# Danger, Will Robinson! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2016, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750 "2016-06-30T01:35:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2016, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/61 "2016-07-02T22:24:32Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Originally, he was not a total douche. That came later, for comedy relief. > > Back in the '60s, there were really only two powers he could have been spying for, just like on the original _ **Mission: Impossible** _. They were, of course, never identified, merely insinuated. Even if it was a proxy government, you still knew who was pulling the strings. > [@DrFidelius](#): > > CONTROL. And KAOS U.N.C.L.E. and Thrush. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Commodore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Commodore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commodore)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/62 "2016-07-03T04:53:09Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Did they ever confirm for which country he was a spy, or was he just an “enemy spy?” I’m amazed someone like him would ever have gotten promoted to spy or trusted with anything. I should of, or would of been surprised, but I am not surprised at all nowadays that a person of that character would be in the rank they put him in, I know people in our defence force at the top who are the lowest of the low that have been proven cunning cowards beyond what I ever thought possible. I could name names and inform what they have did and all, I would flat refuse to have them filthy grubs have any leadership over me. Don’t be surprised that the biggest rat bags are at the head of leadership of anything. I would not piss on them if they were on fire. ---
**Author:** ![Commodore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Commodore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commodore)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/63 "2016-07-03T05:15:04Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > You can’t run Mr. Smith down just because he is a coward and a stowaway and an ass. > > 🙂 Yes, because that would not be PC nowadays as no one can have the right to offend such a person as no one has the right to say what’s right of wrong, that’s only the right of the PC trend being pushed at the time. I don’t regard anyone who supports PC as a man, but only just a boy, a foolish deluded brainwashed boy at that, who does not understand that PC is what the communist and Nazi’s used to feed there madness. I went to vote and this socialist started spinning the line that they were against dictatorship :o they don’t understand that such rubbish only leads to dictatorship, he even said they were against Capitalism and freedom of speech. :smack: he is a communist or a Dr Smith ! ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/64 "2016-07-03T05:35:51Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > CONTROL. And KAOS CONTROL was obviously a US government agency; UNCLE, it was implied, was a branch of the UN. Organizations like KAOS, THRUSH, and SPECTRE were free-lance criminal organizations, though it was usually pretty obvious where they did most of their recruiting. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/65 "2016-07-03T05:41:56Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > “Soviet Union” is mentioned by name specifically in one episode “Hot Line” when a rocket with a nuclear pile inadvertently lands near San Francisco and they dispatch two scientists to the “Seaview” to disarm it. John Banner was the Russian chairman. Nice to know Schultz got a good job when WWII ended. I think that was one of the very first episodes. James Doohan (aka “Scotty”) was in it too. In the teaser (I’m pretty sure) he picks up the phone and says (in his normal voice) “Get me the President!” A nuclear _pile_? Why the hell did they have a rocket with such a thing?!? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/66 "2016-07-03T05:47:05Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > I believe it was “sinister forces”. which is to the east of Val Verde (and mentioned in “Commando”, “Die Hard 2” and “Predator”, among others). Going way back (1950), it was “sinister forces” in the US that were keeping rocket ship _Luna_ from being launched in _ **Destination: Moon** _. Can you say “McCarthy,” boys and girls? I knew you could! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/67 "2016-07-03T05:51:22Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > In the first few episodes Smith is pretty clever. He has programmed the robot to obey only him until Will figures out by imitating Smith’s voice and choice of words, he too can control it. There is also an episode “Welcome, Stranger” where he suggests and later remove a guidance system from the robot to help astronaut Jimmy Hapgood (Warren Oates) get his space craft Travelling Man back to earth (with him on it while the parents want Will and Penny to go). Yes, Smith became a dolt once the espionage/sabotage issue was neutralized, and the writers didn’t know what else to do with him. The Robinsons should have just shoved him out an airlock and been done with it. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/68 "2016-07-03T12:23:32Z")
**Commodore** Keep political jabs and insults out of Cafe Society. These posts are inappropriate for this forum. If you cannot refrain, restrict yourself to the Pit. > [@Commodore](#): > > I should of, or would of been surprised, but I am not surprised at all nowadays that a person of that character would be in the rank they put him in, I know people in our defence force at the top who are the lowest of the low that have been proven cunning cowards beyond what I ever thought possible. > I could name names and inform what they have did and all, I would flat refuse to have them filthy grubs have any leadership over me. > > Don’t be surprised that the biggest rat bags are at the head of leadership of anything. > > I would not piss on them if they were on fire. > [@Commodore](#): > > Yes, because that would not be PC nowadays as no one can have the right to offend such a person as no one has the right to say what’s right of wrong, that’s only the right of the PC trend being pushed at the time. > > I don’t regard anyone who supports PC as a man, but only just a boy, a foolish deluded brainwashed boy at that, who does not understand that PC is what the communist and Nazi’s used to feed there madness. > > I went to vote and this socialist started spinning the line that they were against dictatorship :o they don’t understand that such rubbish only leads to dictatorship, he even said they were against Capitalism and freedom of speech. :smack: he is a communist or a Dr Smith ! ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2016, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/69 "2016-07-03T14:07:50Z")
Eh. _Farscape_ was better, anyway. Certainly funnier. Definitely weirder. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/70 "2016-07-04T01:17:08Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I think that was one of the very first episodes. James Doohan (aka “Scotty”) was in it too. In the teaser (I’m pretty sure) he picks up the phone and says (in his normal voice) “Get me the President!” > > A nuclear _pile_? Why the hell did they have a rocket with such a thing?!? 😕 Yes, James Doohan was an advisor to the President. The episode also had Michael Ansara (who was the shipwrecked sailor in the movie) and Everett Sloane (Mr Bernstein in “Citizen Kane”, also co wrote “Andy Griffith” theme song) as the two Russian scientists. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/71 "2016-07-04T01:19:49Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Going way back (1950), it was “sinister forces” in the US that were keeping rocket ship _Luna_ from being launched in _ **Destination: Moon** _. > > Can you say “McCarthy,” boys and girls? I knew you could! 🙂 And do you what what country put up an Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and was ruled by a dictator who murdered millions of people? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/72 "2016-07-04T01:33:57Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > In the first six episodes of the original Lost in Space it was a straight forward science fiction adventure. Dr. Smith was a villain with a unknown agenda. I liked that show. Unfortunately people expect a campy Dr. Smith so that’s what we’ll probably get. IIRC, pretty much the only reason the show made it into the color episodes was because it had become “The Dr. Smith & The Robot Show.” Of course, this is what pretty much everyone will expect. (Remember that Dr. Smith wasn’t even in the pilot.) > [@DrFidelius](#): > > Spoiler for the film IIRC: > > Future Dr Smith, in an environment suit to contain his alien spider spawn, is killed by the rolling rocks inside the wormhole that Future Will Robinson built to return to Earth. I remember it differently: Future Dr. Smith gets wounded, and, in a callback to an earlier scene where the spiders eat their wounded, ends up being eaten by his spawn. Future Will almost fell into the rolling rocks, but he was held up by his father’s dog tags long enough to be pulled out. > [@TriPolar](#): > > It was so bad that maybe everyone missed it, but [Lost in Space has been revived once already.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120738/) There was another remake, of sorts; an animated hour-long Saturday morning movie, with a considerable number of changes to the characters, that I am guessing was a failed pilot. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/73 "2016-07-04T02:29:33Z")
A “nuclear pile” was the term for nuclear reactors. Even the USS Enterprise had nuclear reactors. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/74 "2016-07-04T03:15:49Z")
CBS famously passed up on _Star Trek_ when it was offered to them, stating, “we already have a space show,” i.e. _Lost In Space_. Ironically, CBS now owns _Star Trek_, due to acquiring Paramount Television from Viacom. ---
**Author:** ![Commodore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Commodore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commodore)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/75 "2016-07-04T05:55:12Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Yes, Smith became a dolt once the espionage/sabotage issue was neutralized, and the writers didn’t know what else to do with him. > > The Robinsons should have just shoved him out an airlock and been done with it. Dr Smith his rank was ? before he was abducted. How would you react ? out there lost in space, feeding on the crumbs, no wonder he was in such a pickle with the threat of being shoved out of an air lock or meet some cruel fate by such hostile people and at his age and all, oh the pain the pain, he was destitute and in slaved to all them manual tasks that were an insult to a person of his intelligence. He had a transistor and was calling to the god of the wind, do you read me he said. He may even of been working for the USA Government, there is nothing to say he was a Communist. but only a person with the mind that knew how devious others could be, that it even frightened himself. Camp ? the Military life. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/76 "2016-07-04T07:47:23Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > A “nuclear pile” was the term for nuclear reactors. Even the USS Enterprise had nuclear reactors. :dubious: This is what I think of when I see/hear the term “nuclear pile”: [![](https://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/multiwavelength-astronomy/images/gamma-ray/history/AtomicPileSketch_apf2-00501r.jpg) ](https://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/multiwavelength-astronomy/images/gamma-ray/history/AtomicPileSketch_apf2-00501r.jpg) I saw the original nuclear pile at the University of Chicago back in the 1960s. I believe it’s been moved since then. Not to be pedantic, but the reactors on the _Enterprise_ operated on the principle of matter/anti-matter annihilation, not nuclear fission or fusion. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/77 "2016-07-04T07:48:39Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > And do you what what country put up an Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and was ruled by a dictator who murdered millions of people? Huh? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/78 "2016-07-04T07:53:18Z")
> [@Commodore](#): > > How would you react ? Out there lost in space, feeding on the crumbs, no wonder he was in such a pickle with the threat of being shoved out of an air lock or meet some cruel fate by such hostile people and at his age and all, oh the pain the pain, he was destitute and in slaved to all them manual tasks that were an insult to a person of his intelligence. In other words, the benefits of indulging in espionage and sabotage. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/79 "2016-07-04T08:43:01Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > This is what I think of when I see/hear the term “nuclear pile”: > > [http://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/multiwavelength-astronomy/images/gamma-ray/history/AtomicPileSketch\_apf2-00501r.jpg](http://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/multiwavelength-astronomy/images/gamma-ray/history/AtomicPileSketch_apf2-00501r.jpg) > > I saw the original nuclear pile at the University of Chicago back in the 1960s. I believe it’s been moved since then. > > Not to be pedantic, but the reactors on the _Enterprise_ operated on the principle of matter/anti-matter annihilation, not nuclear fission or fusion. I think **carnivorousplant** was referring to this [nuclear “wessel”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)). 😉 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2016, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750/80 "2016-07-04T09:23:16Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I think **carnivorousplant** was referring to this [nuclear “wessel”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)). 😉 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/danger-will-robinson/758750.md?page=5)