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Irwin Allen
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Based on the classic Johann David Wyss novel, Swiss Family Robinson was Irwin Allen's second-to-last television series (Code Red in 1981 was his last). Unlike the successful science-fiction shows he produced in the 1960s (Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), Swiss Family Robinson was poorly recieved by viewers and barely lasted a season. Mostly forgotten today, it is occasionally mentioned in relation to Helen Hunt, as one of her early television roles.
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A graduate of New York's Columbia School of Journalism, Irwin Allen was a magazine editor, the producer/director of a radio show and the owner of an advertising agency before entering film production in the 1950s. His documentary, The Sea Around Us (1952), won an Academy Award. A successful TV series producer ("The Time Tunnel" (1966), "Lost in Space" (1965)), Allen was nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" in the 1970s due to the tremendous success of his two special effects-laden epics, The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).
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Although his credits go back to the 1950s, Irwin Allen career really took off in the 1960s with the release of the film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in 1961. A television version premiered on ABC in 1964, beginning a lengthy association between the writer/producer and television network. Three additional science-fiction shows would air on ABC throughout the decade: Lost in Space premiered in 1965, The Time Tunnel in 1966 and Land of the Giants in 1968. Of the bunch, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was on the air the longest, from 1964 to 1968 and The Time Tunnel the shortest, from 1966 to 1967.
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For those of you who may not recall, this show - the shortest-lived of the Irwin Allen science fiction shows on television - was about a seven billion dollar project by the government to build a time travel device. As a visiting senator decides whether the project should continue, James Darren as "Dr. Tony Newman" goes into the Tunnel to prove that it works. It does...too well! Newman finds himself on a sinking Titanic, and it's up to Robert Colbert as "Dr. Douglas Phillips" to go after him and save both their necks. Now, week after week, they go on different adventures through time with the assistance of the team in charge of the tunnel, including the lovely Lee Meriwether as Dr. Ann MacGregor.
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The "Irwin Allen rock-and-roll" is when the camera is rocked as the on-screen cast rushes from side to side on the set, simulating a ship being tossed around. It is employed in almost every episode of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea".
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Irwin Allen (June 12, 1916 – November 2, 1991) was a television and film producer nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. He was ... notable for creating a number of memorable and popular television series.
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Irwin Allen