Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers was a 30-minute, weekly CBS-TV network outer space adventure series, broadcast live Saturdays from April 18, 1953 to May 29, 1954.
[1] Set in 2153 and inspired by Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950 - 1955), the series depicted the adventures of fearless Rocket Rangers, who operated from Omega Base, piloting their nuclear-powered space ship Beta throughout the solar system, to battle crime and the weird menace of extraterrestrial life-forms.
The three Rangers were curly-haired Rod Brown (Cliff Robertson), his prickly partner Frank Boyd (Bruce Hall), and chubby, bespectacled comic relief Wilbur "Wormsey" Wormser (Jack Weston).
Director George Gould had also been the director of ABC's Tom Corbett from 1950 to 1952, and when he was hired to direct Rod Brown, he carried with him to CBS several of the writers for that pioneering series, plus its basic concepts, as well as the major special effect, an amplifier producing travelling mattes.
The program began each week with an introduction: "Surging with the power of the atom, gleaming like great silver bullets, the mighty Rocket Ranger space ships stand by for blast-off.