The other day on Antenna TV, I saw an episode that I don't think I have ever seen in the 40+ years I've been watching the show. With some research I found it was Season 4 Episode 26 "Blackmail Order Bride"

May 12, 1969 Season 4 Episode 26
At ceremonies for the astronauts, reporter, Farnum, decides to get a scoop on Tony. Posing as a plumber, he plants takes and a camera in Tony's house, which Jeannie is decorating When reporters pursue Tony and Roger home, Roger explains a man's home is hi


Anyway, at the beginning of the episode, the announcer stated that Nelson, Healey, and Larkin were on Apollo 15. I found this patch.

http://triviazoids.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/apollo-15-logo-jeannie-black.jpg?w=300&h=300


The real Apollo 15 was in July 1971 with Scott, Worden, and Irwin.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Apollo_15-insignia.png/180px-Apollo_15-insignia.png


First questions - How far in advance do they design the patch? Or did someone alter the patch I found online to match the real patch? Do they even show the patch in the episode?


Second question - Was it common to have fake books in your house? The reporter hides a camera behind a bank of fake books already on the bookshelf.

Third question - This episode aired a few months before Apollo 11's moon landing. Why did they choose Apollo 15? Had NASA announced the crews for Apollo 12, 13, and 14 by May 1969?


I remember a few of the first run episodes from the last season, but otherwise, I saw all of the episodes in reruns on WGN in the 1970s. As I said, I don't think I've ever seen this episode before.

I don't know the answer to question one, but to answer #2, yes, a lot of tv sets have bookcases filled with "false" books, just a grouping of flat bindings standing on the shelf to look like books.

Don't know the answer to your question three as I was only four years old in 1969 when the real men landed on the moon.

In response to your question 3, I don't have a definitive answer. However, in my readings regarding the Apollo space program, they announced the flight crews up to 3 years in advance. It took each crew two years to train. There were also alternate members (as was depicted on the Apollo 13 movie). The 3 men needed to work in-sync with each other, so they were constantly together during training.

I would imagine that the patch is designed early on, too, because it is usually on the clothing that goes.

Where did you find that patch?

I haven't looked at the screen captures of that episode close enough to determine if they actually did have that patch. Does anyone have a screen capture from that episode to share, that includes one of the 2 wearing a patch on his suit?

I found the patch at http://triviazoids.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/space-the-new-frontier/ as the result of a Google search for "I Dream of Jeannie Apollo 15".

I found that the actual title of the episode is Blackmail Order Bride. Curiosity got to me and I purchased the episode on iTunes.

In the episode, I didn't see the patch. At the beginning, they are wearing suits. They never show them in flight suits so you never see a patch.

The first time I watched the episode, I missed the reporter taking books off Tony Nelson's shelf and replacing them with the fake books. He takes the books off as a set, but when he puts them in his toolbox, they move independently so they are real books. He them replaces them with the fake books to hide the camera and tape recorder. Here's a screen shot I took.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v482/brgmgb/Screen%20Shots/IDOJ_zpse78e9aee.jpg

How many Apollo missions were majors Nelson and Healey on? Tonight on the second Antenna TV episode, Nelson, Healey, and Wingate were on Apollo 14.

Season 4, Episode 23: Around the World in 80 Blinks
Jeannie tries to return Tony from a spaceflight to treat his cold and brings down the wrong astronaut.

In this episode, more than once they referred to them being on Apollo 14. Just three episodes later, they have them on Apollo 15.

How many flights did Tony Nelson make?

I know the pilot/first episode where he finds Jeanie was a Mercury mission, but did they ever refer to it as Mercury? He makes another single-man mission a year later when he lands on the same island and finds the Blue Jinn.

I know there was at least one Gemini flight, but again, did they ever refer to it as Gemini?

How many Apollo flights? At least two. Did Nelson and Healey both walk on the moon? If yes, do they use real footage or have the actors?

You can find everything on the Web!

http://www.astronautix.com/astros/nelthony.htm

NASA EXPERIENCE:
In September 1962, Nelson was selected as an astronaut. He was the only astronaut to fly all major US spacecraft -- the X-15, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle.
Nelson's first flight was Mercury MA-10. The long-duration mission almost ended in tragedy when the capsule landed far off-course on September 18, 1965 on a remote Pacific Island. However Nelson was located and recovered safely.

On 12 September 1966 Tony again flew a Mercury capsule on a classified mission. Amazingly, the spacecraft again went off-course, landing on the same island in the Pacific as his MA-10 capsule a year earlier.

In October 1966 Nelson was in training for an early Apollo-Saturn I mission, but dropped from the crew due to a temporary problem with his eyesight. He soon recovered, and made his first spacewalk from Gemini 13 at the end of the year. This final flight in the Gemini series was made together with Army Major Roger Healey.

In February 1967 Tony was offered a position as the vice president of a leading manufacturer of launch vehicles in Ohio. However he decided to stay with NASA and his astronaut career. Despite this, it was some time before he flew in space again. He trained for a three-month lunar surface stay with physician-astronaut Svetlana Swanson in March 1968, but this mission was canceled due to budget cutbacks. During the rest of that year he became involved with support and flight test of the highly classified 'AGNES' aerospacecraft design. In January 1969 he was given a highly sensitive assignment to replan the Apollo 12 flight.

Nelson made his first Apollo flight together with Army Captain Roger Healey and Navy Commander Winfred Wingate on 24 March 1969. Apollo AAP-1 was a lunar orbit mission that extensively mapped the lunar surface in preparation for later (unfortunately canceled) lunar bases.

The same crew landed on the moon on Apollo AAP-2 in January 1970, with Tony piloting the lunar module to a precision landing. They had to spend three weeks in isolation after their return, since NASA was still concerned about the astronauts bringing lunar germs back to earth.

Following cancellation of the rest of the Apollo AAP program, Tony returned to work on the AGNES program. When this wound up in the early 1980's, he was assigned as a shuttle commander.

Tony's commanded the STS-51-M shuttle flight in October 1985. The classified Department of Defence mission was notable for a near-tragedy when the spacecraft encountered a meteor shower.

Despite plans to retire following this mission, Nelson was promoted to Colonel and received an assignment on the Department of Defence's 'Rightguard' Spacelab project. This led to his final flight in space, a long-duration shuttle STS-46B Spacelab mission, in October 1991. Following this Tony finally retired from NASA and Air Force service. He was the longest-serving astronaut in space history.

In achieving his seven missions over 36 years, Nelson put more than 15,000 hours into training, mostly in simulators and simulations. He also logged more than 13,250 hours flying time in props, jets, helicopters, rocket jets, and spacecraft, including 2,450 hours in his seven space flights.

Real life vs. fiction IDOJ -- the terms "Mercury" and "Gemini" were never used in the episodes, to my best knowledge. However, the term "Apollo" definitely was.

Tony Nelson went on more types of flights than any astronaut did in real life. Also, Roger Healey was about the first Army pilot to ever make the astronaut team - that didn't happen for awhile in real life, as Army pilots were primarily chopper pilots. I got Bill Daily on that subject once and he was laughing about that.

In the first episode, there was Nelson (Air Force), Healey (Army, Corps of Engineers), and a couple of other astronauts, at least one of whom was Navy. In real life, the vast majority of astronauts were Air Force and Navy pilots.


Donna