tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5833699981210036110.post1093009591474529763..comments2024-03-21T14:20:51.746-07:00Comments on Cult TV Lounge: Department S (1969-70)dfordoomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5833699981210036110.post-5019489176483975522016-02-25T00:56:39.339-08:002016-02-25T00:56:39.339-08:00Yes, you may well be right. There are quite a few ...Yes, you may well be right. There are quite a few strong similarities between Amos Burke and Jason King. And in the third season Amos Burke was reinvented as a secret agent, making him even more like a predecessor of Jason King.dfordoomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306293859869179118noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5833699981210036110.post-48407043703121148322016-02-24T04:51:13.750-08:002016-02-24T04:51:13.750-08:00Having returned from browsing some of your other b...Having returned from browsing some of your other blogs I landed on your post about the 1963 USA series "Burke's Law". Perhaps that title character " ... who happens to be a multi-millionaire and who gets driven to crime scenes in his chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce ..." might have been another influence on the idea of Jason King? Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738775106380903770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5833699981210036110.post-65785824538228032842016-02-24T02:53:56.760-08:002016-02-24T02:53:56.760-08:00I have some problem with the text format but I fou...I have some problem with the text format but I found a 1967 article about Captain Peter Janson online at http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/51771180 . (Notice what a novelty a remote controlled door lock was in 1967!) <br />It may be just coincidence but it seems credible to me that Dennis Spooner or Peter Wyngarde, (nee Cyril Louis Goldbert ), may have heard or read of Cpt Janson while developing the character. Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738775106380903770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5833699981210036110.post-677859648172760922016-02-24T02:33:30.004-08:002016-02-24T02:33:30.004-08:00I wonder if another influence on the character &am...I wonder if another influence on the character & name of Jason King may have been the New Zealand born Australian Peter Janson, former Captain in the Bhutan army & a moustachioed eccentric who self-financed his car racing career. <br /><br />The lines from "Jason King" quoted in Wikipedia <br /><br /> Jason King, ordering breakfast in a cafe: "A bit too early for coffee; I'll have a Scotch". <br /><br />& <br /> After being held at gunpoint and given a plane ticket with orders to leave the country, Jason replies: "Thank you for your concern, but I never fly economy".<br /><br />are very reminiscent of Peter Janson. Except I'd expect Janson would have a cognac & cigar. <br />Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738775106380903770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5833699981210036110.post-89528080218598481552014-05-15T13:54:24.060-07:002014-05-15T13:54:24.060-07:00Spooner's memory of the creation of Jason King...Spooner's memory of the creation of Jason King got a little confused over time, I think. Dennis Wheatley was not asked to recruit thriller writers to win the War. What actually happened was that, because his wife was acting as a chauffeur to someone in the War Office, DW was asked to supply some papers about resisting invasion, as well as anticipating the possible tactics of the invading Germans. On the strength of these papers he was given a commission and a job in the LONDON CONTROLLING SECTION. This was a government organisation set up to prepare and execute deception plans worldwide. They were involved in some very important operations (including D-Day). Round about 1960 Wheatley wrote a book called STRANGER THAN FICTION, which dealt with some of the early papers he had written for the Section.<br /><br />It seems likely that Spooner had read this, and conceived of a Wheatley-like author/adventurer to be used in one of his series. Wyngarde recalled in an interview that the first scripts that he saw had King as a much older, tweedier type of character--more like Wheatley, in fact. Wyngarde rejected this, and the Jason King that we know was finally born.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com