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(Left to right) Dave Fielding, portrayed by Bob Hastings, The Chief played by Bram Nossem and Steve Elliott, who in real life was Bob Courtleigh. Photo taken on the set of "Atom Squad's secret New York City lab."

Back in 1953 someone wrote: “Cowboys with a six shooter on either hip are getting to be obsolete on television. Scientists are rapidly replacing them with a real know-how on neutron guns instead of horses. They ride space ships. The baddies aren’t just plain earth rustlers but spies and saboteurs attempting to divert atomic energy to destructive purposes….” Sounds like they were talking about Atom Squad.

Atom Squad was a daily 15-minute television program aired over the NBC Television Network and originated from WPTZ, Channel 3 in Philadelphia. It aired from July 6, 1953 until to January 22, 1954 (it replaced the soap opera from Chicago, "Hawkins Falls" which moved to mornings) and was broadcast live Monday through Friday from 5 pm until 5:15 pm. Daily rehearsals usually started about noon and continued right to air time, five hours later. TV reviewers referred to the era as “the science-fiction age of television.” The network said, “Atom Squad stresses believability. Even though plots include space rockets; hypnotic guns and flying saucers, the reasoning behind their appearance is more than credible.” The job of the Atom Squad, television’s hard hitting guardians of atomic energy, is similar to any detective squad. With one difference, Steve Elliott and his gang usually deal with the unknown.

About six weeks after the show's premiere, got good news. The ratings for "Atom Squad" were good. The telecast had a 6.3 Nielsen rating with a 38 audience share during its first week of broadcast. By its third week, the numbers were even better. "Atom Squad" a 7.9 rating with a 47.9 share. "Hawkins Falls" saw nice ratings increases during the same time period.

The show wasn’t a space adventure program. The Atom Squad was an ultra-secret United States government agency and it dealt with different Cold War threats to security involving nuclear weapons and radiation. Many people thought that the cast and sets were reminiscent of "Captain Video," the old DuMont television series dating from 1949. Several of the cast from Atom Squad were “veterans” from the Captain Video program which was still on the air during the entire run of Atom Squad.

Robert Cortleigh (who at one time was an announcer on WPTZ) and Bob Hastings played the Atom Squad major characters of Steve Elliott and Dave Fielding. The chief was Bram Nossem. Bob had played "Hal, the Ranger's brother" on “Video.” Bob’s real life brother, Don, portrayed the part of the Video Ranger. Bram Nossem had played the first Dr. Pauli, Captain Video's arch-nemesis. The secret headquarters of the Atom Squad’s New York lab, looked an awful lot like the control room of the secret mountain headquarters of Captain Video. However, the Atom Squad set was said to have been more fancy, maybe because NBC-TV put a little more money into the show. The bad guys were evil Communist spies, saboteurs and mad scientists. However, they did see some aliens in three or four of the weekly story lines. Each week, the villains were done away with either atomically or by arresting them. Each story took 5 episodes to tell (Monday thru Friday). However, there were three stories that took two weeks. They were: "The Five Steps to the Kremlin," "The Scheme to Flood America" and "The Man Who Kidnapped Himself."

A few years later, Bob Hastings appeared on several episodes of NBC Radio's "X Minus One" Science Fiction broadcasts. Hastings later hosted a game show called “Dealer’s Choice.” He was also in “McHale’s Navy” as Joe Flynn’s sidekick, Lt. Elroy Carpenter and on the ABC-TV soap opera, “General Hospital” as Captain Burt Ramsey. Robert Cortleigh and Bram Nossem disappeared from the TV scene in the fifties. Bob Courtleigh was a veteran of a number of TV dramatic shows including the Kraft Theater, The Hallmark Hall of Fame, American Inventory and the Philco Playhouse. Courtleigh lived on Long Island in New York at the time. Most of the time he commuted daily via the Pennsylvania Railroad. He had his own motor boat and did watercolor painting.

Atom Squad’s show opening showed a man in a "radiation suit" moving at a snail’s pace towards the viewer. The theme song was "Tumult and Commotion" from the production music library record especially made for broadcasting. The show was a daily serial, similar in format to Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. It usually took a week to tell the whole story. A few stories actually carried over into the next week. Paul Monash was the writer for the series. Some give him credit for creating the program. Adrian Samish has been given credit for producing the program. His later producing credits include “Cannon,” “Dan August” and “Starsky and Hutch.” However, documents of that era show Lawrence White as Producer and Joe Behar as Director. The staff joked around and answered the WPTZ phones “This is Mercury. Come in, Saturn.” In the elevators (which also went to other offices not affiliated with WPTZ nor sister radio station KYW), the crew loved to put on people about the progress of the “hydrogen bomb” they were making. This left puzzled fellow passengers with raised eyebrows and many times, concerned.

Producing a daily science fiction series was not without its problems, at least when it was done in the Center City building that houses WPTZ’s studios, 1619 Walnut Street. Certain sequences had to be recorded on film (video-tape wasn’t invented yet). Space suits, atom guns and rockets were really difficult to manufacture, let alone conceive. Set and prop department people had a variety of headaches. One week, the show took place in the U.S.S.R., the next in a space ship and the third in a large cave. The casting department had its nightmares, too. One week, they need twin Japanese performers. But they had to be good actors, too. Remember, this was all done live with little or no trick photography.

It is assumed that Atom Squad was recorded on filmed kinescopes for the West Coast. However, none are known to have survived.

Bob Courtleigh was chosen in the summer of 1953 as an honorary delegate to the ninth annual World Science Fiction Convention held in Philadelphia in August of that year. The event was sponsored by the World Science Fiction Society. The event was still going strong in the Delaware Valley when the 58th edition took place in 2000.

Following Atom Squad at 5:15 was the Pinky Lee Show which expanded to 30 minutes once Atom Squad was canceled. Shortly afterwards, Bob Courtleigh was offered a leading role in a "future" Broadway play. No documentation whether he ever really got the role.

Well known character actor Joe Earley (known locally in Philadelphia as the Mechanical Man, Mr. Rivets) e-mailed:

I worked Atom Squad frequently. It starred Bob Courtleigh and Bob Hastings (There were two brothers, Bob and Don Hastings who were actors but only one ever worked Atom Squad... I'm pretty sure it was Bob.) It was directed by Joe Behar, who also directed Ernie Kovacs (at WPTZ). Joe went to Hollywood and is still directing "General Hospital." (Bob Hastings later worked with Behar on that ABC Soap Opera.) The show (Atom Squad) took place in Studio B on the second floor of 1619 Walnut. All of the net soaps originating in Philadelphia (Greatest Gift, First Love) came from Studio B.