Joseph Greene (writer) - Early Tom Corbett

Early Tom Corbett

Greene also produced work for radio, film and television, most notably for various versions of Tom Corbett. Around 1945, he provided a script for a comic book storyline likely entitled Space Academy, before submitting to Orbit Feature Services, Inc., on January 16, 1946, a script (originally titled The Pirates of Space, but subsequently revised to Space Cadets) for a prospective radio show featuring primary cadet Tom Ranger. The following year, Greene refined the title as Space Academy, submitting another radio script to NBC, and, ultimately, to Rockhill Studios, which expanded its efforts in working with him to develop it as a show for the newly developing medium of television. By 1949, the title was reconsidered, as both "Cadet" and "Academy" were thought to be somewhat ubiquitous — indeed, in 1948, Robert A. Heinlein, one of the top names in science fiction, published a novel entitled Space Cadet — so the title was expanded (by Greene and Rockhill's Stanley Wolf) to include the name of the main character: Tom Ranger, Space Cadet. In order for this to come about, Rockhill licensed "the "Space Cadet" name from Robert Heinlein... milk th connection... in its publicity." Thus, in October 1949, Tom Ranger and the Space Cadets was developed as a syndicated newspaper strip, although the strip went unused until it was recycled a few years later.