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The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series)

1975 television series

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ7767711 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Swiss Family Robinson is an American action and adventure series that aired on ABC from September 14, 1975 to April 11, 1976. The two-hour pilot for the series was first shown on April 15, 1975. Based upon the 1812 novel The Swiss Family Robinson, the pilot and its 20 subsequent episodes of the series were produced by Irwin Allen, who had earlier produced a futuristic adaptation of the same novel in the 1965 TV series Lost in Space.

Synopsis

The series starred Martin Milner as Karl Robinson, the survivor of a shipwreck who found himself, his wife and two sons stranded on a volcanic island. In one of her first acting performances, Helen Hunt co-starred as a young girl who was stranded on the island from the same shipwreck and who was taken in by the Robinson family. Befriending the Robinsons was Jeremiah Worth (played by Cameron Mitchell), a sailor who had survived on the island alone for seven years following an earlier shipwreck.

The series was initially scheduled opposite NBC's Wonderful World of Disney and CBS' Three for the Road. In December 1975, CBS replaced Three for the Road with 60 Minutes which soon became a popular Sunday night staple. In addition to the tough competition, The Swiss Family Robinson was preempted several times and showed repeat episodes four times during its short run. The final original episode was telecast on April 4, 1976.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series)” is 1975 television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Swiss, Family and Robinson, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1975, 1976, 1812, 1965—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Swiss, Family and Robinson is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1975 television series” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7767711. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1976, 1812 and 1965.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series) primary sources, The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series) archive and Swiss research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Swiss Family Robinson (1975 TV series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.