Capt. Satellite was TV pioneer
Many Bay Area Baby Boomers can remember where they were on weekday afternoons after school. They were sitting as close as they could get to a blackandwhite TV console waiting for “Captain Satellite” to lift off with the afternoon’s cartoons at 3:30 p.m.
As the pioneering host of the children’s show that aired on KTVUCh. 2, “Captain Satellite” appeared on screen in his space suit with a bubble helmet, sitting inside his spaceship. A deeply trusted guide into astral travel, the captain rode the space race through the late 1950s and 1960s. Now he has taken his last flight.
Bob March, who created and portrayed the captain, died at a hospital near his home in Loomis (Placer County) on Aug. 6, according to his son, Robin March, whom viewers will know as Rupert the Robot.
March died of natural causes. He was 93.
“Kids watching television now don’t know what to trust or believe in, but they all trusted and believed in Capt. Satellite,” said comic and social worker Michael Pritchard. “That kind of local television is what we need to get back to, fun and not too complicated.”
“Captain Satellite” was so uncomplicated that the spaceship was made out of plywood. Sitting in a pilot’s seat acquired from the Air Force, March broadcast live, in
cluding the commercials, in one take every day. March lined up his own sponsor, Ovaltine, and “Captain Satellite” premiered the day KTVU went on the air in March 1958. These were perilous times due to the Soviet threat, and Capt. Satellite offered both a soothing presence and an explanation for kids of what space exploration was all about. This was before science fiction TV staples such as “Star Trek” and “Lost in Space.”
“None of those space shows had come along yet,” March told The Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub in 2003. “Finally the future caught up with me, but the idea of a host in a spacesuit with a spaceship — all of that was new.”
NASA helped with the production, providing film clips and even appearances from actual astronauts. But to a kid watching, there was no more believable and authentic astronaut than Capt. Satellite, who never talked down to his audience. Some kids even had helmets and space suits of their own that they would wear while watching the program.
“Somehow, the space program grabbed them,” March told Hartlaub. “That was just the beginning. Mercury and Apollo and all that stuff leading up to the landing on the moon — that really grabbed the imagination, and I capitalized on that.”
March’s capitalization went beyond the TV show. He operated a ride called Space Copter at PlaylandattheBeach, a beloved amusement park along the Great Highway. Space Copter consisted of a pylon that rose 35 feet in the air with gondolas that swung out over the pavement, swirling and dipping.
On June 2, 1963, Space Copter earned some unwanted publicity when a strong gust of wind coming off the Pacific Ocean knocked the gondolas from the cable. A second gust then knocked nine passengers out of the gondola. Seven children were injured severely enough to be taken to the hospital. What elevated the accident to front page news was that March himself was operating the ride when it crashed, and suffered cuts to his face.
But that did not keep him off “Captain Satellite.” He could not let the kids down.
“That was the unique thing about the kind of show that I did,” he said. “There was a connection with the host.”
Among those who made the connection was Mark Taylor, who grew up in San Jose watching the program. In the mid1980s, Taylor starred in the TV series “The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Show,” with a live character hosting cartoons, a format inspired by “Captain Satellite.” Filmed in Sunnyvale, as 130 halfhour episodes, “Plastic Man” managed to achieve what “Captain Satellite” did not — national syndication.
“There was a bit of hokeyness to ‘Captain Satellite,' but the fact that it was not literally believable was OK,” said Taylor from his home in North Carolina. “It was the foundation for the imagination to take off from.”
Bob March, born Robert William Monkman, landed on Earth on May 31, 1927, in Terre Haute, Ind. He grew up in Racine, Wis., and aspired to be a radio broadcaster. His first onair job was at WRJN in Racine. He advanced to morning television with a show called “The Robin’s Nest” — hence the name of his first son.
In 1957, he got a job hosting a live theater show called “Hey Kids” in Bakersfield. A year later, he heard that a new TV station was launching in Oakland, and he called the owner with the idea for a show “that entertained and informed young kids about outer space and space exploration,” said Robin March.
At its peak, “Captain Satellite” was rated the No. 1 children’s television live show on the West Coast by TV Guide, his son said. “People said his show was second only to ‘Captain Kangaroo.' ”
In 1962, as color TVs started to arrive, the plywood spaceship was updated to a flying saucer and his uniform became a navy blue jumpsuit. Its logo was planet Earth with a lightning bolt going through it.
“My dad’s premise was that he always wanted to be one step ahead of reality,” said March.
The show was finally canceled in 1972. After 14 years of commuting every day from his home in Pleasant Hill, and later the Oakland hills, “he was relieved,” his son said.
By then he and his first wife, Leone, had divorced. This experience caused him to enroll in a family therapy course of study at San Francisco State University, where he was also an instructor in broadcasting.
After a stint as a broadcaster at the classical music station KKHI, he moved to Carmel and became the morning weatherman at KWAV in Monterey. That was his last broadcast job.
In the 1980s, March moved to Folsom (Sacramento County), where he opened a family therapy practice with his second wife, Alice. He also worked part time as a mental health clinician at the juvenile hall.
“I’m still working with kids,” he told Hartlaub. After suffering a stroke, March dissolved the practice and spent his last years living in a retirement home.
A memorial service is pending. Survivors include his wife Alice March of Loomis, sons Robin March of Antioch and Brian March of Oakland, and three stepchildren.
“I consider my dad’s whole story to be rags to riches,” said Robin March. “He thought up this TV show that nobody had ever done. He was before his time.”