2:09 am; edited 1 time in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

All Sci-Fi had a thread for this show on the board that crashed in 2014, and I have 31 nice jpegs for it on my computer.





I'll post some of them soon, along with positive comment about the series. Very Happy

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Eadie
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 6:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a bunch of pictures including plans for ARK II vehicle and several with an altered Robby. Should I post them or wait until you post yours?
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Krel
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Roamer vehicle was a VW Beetle with a modified aftermarket body, a Brubaker box.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eadie wrote:
I have a bunch of pictures including plans for ARK II vehicle and several with an altered Robby. Should I post them or wait until you post yours?

Go for it, girl. I'm in no rush. Smile

However Miss Eadie, please, please, PLEASE master the fine art of resizing the images so you won't keep posting those gigantic jpegs. We have to zoom back to see the full image. . . thus shrinking the text on the whole page so it's hard to read. Sad

I've been resizing your bigger images to 700 pixel for you whenever you post oversized pictures, some of which have been 1,500+ pixels, but it would be nice if you did it yourself.

I sent detailed instructions by PM with illustrations . . . twice. It's really not that hard.

A Quick Word to Gord: The message above is for you, too, my friend. I sent you those instructions as well. If you or Eadie have any trouble understanding the instructions, please call me. You both have my number. Cool
Very Happy
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't worry. All of the pictures were on the old board and are of the correct size.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 12:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ark II Fun Facts } No nighttime scenes were ever shot for the series due to the fact that it was impossible to maneuver the vehicle from the driver's section.

Not from me : And filming at night runs into longer hours known as ''golden time'' making any production more expensive. Typically, Saturday morning live action TV shows operated on pretty slim budgets.

They could have always utilized the old trick though of doing day-for-night shooting by placing a filter over the camera lens while filming during the daytime.
Doing this has been employed on numerous television series.
It usually does not fool sharp eyed viewers but it is a cost saving measure for a production.

The crew members were all named after characters in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Episodes were shot in two to three days!

One of the episodes used the exterior buildings from the "Planet of the Apes" classic sf film.

Jonathan Harris (Lost In Space) appeared in two episodes as Fagin, a character taking care of a bunch of orphans.
At one time there was a plan to spin-off Fagin into his own weekly series.

When that fell through Harris was selected to be in the Saturday morning sf series "Space Academy."

The sound effects inside the Ark II were all originally heard on the Enterprise on ST:TOS.

Music heard from time to time on the show was from Star Trek: The Animated series.

The Ark II is often mistaken for the Landmaster from the sf movie "Damnation Alley."
They are two completely different vehicles.


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Krel
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 1:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Ark II was driven from behind the front grill, not from the windshield. There was a drop-down door in the nose for the driver. This door was used is at least one episode as an entrance for the cockpit.

Because of the limited view from the grill, the nose of the Ark II was removable, and designed to fit onto the tail for driving on the streets. They never did that.

The original models of the Seeker from "Space Academy" were designed to look like the Ark II.

The final design of the Seeker full-size exterior used the removable Ark II nose to save money.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 1:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eadie wrote:
Don't worry. All of the pictures were on the old board and are of the correct size.

If they were on the old board they were hosted by Photobucket and they were resized by PB when they were uploaded. The ones on your computer will still be big.

If you up load them from your computer to Imgur you'll still have to use the very EASY method they have resize them.

You given up trying to figure out how to use Imgur's resizing function? Confused

Eadie, each time you post an overly large image, I go to Butch's Imgur account (which I set up for him) and spend about 15 second per image resizing them to 700 pixel.

So, why can't you do it?
Shocked
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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Apr 23, 2020 1:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The ARK II schematics :











The vehicle from DAMNATION RUN is often confused with the Ark II vehicle, but is really very different ;


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Eadie
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote



Here are 8 pictures from ARK II The Robot (October 2, 1976):

















The bow hatch mention by Mr. Green:



The Romer:



The Landmaster from Damnation Alley:


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Pow
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 1:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Terrific photos everyone, thanks.

Last edited by Pow on Fri Aug 02, 2024 2:11 am; edited 1 time in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 23, 2020 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Great job, Eadie. I only had to resize one of the eight! (the second one). Very Happy

I wonder who made that replica of Robby. Bill Malone would never have changed the mechanisms under the doom as much as we see in this version, nor the spinning rings on the sides.

And those pall blue rubber arms and gloves look kinda cheap. Sad






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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:08 am; edited 1 time in total
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



In "The Launch of Ark II", the documentary filmed for the release of the DVD set, Lou Scheimer and others mention that the program was filmed during the summer of 1976 predominantly on location at Paramount Ranch near Malibu, California.

On YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZxCTx6y198

The series is best-remembered for its eponymous vehicle: a futuristic-looking six-wheeled combination RV and mobile laboratory. The 44 ft long vehicle was a fiberglass body on a 1971 Ford C-Series (C-700) cabover, by the Brubaker Group.





The front end of the Ark II prop was later re-used as the nose portion of the Seeker spacecraft in the Filmation series Space Academy and Jason of Star Command.



It is sometimes incorrectly reported that the Ark II was built by Dean Jeffries, who constructed various fantastic vehicles for science-fiction films and television. These include the Landmaster for the film Damnation Alley, with which the Ark II is sometimes confused.





In addition, the series also featured a jetpack called the Jet Jumper, and the Ark Roamer,









A smaller, 4-wheeled all-terrain vehicle built by Brubaker from a modified Brubaker Box, a kit car using a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle sedan chassis.



The Roamer was carried in the rear of the Ark II.







All 15 episodes are available on YouTube....Start here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6Kst31G2mU
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Excellent post with a nice gallery of pictures! Very Happy

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