Irwin Allen - Legacy

Legacy

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 many episodes of Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. This camera technique was employed in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 'First Spaceship on Venus'. Here the camera tilts to simulate the spacecraft being hit. During this scene, Joel shouts out "Irwin Allen presents...".

Allen's career in film and TV was the subject of a 1995 documentary, The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen, produced and directed by Kevin Burns, co-founder of Foxstar Productions, originally set up as the production unit responsible for creating a series of "Alien Nation" movies for television. Numerous cast members and associates from various Irwin Allen projects appeared in the film, lending recollections of their time working with him.

In 1994, while Senior VP of Foxstar, Burns founded Van Ness Films, a non-fiction and documentary production unit. That same year, he met Jon Jashni, a Fox film executive who shared Burns' interest in Allen's works.

In 1998, the two collaborated on a TV retrospective special, Lost in Space Forever. Hosted by John Laroquette, it chronicled the series' creation and run on TV in the 1960s and beyond, and featured appearances by Bill Mumy, Jonathan Harris, June Lockhart, Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen, as well as film footage of vintage interviews with Guy Williams. Also appearing were Bob May, who donned the Robot suit, and Dick Tufeld, who supplied the character's voice. The flight deck set of the Jupiter 2 was recreated as the backdrop for parts of the special.

It also was used as a vehicle to promote the upcoming big-screen feature version of the TV classic, starring William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, Lacey Chabert, Mimi Rogers and Heather Graham.

Burns and Jashni later formed Synthesis Entertainment and began developing and producing remakes of, and sequels to, several Allen properties, including a 2002 Fox Television pilot for an updated version of The Time Tunnel, which didn't sell, and remakes of films including Poseidon (2006) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. The 2002 TV pilot was included as a bonus feature on Vol. 2 of Fox's 2006 DVD release of the 30-episode Time Tunnel (1966-67) TV series.