I recently got an invite to use the beta release of Hulu, an online video streaming service that is now open to the public. It has some nice features; the video quality is excellent (let’s face it, YouTube videos are really awful), but it sticks commercials in the videos and they cannot be skipped or muted (except by muting your computer audio). I understand why they do this, but ick. It’s not much different than simply watching TV on your computer, except, of course, it’s an On Demand service.
So when I was fooling with it a couple of weeks go, I searched for anything related to astronomy, and got precisely one hit: an episode of the TV show The Nanny and The Professor, a sitcom from early 1970. I watched this show when I was a wee lad, but had completely forgotten about it. A professor hires a British nanny to watch his kids, and it turns out she has some subtle magic powers. You can always tell when she uses them because the soundtrack plays a little riff, and then there is canned laughter.
Anyway, there is an episode about astronomy, and I have to admit, for a lily-white 1970 TV show it was pretty good, though of course saccharine sweet.
I was impressed by the portrayal of the father (who is supportive), the way astronomy was used — almost entirely correctly, though there is some confusion over a solar and lunar eclipse, as well as what a comet looks like — and especially over the goofy astronomer who is actually seen as kindly and supportive as well. He has a great line when he encourages a boy to pursue astronomy: "You won’t become rich, but you’ll live with such beauty. "
Sounds familiar, right? Actually, he may look familiar too: the actor is Sam Jaffe, who played Professor Barnhardt in "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Or you might recognize him from "Battle Beyond the Stars". No? Well, that’s probably OK as well; I try to block my memory of that movie as well.
Anyway, if you have an extra half hour sometime, you might enjoy this episode. But keep some insulin handy.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Bah, might have been interesting but it’s restricted content, ie “this video is not currently available in your country”
I’m guessing the pixies are dying mid-voyage while carrying the interwebs through the pipe to Australia
March 14th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Unfortunately this video is not currently available in your country or region …
March 14th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Sam Jaffe might be better known to those of a certain age for his role in “Ben Casey”.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:36 am
Boo, not available in Australia.
Guess their advertisers aren’t big enough.
Or they don’t think we have money.
Yes, they will come begging for our awesome currency soon. SOON!
March 14th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Not available in Germany either, so I will erase Hulu from my memory as just another project by people who just don’t get it. Go YouTube!
March 14th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Please don’t embed video’s from such organisations who limit which countries can view them…
I live in New Zealand.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:34 am
“the video quality is excellent (let’s face it, YouTube videos are really awful)”
You can increase quality on youtube for some recently added videos by adding “&fmt=6″ to the youtube URL. Rumour says this will become a proper feature sometime soon.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:59 am
“not currently available in your country”?
Thats racist!!1!
March 14th, 2008 at 3:36 am
“Man… woman… birth… death… infinity.”
that sure takes me back
March 14th, 2008 at 3:39 am
I also couldn’t download the HULU video, but thanks anyway for reminding me of this series, which I recall my family sitting down to watch each week. Yes, I remember the Astronomy episode, and especially Sam Jaffe…though for some reason something about a Barlow lens sticks in my mind. Been a long, long time.
When I have mentioned this series to others, most think I am talking about Fran Dresher and her silly sitcom.
Kaor!
March 14th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Yeah, us in Canada can’t watch’em either. I tried watching episodes of The Office on nbc.com and its the same thing. I can’t speak for any worth-the-advertising-dollars agruments, but in Canada, I think it has something to do with copyright laws (specifically, reproduction rights). But I could be mistaken.
Only in America! (can you watch streaming, on demand video service….unless it’s the Discovery Channel, which allowed me to watch Mythbusters)
March 14th, 2008 at 4:38 am
I hate websites that forbid their content in different countries.
March 14th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Oh well, didn’t need to see their ads anyway.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:15 am
I also used to watch NATP way back when. I recall one episode in particular because it was the first placed I ever heard the word “cyclotron”.
Another role in which Sam Jaffe was memorable was as Simonides in Ben Hur, though my favorite is him as Dr. Barnhardt.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Fortunately, we can still watch episodes of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon in nearly any country, although most of them are broken up into three separate videos per episode.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:53 am
…How is that a fortunate event, Barton? O_o
March 14th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Battle Beyond the Stars. Heh. In my Netflix queue, we’ll see if John Boy does as good a job as I thought he did when I was, I dunno, 8 years old.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:54 am
As an aside, Sam Jaffe had trouble finding work in Hollywood following The Day the Earth Stood Still because of being black-listed for “Commie” sympathies.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:10 am
The nanny in this show has been seen for the last few years as a witch on the soap “Passions.” She’s pretty hilarious.
Hulu also has all episodes of FIREFLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! shiny!
March 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
NATP also had an episode with an other professor who was looking to work at the college in the show. Richard Long (the professor of the title) was not sure if he wanted to hire an older guy. He wanted someone with young ideas. He finally meets the the prospective hire, he’s behind the profs tv, repairing it, talking about his latest science fiction book he’s writing. The actor Jack Albertson comes out from behind the set, looking just like Issac Asimov, with full hair and sideburns. He got the job.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:17 am
“Phoebe Figalilly is a silly name…” LOL
OK if I watch this later? I’m watching the Greatest Show Above the Earth right now. I have to LOL at myself - I’ve just left it running overnight, and when I stumbled out of bed this morning I heard the spacewalk going on, and I said ZOMGZWTFBBQLSMFT, they’re still out there???!! Then I looked and saw it was recorded last night and they were playing a mission update. Pass the coffee!
March 14th, 2008 at 9:26 am
@ PhilG - Thanks for the tip. I suspect that may be a Flash 8 feature.
@ Inertially Guided - Fran Dresher
:-P 
:-P 
The Voice That Scratched a Million Blackboards. GAAAAAAAK!!!!!!! To paraphrase a line from Fiddler on the Roof:
May God/FSM/Ceiling Cat bless and keep Fran Dresher…….
…….far away from us!
:-P 
:-P 
March 14th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Can’t skip the commercials?! Of course you can!
AdBlock Plus (a sweet firefox add-on) does the trick. I kind of found this out by accident - but I installed adblock plus to stop ads and I stopped seeing commercials on Hulu…
Of course, I didn’t believe it was true, so I turned off adp and tried watching hulu again - and sure enough, there were the loud, annoying commercials.
*shhhh* don’t let Hulu know, or they’ll put an end to my commercial-free fun…
March 14th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Ah! The original Zorba…
March 14th, 2008 at 11:49 am
@Trevor: Okay, and now do you have a trick that can stop them from detecting my canuck nature so I can see the darn video?
March 14th, 2008 at 11:51 am
If they are the commercials that originally aired with the show they might be worth watching!
March 14th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Oh, that was fun!!! I was having a bad day until I saw this. Thanks, man!
March 14th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Thanks Phil, that was pleasant.
I am sorry that folks outside the U.S. cannot see it. I guess copyright laws are such a hassle.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
lily-white
I beg your pardon??
March 14th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
@Michelle: Unfortunately, Canadians stand out too well, so no - there’s no hiding it.
For everyone else: have you tried googling for a free proxy? Pick one in the US, of course… and if you’re not far away, maybe the tubes will bring you happy hulu fun times. Obviously, I can’t test to see if it’ll work since I’m kind of already in the US… but good luck! Hulu is awesome!
March 14th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Curse my beady eyes and flapping head!
March 14th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Wired recently posted and article describing ways to access higher quality vid on YouTube.
Here:
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Watch_Higher_Quality_YouTube_Videos
March 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
That was pleasant.
One of these days I am going to stop the frame where you can see the math on Professor Barnhardt’s blackboard. Being the geek that I am it occurred to me recently that I have never tried to decipher what he was up to on it.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
“Unfortunately this video is not available for your country or region. We apologize for the inconvienience.”
March 14th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I liked it very much. Thanks for posting it, BA.
March 14th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Can’t watch it because I live in the wrong country. Silly me thinking Internet was international.
Mmm… I feel like Hulu will die before it was even born…
March 14th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Trevor: I just installed AdBlock Plus, but I’m still getting the commercials. Besides, aren’t the ads part of the videostream itself?
March 14th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Here’s a fine little coincidence for you. Not more than a few days ago, I was thinking about some episode I saw as a kid on some show about one of the young characters discovering a comet (or something) just before somebody else. I was especially thinking about the older man’s response. I was impressed at the time at how philosophical he was about losing out on being the first to discover the object himself—well, that’s just how science works sometimes.
So out of curiosity, I click on this video, run forward a third of the way into the show, and…wow! It’s that same episode! I couldn’t have told you in a million years what the show was without seeing it again. Cool.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I can’t believe I actually remember watching this episode when I was a kid! In fact, this very episode led to me asking for a telescope for my birthday. I ended up with a little reflecting scope from Sears catalog, couldn’t figure out how to work it very well. I did use it to watch the moon a few times.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:49 am
What no post / blogging on the new “seven Deadly Sins” silliness Phil? After all, most of the new ones are science related …
March 15th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Can’t watch it because I live in the wrong country.
Don’t worry. Many people live in the wrong country.
…no, I don’t know what that meant either.
Silly me thinking Internet was international.
But many copyrights are not.
March 15th, 2008 at 10:52 am
I watched that episode, some family guy episodes, and a couple of the Simpsons episodes, and I have yet to see ANY ads. Whether it’s thanks to noscript or adblock plus (both firefox extensions), I am not troubled by those pesky ads.
(ha ha ha, that sounded totally like an ad)
March 15th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Can’t watch the video here in BC, but just wanted to mention that Sam Jaffee played Gunga Din in the 1939 version. A classic.
March 15th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I identify Sam Jaffe with Lost Horizon the most. Not because I’m old (I’m not) but because I love movies more than tv. Day the earth stood still is a distant second.
I can’t even view that clip with a proxy.
)-:
March 15th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I must admit to being confused. Did Nanny create the comet through her magical powers? If so, does that make her more powerful than God? And how can she be certain the comet she so recklessly created won’t end up smacking into the Earth and wiping out humanity? And wouldn’t the sudden introduction of another heavenly body into the solar system throw off the existing gravitational balances that govern the orbits of the various planets and assorter other components? Does the Professor end up putting the stones to her every night once the kids are asleep?
March 16th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Phil, I noticed that your page to comets which you helpfully linked to doesn’t actually mention much about what a comet would look like. It’s more aimed at how they move.
In telescopic observations, a comet is basically a DFO - a dim, fuzzy object. Messier’s catalogue of objects lists DFOs that Charles Messier had already identified that were not comets. A very useful tool for the comet-hunter.
A comet that looked fiery, had a visible tail, and was visibly moving would be very close to the sun, and almost certainly close enough for naked-eye observation.
Sadly, telescopes aren’t quite THAT exciting.
March 16th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Ah. Battle Beyond the Stars. Yeah, I still have scars from that one, too.
March 16th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
A bit of cast information -
Nanny (Phoebe Figgerlily) - Juliet Mills (daughter of Sir John, sister of Hayley & Donna)
Prof. Everett - Richard Long (remembered from The Big Valley)
The Kids - who knows, who cares? Although Kim Richards (Prudence) turned up in a couple of other shows.
And as for Battle Beyond The Stars - I liked that movie when I was about fifteen, before I found out it was just Seven Samurai (aka The Magnificent Seven) in space.