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In all, the researchers had compiled sixty possible discoveries. “I’ve tried to take the lunacy that exists in television and reduce it to a quiet panic,” Allen told me one day. “There’s only one thing to remember about television: it’s a business.”

He is a large, myopic, hirsute man with hair like Brillo and a bowl-shaped paunch that leaks out between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his trousers. He has a raucous voice and he is richly sarcastic, but it is largely a performance without a cutting edge. He supervises even the most minute details of his shows. There were a half dozen people present at
The Man from the 25th Century
meeting and each had a copy of the presentation script Allen had written:

On succeeding pages, Allen’s script spelled out the show’s theme (“The basic theme dramatizes man’s earliest hidden fear—the appearance of seemingly extraterrestrial beings from another planet”), its major settings
(“The planet Andro, two-and-a-half light-years from Earth, the super metropolis of the future in the year 2467” and “Project Delphi, most mysterious of all undertakings in the history of the United States government,” buried underground deep beneath Glacier National Park and dedicated to combating the attack from Andro), and its leading character, Tomo, The Man from the 25th Century (“Tomo—twenty-four years old—the kidnapped Earthling. Dark, handsome, six feet, three inches tall. He is the most unusual of men. Graduate of the sciences of Nali, the great technological studies offered by the scientists of the planet Andro. Brilliant, trained to kill, and a master in the art of self-defense. Hidden deep within is a warm friendly nature. But so penetrating was his indoctrination, even he is unaware of his second personality”).

The problem before the meeting was whether to spin
The Man from the 25th Century
off a segment of
Lost in Space
or to go with a ten-minute presentation film. The discussion was scarcely underway when there was a knock on the door and the unit production manager for
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
entered the office, muttering apologies. A
Voyage
episode scheduled to start shooting the following week had a character called Lobster Man, and the wardrobe department had been unable to make his costume as specified in the designer’s sketches.

“Irwin, the antennae on Lobster Man’s suit are supposed to vibrate, but the suit isn’t rigged for it,” the production manager said.

Allen threw up his hands in resignation. “Is it a big story point?”

“No,” the unit man said.

“Then forget it.” Allen thought for a moment, rubbing his hands over his paunch. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Ask the electrical department if they can put two little blinking lights in the antennae.”

“Okay,” the production man said. “That’s a good idea, Irwin.”

“That’s what I’m sitting in the boss’s chair for,” Allen said. “You got a little problem about Lobster Man, you come to see Irwin.”

Allen turned back to
The Man from the 25th Century
. On an easel at the end of the table were color sketches of Andro and of the “interrogation room” at Delphi. The art director, a young man named Dale Hennesy, lifted the overlays from the sketches and displayed them for Allen.

“If we spin off from
Space
, we’re going to have to get a script written quick, Irwin,” said Hal Herman, one of Allen’s production managers.

“No problem,” Allen said. “Irwin knows how to do it. The Space Family Robinson”—the family in
Lost in Space
—“turns up on another planet. They settle down for dinner and then all of a sudden this beautiful man appears. They reach for their ray guns and this guy says, ‘I’m Tomo from Andro,’ and to pay for his supper, he tells a story. Dissolve—
The Man from the 25th Century
.” He patted the presentation script. “It’s all here. Easy, right?”

“Right, Irwin,” chorused the table.

Allen doodled for a moment with a pencil. “Say we do spin off,” he said. “We spin off where?”

“The twenty-second segment,” Hal Herman said.

“That starts shooting twenty-five working days from
now,” Allen said, checking his production schedule. He turned to Dale Hennesy. “Dale, using spit and glue—and with a start date that close, that’s what you’re going to have to use—can you get these sets together by then?”

Hennesy whistled softly. “Can do,” he said finally.

Allen asked to see the rest of the sketches. One drawing showed the concrete living quarters at Project Delphi. Allen shook his head. “It doesn’t send me,” he said.

“What I was trying to do here, Irwin …” Hennesy began.

Allen shook his head vigorously. “Dale, it doesn’t send me,” he said in measured tones. “Let’s just accept that. It wastes time to argue and time is what?”

“Money, Irwin,” Hennesy said.

“Right,” Allen said.

He perused the rest of the sketches. Gradually he began to abandon the idea of spinning
The Man from the 25th Century
off a
Lost in Space
segment. While the production problems of a spinoff were not insurmountable, they would pose certain difficulties and furthermore would strain the already tight budget of the show. As the meeting wore on, Allen began to think in terms of the ten-minute presentation film. He asked Hennesy for the storyboard sketches of the originally proposed spinoff segment.

“I don’t like these much, Dale,” Allen said. He was beating time on the conference table with his knuckles. “They’re okay for a storyboard, but not for a presentation film. We need something flashier.”

Hennesy nodded.

“And I think it’s a mistake to show story continuity
in a presentation film,” Allen said. “We’re not trying to sell a story, we’re trying to sell a concept.”

“How about using paintings?” Hennesy said. “I mean, the paintings of the various sets?”

Allen slapped his hand on the desk. “Great,” he said. “We can use the camera to get a sense of movement. Move in, pan, hold, dissolve through. Great. The paintings are static, but the camera moves.” He turned to Hal Herman. “How long will it take five artists to do thirty paintings from our sketches?”

Herman figured on a pad. “Twelve working days,” he said finally.

“Figure fifteen,” Allen said. “Now I’m a sucker for blue, so if you want to win me over, use a lot of blue. Allen Blue, I call it.” He got up from his chair and wiped his glasses on his shirt. A secretary brought him a glass of orange juice and told him that the unit man from
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
had returned and wanted to see him.

“Now what’s the matter?” Allen said when the unit man came into the office.

“About Lobster Man, Irwin,” the unit man said. “The lights in the antennae won’t work.”

“I don’t believe won’t work,” Allen said.

“There’s too much voltage, Irwin.”

“Then Lobster Man will fry?” Allen said.

“Right, Irwin.”

Allen patted the unit man on the shoulder. “Paul,” he said, “
you
figure something out. You be Irwin for a while. I trust you implicitly, Paul.” He dismissed the unit man with a wave of his hand and turned back to the conference table. “Okay, we’re agreed,” he said. “The presentation film, right?”

“Right, Irwin.”

“We’ve got $100,000 to work with,” Allen said. “Not a penny more.
Not a penny
. Right? Right.”

The next day was Wednesday, and, as on every Wednesday, there was a conference in Jack Baur’s office of all the Studio’s casting directors for both features and television. A handsome, sedate man who looks like a bank vice president, Baur is the assistant head of the casting department. His daughter, Elizabeth, was one of the young actresses in the Studio’s New Talent Program. Present at the meeting were Bill Kinney, casting director for
Judd
and
Felony Squad
, Joe Scully for
Peyton Place
and
Valley of the Dolls
, Larry Stewart for the Irwin Allen shows, Ross Brown for
Daniel Boone
and
Custer
, Carl Joy for stunt men and extra talent, and Curt Conway and Pamela Danova of the New Talent School.

“I need two 7⅜ heads,” Larry Stewart said.

“Two what?” Baur said.

“Two 7⅜ heads,” Stewart said. “To play monsters on
Lost in Space
. The art department has already whipped up the heads and they happen to be 7⅜. Now we just need the actors to fit them.”

Baur shook his head. “All right, everyone keep a lookout for 7⅜ heads,” he said. He shuffled through the papers piled in front of him. “Okay, we’ve got a lot of commitments on play-or-pay deals, so let’s see if we can place them.” He picked up one of the papers. “Charlie Robinson,” he said. “He’s got a $10,000 guarantee and we’re converting it to a term contract at $500 a week. Any pictures or TV shows we can use him on? It’s play-or-pay, remember.”

“No go on
Felony Squad
,” Bill Kinney said. He drew a square in the air with his fingers.

“How about
Peyton Place
?” Baur asked.

Joe Scully shook his head and he too doodled a square in the air.

There was laughter around the table. “Your enthusiasm overwhelms me,” Baur said. “Well, he should be a cinch for
Tora, Tora, Tora
. He can always play a young Naval officer.”

“And he’s square enough to use in
Tom Swift
,” Kinney said.

“Okay,” Baur said. “Fun is fun, but don’t forget, this is a $10,000 knock.” He began to check up on the week’s activities with each of the casting directors. “How about
Judd
, Bill?” he asked Kinney.

“We sent a script to Ian Bannen and he likes it,” Kinney said. “But he has to check with his accountant in London to see if he has enough days left in this country to beat the tax rap.”

“How much they offer him?” Baur said.

“$3,500,” Kinney said. “It’s the same thing with all these English guys. He doesn’t want to cut into his few days left here if he can still get a picture in this country. You know, the money.”

Baur checked his notes again. “As you know, we’ve got a new series on the back burner called
European Eye
. It’s about a private eye based in London who takes on any American in Europe who gets in trouble. It should be exciting. Locations all over Europe. We need a name leading man. Cliff Robertson, Hugh O’Brian, Mickey Callan—you know, one of those half-baked guys who want to do pictures.”

“And can’t get any,” Kinney said.

Baur shrugged. “
Daniel Boone
?” he said. “What do you need, Ross?”

“Are there any young fops in the New Talent Program?” Ross Brown said. “I need a young fop for
Boone
.”

“What’s the role?” Baur said.

“Just that,” Brown said. “A young fop. The story’s about this Indian girl and she’s living with these white folks. They find out she’s an Indian and they don’t want her to marry their young fop son.”

“Richard Krisher,” Curt Conway said. “A perfect fop. A Billy DeWolfe type, only younger.”

Brown looked at his clipboard. He mentioned another young actor in the New Talent Program. “Has he been drafted yet?” he asked. “I need him to play an Indian.”

“He’s got blue eyes,” Baur said.

“Hazel,” Brown said. “It can work.”

“Hell, yes,” Scully said. “They were making a Western over at Universal a couple of years ago, in color, and when they looked at the dailies, they discovered that the Indian chief had blue eyes. It was too late to replace him, so they put the research department to work and they found a tribe in North Dakota or someplace where every redskin had blue eyes. They wrote in a line of dialogue to cover it and they were home free.”

The background music of
Dr. Dolittle
, meanwhile, was still being arranged and scored. The task of arranging Leslie Bricusse’s original score into background accompaniment fell to Lionel Newman, head of the Studio’s music department, and his associate, Alexander Courage. Film scoring is an enormously tedious job. Because it must be timed exactly to the action on the screen, it is recorded in snippets sometimes only a few seconds long. The scoring of
Dr. Dolittle
presented another problem not usually encountered in film musicals. The normal procedure is for the cast to pre-record musical production numbers before a full studio orchestra; then, when the number is actually filmed, the actors mouth their lyrics to a recorded playback. Rex Harrison, however, refused to do a playback; he argued that he was an actor, not a singer, and that it was difficult for him to act convincingly while trying to follow a playback. He insisted on being recorded live while his numbers were being shot, accompanied only by a piano on the set. The full orchestral background was mixed in later. The process was costly and time-consuming, but it was the only one to which Harrison would agree.