Johnny Chase, Secret Agent of Space was a space opera radio serial that was broadcast for two seasons on CBC Radio between 1978 to 1981. The show was set 700 years in the future, and was created by Royal Canadian Air Farce comedian Don Ferguson along with Henry Sobodka. The show ran a fine line between being a serious space opera and being an over-the-top spoof of them.
The main character is a secret agent (voiced by Neil Dainard), who works for Earth Empire, and traverses through space in the Aleph-9, a spaceship accompanied by his talking computer, the insufferably brilliant (and equally arrogant) Dante (voiced by Chris Wiggins). Together they battle a range of enemies of the empire, including pirates, vampires, and the Thorks, an alien race bent on the destruction of Earth Empire. Other regular cast members included Mrs. Mulligan Jones, an "ancient psychic and Head of Empire Security" (voiced by Mary Piri), and Percy (voiced by Louis Negin), who was Johnny's direct boss at Empire Security.
The first season, broadcast during 1978-1979, consisted of individual episodes detailing the life of the principal character and setting the stage for the workings of Earth Empire and its enemies.
In the second season, the sun was destroyed by the Thorks, and Johnny ends up leading a rag-tag fleet of ships to a new home, very much like Battlestar Galactica.
The show's distinctive theme music was by the Canadian progressive-rock band FM.
Famous quotes containing the words johnny, secret, agent and/or space:
““It’s as plain as plain can be;
This woman shot her lover, it’s murder in the second degree,”
—Unknown. Frankie and Johnny (l. 73–74)
“I know we’re not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don’t know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don’t care that we don’t.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The average American is a good sport, plays by the rules. But this war is no game. And no secret agent is a hero or a good sport—that is, no living agent.”
—John Monks, Jr., U.S. screenwriter, Sy Bartlett, and Henry Hathaway. Robert Sharkey (James Cagney)
“... the movie woman’s world is designed to remind us that a woman may live in a mansion, an apartment, or a yurt, but it’s all the same thing because what she really lives in is the body of a woman, and that body is allowed to occupy space only according to the dictates of polite society.”
—Jeanine Basinger (b. 1936)