Captain Kremmen
Encyclopedia
Captain Kremmen was a science fiction
radio serial set in the early 21st Century. (The pilot opens in 2005.) It was written and performed for Capital Radio
by the DJ Kenny Everett
, and was also broadcast on Liverpool's Radio City
and Nottingham's Radio Trent. It featured the eponymous vain and dimwitted spaceship
captain. Everett took the name Kremmen from a record label owned by the son of comedian Mel Blanc
. Each episode began with a recap by Everett's fellow DJ, Tommy Vance
.
The premise was subsequently adapted for television and other media.
on Christmas Day in 1950, Kremmen grew up with an interest in becoming an astronaut
like his idol, Dan Dare
. In the animated version, he bears a striking resemblance to Kenny Everett, who was also born in Liverpool on Christmas Day (but in 1944).
Graduating from the Space Academy, Kremmen went on to become the world's most fabulous man, as well as a captain for Star Corps. He also has bionic veins, and a bionic left foot with a detachable big toe that converts into a space cannon. According to a 'computer read-out' at the beginning of the episodes, he has an IQ
of 498 and a height of 6ft 10 inches, and is a Supreme Athlete, a Concert Pianist, Concorde Pilot, Mountain Climber, Diplomat, Space Captain & Genius. Another variation on the opening script said he had 'muscles in places where most other people don't even have places'.
Carla - An American, Carla is the world's most voluptuous woman. She came from a poor family, and used her beauty to get a job in Star Corps. Whenever alone with Kremmen, she persuades him to have casual sex
with her. Her first visual appearance saw her looking like Marilyn Monroe
, but this was changed in the TV series.
Dr. Heinrich von Gitfinger - Named "Grelbman" in the graphic novel, Gitfinger is Kremmen's scientific aide from Germany. In some areas, he is portrayed as a Nazi. He is married and has children living in West Germany
.
Other minor characters include Gonad, Schmuckstein, Threllmer and Fooman, who are all technicians aboard the Troll-1 – Kremmen's spaceship, which is more than a little reminiscent of a portable cassette recorder
.
), who drain all other beings of their knowledge so that they will be the most intelligent beings in the universe. They are described as having transparent heads, furry green eyeballs, seven legs and three lips. This latter feature is the reason the Thargoids drink tea; as Gort explained: "You try asking for llllager and llllime with llllips llllike these!"
The Krells - Originally nine-headed creatures with enormous lips, the Krells later became slimy lumps in the TV series. They are the second alien race to appear in the series after the Thargoids. Their first leader was Queen Iris, followed by King Zarno during their "lump" stages in the radio and TV series. The "nine-heads" appeared only in the book, and were led by Zorro, who was more welcoming to Kremmen than the other leaders. Their final appearance was in a war against the Macronites, who were planning revenge for an earlier Krell attack. They seem to be named after the alien civilisation mentioned in Forbidden Planet
.
The Sun-Suckers - A nearby sun
died out years ago, and a race of beings called the Sun-Suckers began to die from the intense cold. By stealing solar energy from the Earth's sun, the Sun-Suckers were able to stay alive for a little longer. Their number was 1,000 when Kremmen arrived, and their leader was known as Vardak the Elder. The Sun-Suckers are lumps like the Krells, but have four ears according to Kremmen.
was released by Corgi, explaining Kremmen's time before he became a space hero. In his earlier years, Kremmen was more of an anti-hero
, offering to allow the Krells to destroy Birmingham
instead of his hometown of Liverpool
. The story was quite surreal, and portrayed Kremmen as a womaniser
as well as a control freak. The Krells planned to dump poisonous Thronn over Liverpool to destroy it, but the Thronn quickly turns into jelly when it reacts with grease from various fish and chip shops en route. The comic also introduced several new characters, with some politically incorrect ones, such as the Jewish Moyshe Pukestein, and the Jamaica
n nightnurse, Dr. Winston.
The series became an animated cartoon
in The Kenny Everett Video Show and The Kenny Everett Television Show. This was produced for the series by Cosgrove Hall Films
.
The single
"Captain Kremmen (Retribution)" was a chart hit for Kenny Everett in late November 1977. Its main lyric, "Tread boldly, men", was a skit on Star Trek
s opening monologue
.
The final piece of memorabilia on Captain Kremmen was made in 1980: a 20-minute film entitled Kremmen: The Movie
. However, like the comic book, it was unusual. As well as several new characters, the only original characters were Kremmen, Carla and Gitfinger. The plot itself centred on Kremmen finding a giant space-monster that was eating planets. When his new spaceship is eaten by the monster, Kremmen is able to help the ship escape by pumping oxygen
into the stomach and making the monster vomit, but the creature itself isn't destroyed, and it is not made clear if the other planets that were eaten were rescued.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
radio serial set in the early 21st Century. (The pilot opens in 2005.) It was written and performed for Capital Radio
Capital Radio
Capital London is a London based radio station which launched on 16 October 1973 and is owned by Global Radio. On 3 January 2011 it formed part of the nine station Capital radio network.- Pre-launch :...
by the DJ Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
, and was also broadcast on Liverpool's Radio City
Radio City 96.7
Radio City 96.7 is a British Independent Local Radio station, based in Liverpool, that serves Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales...
and Nottingham's Radio Trent. It featured the eponymous vain and dimwitted spaceship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
captain. Everett took the name Kremmen from a record label owned by the son of comedian Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
. Each episode began with a recap by Everett's fellow DJ, Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance was a British pop radio broadcaster, born in Eynsham, Oxfordshire. He was one of the few music broadcasters in the United Kingdom to champion hard rock and heavy metal in the early 1980s, providing the only national radio forum for both bands and fans...
.
The premise was subsequently adapted for television and other media.
Main characters
Captain Elvis Brandenburg Kremmen - Born in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
on Christmas Day in 1950, Kremmen grew up with an interest in becoming an astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
like his idol, Dan Dare
Dan Dare
Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
. In the animated version, he bears a striking resemblance to Kenny Everett, who was also born in Liverpool on Christmas Day (but in 1944).
Graduating from the Space Academy, Kremmen went on to become the world's most fabulous man, as well as a captain for Star Corps. He also has bionic veins, and a bionic left foot with a detachable big toe that converts into a space cannon. According to a 'computer read-out' at the beginning of the episodes, he has an IQ
Intelligence quotient
An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...
of 498 and a height of 6ft 10 inches, and is a Supreme Athlete, a Concert Pianist, Concorde Pilot, Mountain Climber, Diplomat, Space Captain & Genius. Another variation on the opening script said he had 'muscles in places where most other people don't even have places'.
Carla - An American, Carla is the world's most voluptuous woman. She came from a poor family, and used her beauty to get a job in Star Corps. Whenever alone with Kremmen, she persuades him to have casual sex
Casual sex
Casual sex or hooking up refers to certain types of human sexual activity outside the context of a romantic relationship. The term is not always used consistently: some use it to refer to any extramarital sex, some use it to refer to sex in a casual relationship, whereas others reserve its use for...
with her. Her first visual appearance saw her looking like Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, but this was changed in the TV series.
Dr. Heinrich von Gitfinger - Named "Grelbman" in the graphic novel, Gitfinger is Kremmen's scientific aide from Germany. In some areas, he is portrayed as a Nazi. He is married and has children living in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
.
Other minor characters include Gonad, Schmuckstein, Threllmer and Fooman, who are all technicians aboard the Troll-1 – Kremmen's spaceship, which is more than a little reminiscent of a portable cassette recorder
Cassette deck
A cassette deck is a type of tape recorder for playing or recording audio compact cassettes. A deck was formerly distinguished from a recorder as being part of a stereo component system, while a recorder had a self-contained power amplifier...
.
Foes
The Thargoids - Based on their synthetic homeworld of Thargoidia, the Thargoids are a race of beings led by Gort (a parody of a movie character with the same nameGort (The Day the Earth Stood Still)
Gort is a fictional humanoid robot in the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still and its 2008 remake.In the original short story "Farewell to the Master", on which the two films are based, the character was called Gnut.- 1951 depiction :...
), who drain all other beings of their knowledge so that they will be the most intelligent beings in the universe. They are described as having transparent heads, furry green eyeballs, seven legs and three lips. This latter feature is the reason the Thargoids drink tea; as Gort explained: "You try asking for llllager and llllime with llllips llllike these!"
The Krells - Originally nine-headed creatures with enormous lips, the Krells later became slimy lumps in the TV series. They are the second alien race to appear in the series after the Thargoids. Their first leader was Queen Iris, followed by King Zarno during their "lump" stages in the radio and TV series. The "nine-heads" appeared only in the book, and were led by Zorro, who was more welcoming to Kremmen than the other leaders. Their final appearance was in a war against the Macronites, who were planning revenge for an earlier Krell attack. They seem to be named after the alien civilisation mentioned in Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, with a screenplay by Cyril Hume. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. The characters and its setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and its plot contains certain...
.
The Sun-Suckers - A nearby sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
died out years ago, and a race of beings called the Sun-Suckers began to die from the intense cold. By stealing solar energy from the Earth's sun, the Sun-Suckers were able to stay alive for a little longer. Their number was 1,000 when Kremmen arrived, and their leader was known as Vardak the Elder. The Sun-Suckers are lumps like the Krells, but have four ears according to Kremmen.
Further appearances
In 1977 a comic bookComic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
was released by Corgi, explaining Kremmen's time before he became a space hero. In his earlier years, Kremmen was more of an anti-hero
Anti-hero
In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
, offering to allow the Krells to destroy Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
instead of his hometown of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. The story was quite surreal, and portrayed Kremmen as a womaniser
Womaniser
Womaniser or womanizer may refer to:*Womaniser, a promiscuous heterosexual man*"Womanizer" , a 2008 song by Britney Spears...
as well as a control freak. The Krells planned to dump poisonous Thronn over Liverpool to destroy it, but the Thronn quickly turns into jelly when it reacts with grease from various fish and chip shops en route. The comic also introduced several new characters, with some politically incorrect ones, such as the Jewish Moyshe Pukestein, and the Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
n nightnurse, Dr. Winston.
The series became an animated cartoon
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
in The Kenny Everett Video Show and The Kenny Everett Television Show. This was produced for the series by Cosgrove Hall Films
Cosgrove Hall Films
Cosgrove Hall Films was a British animation studio based in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, that once was a major producer of children's television programmes. Cosgrove Hall's programmes are still seen in over eighty countries...
.
The single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
"Captain Kremmen (Retribution)" was a chart hit for Kenny Everett in late November 1977. Its main lyric, "Tread boldly, men", was a skit on Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
s opening monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
.
The final piece of memorabilia on Captain Kremmen was made in 1980: a 20-minute film entitled Kremmen: The Movie
Kremmen: The Movie
Kremmen: The Movie was a science fiction comedy film written and produced in Great Britain, starring comedian Kenny Everett. The film itself is centred around Everett's sci-fi character, Captain Kremmen, a pastiche of Dan Dare.-Plot:...
. However, like the comic book, it was unusual. As well as several new characters, the only original characters were Kremmen, Carla and Gitfinger. The plot itself centred on Kremmen finding a giant space-monster that was eating planets. When his new spaceship is eaten by the monster, Kremmen is able to help the ship escape by pumping oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
into the stomach and making the monster vomit, but the creature itself isn't destroyed, and it is not made clear if the other planets that were eaten were rescued.
External links
- mp3 downloads episodes of Captain Kremmen
- Creation Podcasts - episodes of Captain Kremmen at Capital RadioCapital RadioCapital London is a London based radio station which launched on 16 October 1973 and is owned by Global Radio. On 3 January 2011 it formed part of the nine station Capital radio network.- Pre-launch :...