It is Ed Norton's favorite show, as revealed in the series premiere of The Honeymooners. By that point, Captain Video & His Video Rangers had to have been in syndication after six seasons on DuMont. In the early days of television, a small budget wasn't the deterrent to success that it would be now. A small bag of used shoestrings would be equal to DuMont's production budget for Captain Video.
Richard Coogan was the first Captain, but the one everyone remembers, Al Hodge, came from radio's Green Hornet in 1951 to take over for the final four years. The one constant was the Video Ranger (Don Hastings), ever faithful, and always available.
Of course, Captain Video was well before my time, and out of syndication by the end of the 60's, if not sooner. Hence, no rating. We'll leave you with an intro from the Hodge era, when it was sponsored by Post cereals.
Don Hastings would later latch onto another long-running series, joining the cast of As The World Turns. Captain Video was the extent of his involvement in children's programming, unlike brother Bob, who returned to toons in the 90's (Batman) after a lengthy stint on General Hospital.
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