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Video Games

Fairchild Channel F

Fairchild Channel FFairchild rebrands its pioneering Video Entertainment System console as the much more memorable Fairchild Channel F. This is the name by which the console will be most commonly known in the future, and a name which it retains even after Fairchild sells its inventory and interest in Channel F to electronic toolmaker Zircon in 1979. Many later historical accounts associate the Channel F rebranding with competition and market confusion from Atari’s Video Computer System, but in fact the VCS won’t debut until much later in the year.

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Crewed Spaceflight Enterprise Space Shuttle

Enterprise hails a taxi

EnterpriseSpace Shuttle Enterprise, mated to the heavily-modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) for the first time, undergoes three “taxi tests” to enusre the structural stability of the two-vehicle combination on the runway before they ever take off. This is the first phase of a series of tests that will culminate, later in 1977, in a series of brief unpowered flights and landing tests using the Enterprise, verifying the shuttle’s gliding aerodynamics.

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Television

Wonder Woman In Hollywood

Wonder WomanThe 13th episode of Wonder Woman airs on ABC, starring Lynda Carter and Lyle Waggoner. This episode, guest starring Debra Winger, Robert Hays and Barry Van Dyke, closes the first season, and ends the show’s run on ABC. (The series will move to CBS for its second season, as well as reformatting the show into a present day setting, so this is also the end of the show’s World War II setting, which was faithful to the original comics.)

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Crewed Spaceflight Enterprise Space Shuttle

Enterprise test drive

EnterpriseMated to its Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, Space Shuttle Enterprise goes airborne for the first time in the first of a series of “captive-inert” test flights. During these flights, there is no crew aboard Enterprise, nor are any of the test shuttle’s systems powered up; the flights are intended to make sure that the combination of the 747 and the Enterprise is capable of being flown safely. Further “captive-inert” flights are carried out over a ten-day period.

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Television

Quinn Martin’s Tales Of The Unexpected: The Nomad

Tales Of The UnexpectedNBC airs the fourth episode of Quinn Martin’s horror/sci-fi anthology Tales Of The Unexpected. (This series is not to be confused with the longer-lived British series of the same name, created by acclaimed author Roald Dahl.) David Birney (Serpico) and William Campbell (Star Trek) guest star.

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Television

Man From Atlantis

Man From AtlantisThe science fiction TV movie-of-the-week Man From Atlantis airs on NBC, starring Patrick Duffy and Belinda J. Montgomery. Created by Mayo Simon and classic Star Trek veteran Herbert F. Solow, Man From Atlantis centers around a mysterious man from the ocean (Duffy) discovered by humans, who find he is willing to live among them and coexist for peaceful purposes. Three more TV movies will follow, each successful enough for NBC to greenlight a weekly series in the 1977-78 season.

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Movies Music Star Wars

Score Wars

Star Wars scoring sessionAt Anvil Studios in Denham, England, John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra convene for the first recording session for the Star Wars soundtrack. Over the course of the next 11 days, and with director George Lucas in attendance in the recording booth, all of the music for Lucas’ movie is rehearsed and recorded. Williams and Lucas had been introduced by their mutual friend Steven Spielberg, with whom Williams had worked on 1975’s Jaws (whose score had gone on to win Williams his second Oscar); Lucas’ original plan was to “score” Star Wars entirely with classical pieces. The first scene scored by Williams and the LSO is the rapid-fire chase through the Death Star, culminating in Luke and Princess Leia swinging across a chasm; other pieces recorded on the first day include the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the iconic theme music.

More about Star Wars soundtracks in Music Reviews

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Voyager

Now, Voyager

VoyagerNASA Administrator James Fletcher announces that the ambitious twin Mariner Jupiter/Saturn ’77 space probes, due to be launched later in the year, have been christened with new names: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. The name change has been initiated by recently-promoted Voyager program manager John Casani, who thinks the spacecraft need a name that’s less of a mouthful (the name “Discoverer” was also considered). For the first time, NASA openly admits that one of the vehicles – Voyager 2 – may continue on to Uranus and Neptune should its Saturn flyby go well in 1981, depending on the spacecraft’s health.

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Movies Star Wars

Star Wars: The Comic

The Star WarsMarvel Comics begins shipping the first issue of its six-issue adaptation of George Lucas’ upcoming film Star Wars, with Lucas reaping the rewards of the licensing arrangement directly since 20th Century Fox has allowed him to keep all merchandising rights to the yet-to-premiere movie. Adapted from the screenplay and edited by Roy Thomas, with artwork by Howard Chaykin, lettering by Jim Novak and colors by Marie Severin, the first six issues offer an interesting visual take on a universe whose visuals were not finished enough for the artist to view ahead of time. After the six issue movie tie-in, Thomas and Chaykin would begin concocting the budding franchise’s first-ever non-film storylines.

More about classic Star Wars Marvel Comics in Book Reviews
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