In 1976, while working at Capital Radio as a DJ, Kenny Everett created one of his most famous characters: Captain Kremmen - a 40-something, vain, and dimwitted spaceship captain, and a pastiche of Dan Dare.
The main cast consists of Captain Elvis Brandenburg Kremmen, Carla, and Dr. Heinrich von Gitfinger. The main foes are The Thargoids, The Krells, and The Sun-Suckers. Everett voiced all characters in all of the radio and video episodes, except for various introductions, which were spoken by DJ's such as Alan Freeman and Tommy Vance.
The shows started out as radio serials before being turned into an animated cartoon series in 1978, which were shown during The Kenny Everett Video Show TV series.
Captain Kremmen Cartoons & Movie
Captain Kremmen was turned into an animated cartoon series for the The Kenny Everett Video Shows (1978-1980) and as live-action sketches for the The Kenny Everett Video Cassette Show (1981).
The 39 cartoon episodes were all based on the original radio plays created by Everett during his time as DJ at Capital Radio. The cartoons were produced by Cosgrove Hall Films with characters designed and animated by Graham Kennedy.
In 1980 EMI Films released a short 22 minute movie.
Vinyl Releases
A number of vinyl recordings were produced between 1976 and 1980, including two full albums, a music single, and two special edition singles in aid of the Help A London Child charity events.
- A Captain Kremin Special: Help a London Child (1976)
- Captain Kremmen (Retribution) (1977)
- The Adventures Of Captain Kremmen: Help a London Child (1978)
- Captain Kremmen And The Krells (1980)
- Call For Kremmen by the Aliens (1980)
- Kremmen: The Movie (1980)
- The Greatest Adventure Yet From Captain Kremmen (1980)
Comic Books
Only one comic book was produced for Captain Kremmen, which was published by Corgi Books in 1977. The story for the book was based on the very first radio play Everett created, Captain Kremmen and the Krells.
In 1978 the London Evening Standard newspaper ran a daily Kremmen cartoon strip between June and December of that year, totalling 130 episodes!
Radio Plays
Between 1976 and 1980 Kenny Everett created 12 Captain Kremmen stories, totalling in excess of 100 individual episodes. Everett wrote, recorded all episodes, and voiced all characters, with just a handful of guests who would perform the introductions and outros.
Fun Facts
Everett took the name "Kremmen" from a 1960's American radio comedy called Superfun, produced by Mel Blanc.
The Thargoids name has been used as the main foe in all the ELITE video games, since 1984.
During the BBC broadcast of The Adventures of Captain Kremmen, several quotes from a Kenny Everett interview were included:
Well, in the early days each episode was about two and a half minutes but now it's sort of, I get carried away with myself and, last week's episode was six and a half minutes so it would probably end up as an hour show. But, in the early days, to do a two and a half minute episode, it used to take me about two hours.
I just picked the appropriate stuff like terribly exciting passages deserve terribly exciting pieces of music and there are lots of those around in the classical department. Like for instance, an LP called Dance Infernare which has got lots of evil pieces on it. It's got this one from Saint Sans, and it's called Dance Macabre. And it's rather good, isn't it? And it sort of invokes sort of, yikes, what's happening nextness.
A mountain of muscle, eh. But in the old days he was he was much more violent than he is now. We've cleaned him up since then. Here he was in the very first episode being terribly naughty with people's limbs...
Well then I used to make it as I went along, which was okay but it sort of wandered around a lot then. It didn't have a sort of a basic story but now I've got characters in it, so I need to type it. So what I do is I sit down for about an hour and a half typing away on my trusty typewriter here. This is the actual typewriter folks. And I type away like mad with two fingers and out comes a story.
A friend of mine over in the States who is Mel Blanc's son, you know Mel Blanc who does the Bugs Bunny voices. Well his son is a friend of mine and he does radio programs as well. He does very silly bits on record that he sells to all the American radio stations and he uses the name, the brand name Kremmen's in them all. So in the first series, I start off each episode with a track from this LP full of funny bits. And I just thought, well, seeing as the product's called Kremmen's, I might as well call the chap who's zapping around the universe Kremmen as well.