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Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Starstuff was a locally produced children's science fiction TV series made by WCAU channel 10 in Philadelphia in 1980, and periodically rerun on that station for years afterward. The theme song and much of the incidental music was taken from [[Gustav Holst]]'s ''The Planets.'' 18 episodes were produced.
''[[Starstuff]]'' was a locally produced children's science fiction TV series made by WCAU channel 10 in Philadelphia in 1980, and periodically rerun on that station for years afterward. The theme song and much of the incidental music was taken from [[Gustav Holst]]'s ''The Planets.'' 18 episodes were produced.


Chris is a normal albeit very intelligent 10-year old living with his mother in Philadelphia. His pride and joy is the home-made computer he has assembled in his room out of an old TV set and countless electronic odds and ends. When he tries it out, however, he discovers that by some fluke of physics (owing mostly to ''where'' he happened to build it), his computer is able to communicate with another computer which ''will'' exist on an orbiting [[Space Station|space colony]] in [[The Future|the year 2010.]] This future computer is owned by a 10-year old girl named Ingrid, and the two kids are able to communicate by audio/video transmission. The children decide to keep their amazing discovery secret, and they quickly become best friends. The show consists mainly of their conversations, comparing their very different lives on Earth and in orbit, as well as dealing with Chris's relatively mundane everyday troubles and Ingrid's more exotic but still basically everyday travails. It was [[Better Than It Sounds Live Action TV|surprisingly awesome.]]
Chris is a normal albeit very intelligent 10-year old living with his mother in Philadelphia. His pride and joy is the home-made computer he has assembled in his room out of an old TV set and countless electronic odds and ends. When he tries it out, however, he discovers that by some fluke of physics (owing mostly to ''where'' he happened to build it), his computer is able to communicate with another computer which ''will'' exist on an orbiting [[Space Station|space colony]] in [[The Future|the year 2010.]] This future computer is owned by a 10-year old girl named Ingrid, and the two kids are able to communicate by audio/video transmission. The children decide to keep their amazing discovery secret, and they quickly become best friends. The show consists mainly of their conversations, comparing their very different lives on Earth and in orbit, as well as dealing with Chris's relatively mundane everyday troubles and Ingrid's more exotic but still basically everyday travails. It was surprisingly awesome.


Chris was also a fan of [[Laurel and Hardy]], and had a vast collection of their silent short films, which he would share with Ingrid [[Once an Episode]].
Chris was also a fan of [[Laurel and Hardy]], and had a vast collection of their silent short films, which he would share with Ingrid [[Once an Episode]].
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{{tropelist}}
=== ''Starstuff'' provides examples of: ===
* [[Better Than It Sounds Live Action TV]]
* [[Exty Years From Now]]: Thirty years, in this case.
* [[Exty Years From Now]]: Thirty years, in this case.
* [[The Final Frontier]]
* [[The Final Frontier]]
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* [[Laurel and Hardy]]: Chris is a huge fan, and shares his videotape collection with Ingrid.
* [[Laurel and Hardy]]: Chris is a huge fan, and shares his videotape collection with Ingrid.
* [[Love Transcends Spacetime]]: They're just kids, so it's more just friendship, but there's certainly an element of this to it.
* [[Love Transcends Spacetime]]: They're just kids, so it's more just friendship, but there's certainly an element of this to it.
* [[Meanwhile in The Future]]: Justified. Time flows at the same rate in both locations.
* [[Meanwhile in the Future]]: Justified. Time flows at the same rate in both locations.
* [[No Budget]]
* [[No Budget]]
* [[Our Time Machine Is Different]]
* [[Our Time Machine Is Different]]
* [[Perfect Pacifist People]]: The space colony is hardly perfect, but it is such a small and [[Close Knit Community]] that crime is effectively unknown.
* [[Perfect Pacifist People]]: The space colony is hardly perfect, but it is such a small and [[Close-Knit Community]] that crime is effectively unknown.
* [[Portal to The Past]]
* [[Portal to the Past]]
* [[Show Within a Show]]: Chris's video collection.
* [[Show Within a Show]]: Chris's video collection.
* [[Space Clothes]]: Everybody on the Space Colony wears a loose-fitting jumpsuit.
* [[Space Clothes]]: Everybody on the Space Colony wears a loose-fitting jumpsuit.
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* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]: Shambor
* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]: Shambor
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Giz
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Giz
* {{spoiler|[[Downer Ending]]: The ship plummets into a black hole. Giz bravely (and we presume, accurately) predicts that [[And the Adventure Continues|they will emerge into a whole new universe to explore,]] and sounds almost optimistic, but Krikles and Zornad both still look horrified, and who can blame them?}}
* {{spoiler|[[Downer Ending]]: The ship plummets into a black hole. Giz bravely (and we presume, accurately) predicts that [[And the Adventure Continues...|they will emerge into a whole new universe to explore,]] and sounds almost optimistic, but Krikles and Zornad both still look horrified, and who can blame them?}}
* [[Everything's Better With Dinosaurs]]: The [[Time Travel]] episode, near the end. (With the toy plastic dinosaur as a prop! Hah! ''So'' awesome!)
* [[Everything's Better with Dinosaurs]]: The [[Time Travel]] episode, near the end. (With the toy plastic dinosaur as a prop! Hah! ''So'' awesome!)
* [[Nice Hat]]: Both the guys with their little silver beanies.
* [[Nice Hat]]: Both the guys with their little silver beanies.
* [[Robot Buddy]]: Giz
* [[Robot Buddy]]: Giz
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[[Category:American Series]]
[[Category:American Series]]
[[Category:Starstuff]]
[[Category:Starstuff]]
[[Category:TV Series]]

Latest revision as of 23:36, 1 October 2020

Starstuff was a locally produced children's science fiction TV series made by WCAU channel 10 in Philadelphia in 1980, and periodically rerun on that station for years afterward. The theme song and much of the incidental music was taken from Gustav Holst's The Planets. 18 episodes were produced.

Chris is a normal albeit very intelligent 10-year old living with his mother in Philadelphia. His pride and joy is the home-made computer he has assembled in his room out of an old TV set and countless electronic odds and ends. When he tries it out, however, he discovers that by some fluke of physics (owing mostly to where he happened to build it), his computer is able to communicate with another computer which will exist on an orbiting space colony in the year 2010. This future computer is owned by a 10-year old girl named Ingrid, and the two kids are able to communicate by audio/video transmission. The children decide to keep their amazing discovery secret, and they quickly become best friends. The show consists mainly of their conversations, comparing their very different lives on Earth and in orbit, as well as dealing with Chris's relatively mundane everyday troubles and Ingrid's more exotic but still basically everyday travails. It was surprisingly awesome.

Chris was also a fan of Laurel and Hardy, and had a vast collection of their silent short films, which he would share with Ingrid Once an Episode.

Roughly midway through the one-hour program, the show would switch to a fifteen-minute serialized puppet segment, "The Edge Of Space," about two aliens, Commanders Krikles and Zornad, and their "faithful robot companion" Giz, as they tried with varying degrees of success to study life on the mysterious planet Earth.

Tropes used in Starstuff include:

The Edge of Space provides examples of:

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