Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea--Spotlight Photo

TV Guide advertisement, September 14, 1965

Step back in time to September, 1964. Two weeks prior to the premiere on ABC TV of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Keanu Reeves was born. In the same month, "Fiddler on the Roof" premiered on Broadway and the Warren Commission issued its controversial finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. On the very day Voyage premiered -- September 14, 1964 -- Walt Disney was awarded the Medal of Freedom at the White House.

In the previous month, on August 5th, 1964 to be precise, following a conflict between U.S. destroyers and North Vietnamese gunboats, President Johnson was given authority to "prevent further aggression" by the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Vietnam would soon become an unrelenting fact of American life. A transition was in the works from the cold-war vision of Voyage's first season to something a bit hotter.
This smattering of historical perspective paints the setting for the premiere of Irwin Allen's longest- running Series.

TV Guide listing, Sept 14, 1964

Thanks to fan Neil Russell for providing the TV guide items.

***Note in the above TV Guide listing, the Nelson Institute of Marine Research (N.I.M.R.) is identified as the Nelson Oceanographic Research Institute. An interesting mistake passed along, apparently either by ABC or Twentieth-Century Fox's promotion department or perhaps introduced by TV Guide.