Happy Birthday, Metaluna!

June, 1955: A month where Mickey Mantle hit his 100th home run; Bill Haley & the Comets hit #1 with Rock Around the Clock; Disney released LADY & THE TRAMP; Pres. Eisenhower became the 1st U.S. President to appear on color TV; and audiences thrilled to the (now) Science-Fiction classic, THIS ISLAND EARTH. Today marks the 57th anniversary of our trip to the planet, Metaluna.

Cal Meachum (Rex Reason), & Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue) are our hapless scientists caught up in the interstellar plans of over-sized craniumed alien Exeter (Jeff Morrow) on the orders of his planet, Metaluna’s, leader, the Monitor (Douglas Spencer). In a mansion-based think tank (somewhere in Georgia) a bunch of nuclear physicists & other scientists work on special, mysterious projects. Cal is approached to join them by passing an entrance exam of putting together an amazing device called an Interociter. When he gets there, he’s greeted by Ruth, an old flame who feigns not knowing him, and Steve Carlson (Russell Johnson -YES, the Professor on Gilligan’s Island!) who fill him in that things are not right there. When they try to escape, Carlson is killed and Ruth & Cal are taken aboard the Metalunan spaceship and brought to the far off planet.

I’ll leave the conclusion to you to discover on your own.

MST3K fans will automatically recognize this as the film watched by Mike & The ‘Bots in MST3K: THE MOVIE (1996).

Items of note –

2 actors who were in THE THING (1951) have featured parts in here: Joe Wilson, Cal’s assistant is played by Robert Nichols & the aforementioned Douglas Spencer as the Monitor. In THE THING, they played Lt. ‘Mac’ MacPherson & newspaperman Ned “Scotty” Scott respectively.

The reporter in the glasses & fedora, talking to Cal as he was boarding his jet was played by Olan Soule. If his name & voice sound familiar, fans of Super Friends & the original Filmation Batman cartoon should recognize him as the voice of the Caped Crusader.

In 1968, Colorforms released a group of bendable figures called THE OUTER SPACE MEN. Among them was Orbitron, the Man From Uranus, and he bore an almost identical resemblance to the Metalunan Mutant, minus the Mutant’s pants.