Irwin Allen Collectibles

What is the appeal to Irwin Allen's shows? Well, to a sixties TV audience used to a diet of westerns and hard-boiled detectives, they were new and exciting compared to what had appeared before. As for the appeal, much of this is down to the groups of diverse characters within each series. The sense of family within Lost in Space was carried through into Land of the Giants, with the passengers of the doomed transatlantic flight. Irwin Allen's shows soon became a dominant force in TV science fiction throughout the decade. It started with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in 1964, which was soon followed by his best-known series Lost in Space, before moving on to The Time Tunnel and his final 1960s series, Land of the Giants, which ran between 1968 and 1970.

Each of these series spawned huge swathes of merchandise, much of which is covered in this book.