Seven Things to Know About Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

1. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was nominated for 11 Emmy awards from 1965 to 1967, all in technical categories. It won four Emmys for Special Photographic Effects, Cinematography, and Film & Sound Editing. The show's special effects were supervised by L.B. Abbott, the head of the Special Effects Department at 20th Century-Fox from 1957 to 1970. Abbott was also awarded four Oscars for his special effects work in the movies Doctor Dolittle (1968), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), and Logan's Run (1976).

Del Monroe as Kowalksi.

2. Del Monroe played the same character in the 1961 theatrical film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and on the TV series. He was billed as Delbert Monroe in the film and played Seaman Kowski. He shortened his professional name to Del Monroe for the TV series, while his character was renamed Kowalski (sometimes shortened to "Ski"). Although Del Monroe never received a credit in the series' opening, he appeared in 98 episodes from 1964-68. Mark Slade, who later played Blue on The High Chaparral, also appeared as a crewmember in the film and TV series--though his name changed from Smith to Malone and he only appeared in five episodes during the first season.

3. Budget-conscious producer Irwin Allen sometimes reused footage from his movies and shared costumes across his TV series (which included Lost in Space and Time Tunnel). Two of his most famous uses of recycled footage are in the Voyage episodes "The Sky's On Fire" and "Turn Back the Clock." The latter, a first season episode, finds Captain Lee Crane (David Hedison) on an island populated by dinosaurs and a native girl (Vitina Marcus). The dinosaur footage (actually live lizards in "make-up") was lifted from Allen's 1960 theatrical film The Lost World--which starred Hedison and Marcus. The second season episode "The Sky's on Fire" is basically a condensed version of the theatrical film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) with recycled footage of the Seaview and the burning skies.

Admiral Nelson as a werewolf.

4. Admiral Nelson's first name--which is rarely used--is Harriman (or Harry to close friends). He is a four-star admiral, though his rank inexplicably changes to three stars briefly during the first season (surely a continuity error). Nelson has many close encounters with aliens and monsters during the show's run. He transforms into a werewolf in two episodes. In "Werewolf," the second episode of the third season, a fellow scientist infected with lyncanthropy, attacks Nelson--who also becomes a werewolf. Twelve episodes later, in "The Brand of the Beast," Nelson becomes exposed to high levels of radiation and transforms into a wolf-man again. (And, for the record, Captain Lee Crane turned into a werewolf-like creature in the season 4 episode "Man Beast.")

Hedison in "The Human Computer."

5. In a 2013 interview, I asked David Hedison, who plays Captain Crane, to list his favorite episodes: "I thought I did good work in several first season episodes when we had better writing. 'The Saboteur,' where I was brainwashed by the Chinese to kill Admiral Nelson, 'The Enemies' where I went mad and tried to kill the Admiral, 'Mutiny' where Nelson went mad and I had to stop him.  Hmmm...do I sense a pattern here? Another episode I enjoyed was 'The Human Computer.' It was the first episode they let me carry--the episode was me, alone on the Seaview with a Russian saboteur. That was fun to do."

6. Several changes occurred with the debut of the second season of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Henry Kulky, who played Chief Petty Officer (CPO) Curley Jones, died of a heart attack in February 1965. He was replaced by Terry Becker, who portrayed the submarine's new CPO, Francis Ethelbert Sharkey. The show also switched from black-and-white to color, which was highlighted in the season's first episode "Jonah and the Whale." The plot had Nelson and a Soviet scientist in a diving bell swallowed by a whale! The Seaview received several season 2 upgrades, including a nifty yellow flying sub (I had one of the original model kits). However, the most significant change was an emphasis on science fiction and more fantastical plots. That carried over into the show's final two seasons.

7. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was a modest hit for ABC, but it never cracked the year's Top 30 shows in terms of Nielsen ratings. It didn't help that ABC moved it from Monday at 7:30 pm in its first season to Sunday nights for the remainder of its run--opposite perennial hit Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on NBC.