Champion the Wonder Horse series; he was one of several horses that Autry rode in that production. After learning about the horse through stunt man and movie horse wrangler Tracey Layne, Autry paid $75 for the original Champion, whose sire was a Morgan trotting horse from Ardmore, Oklahoma. Trained to perform numerous tricks, Champion could untie knots, fall, roll over and play dead, come at Autry's whistle, bow, and shake his head yes and no. In one film he pushes Autry into the arms of his leading lady June Storey. By 1939 his reported worth was $25,000. The original Champion died in 1943, at
Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere name of a large robot, who was one of the series' most popular characters. Calling a villain "Dr. Tobor" may have been intended to fool young theater-goers into thinking they would see the robot in the serial. In fact, the only robots on view are the odd fedora-wearing robots from the 1935 Gene Autry serial "The Phantom Empire". This was the second of only three science fiction serials released by Columbia. The third, "The Lost Planet" (1953), is a virtual sequel although with different character names, The slaves of "The Lost Planet"'s evil extraterrestrial dictator Reckov (also Gene Roth) inexplicably