The actual two hour black and white pilot did not include Smith or the robot.
The pilot was edited to include the Dr Smith spy Saboteur plot and resulted in the first four episodes, the best ones in my opinion. I agree with your assessment, it was greatly improved,
There was no Smith Robot comedy team skits in those first few episodes, Smith controlled the robot and ordered him to kill the Robinson family one by one when caught alone to leave Don to fly him back to earth. Recall the one eyed giants and the planet freezing then heating in short cycles.
I have seen the pilot a few times and the opening episodes many more. I saw the opening episodes as a child its first run in the 1960s and every show scared the heck out of us little kids,
It plays on MeTV Saturdays midnight's.
Eventually Smith character evolved into a lazy selfish Gilligan.
” It plays on MeTV Saturdays midnight’s.”
Thanks. I haven’t seen it since the mid 1960’s.
Curious. That means I may never have seen the actual pilot, but the “reedited” version that was the first aired episode. I see the unaired pilot is up online:
www.hulu.com/watch/148
I do remember reading that Roddenberry was invited by CBS to pitch Star Trek (this around 1964), but the executives were really trying to find out what his idea was and steal parts of it to do their own sci-fi series (which, of course, became “Lost In Space”).
Wow, I absolutely do NOT remember that... I do remember some black and white episodes, but...
Another of my favorite shows was “Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea”... which is also on MeTV and H&I.
Great time to be a little kid, back then. “Time Tunnel”... “Land of the Giants” ... “Wild Wild West”... Loved them all.