BUCK ROGERS (1981) "The Golden Man" TV Guide Ad

Here's another TV Guide ad for the second season of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, specifically the episode, "The Golden Man," complete with misleading and titillating ad copy!

For other Rogers TV Guide promos, check out these earlier posts:

BUCK ROGERS TV Guide Advertisements
BUCK ROGERS 2nd Season TV Guide Ad 
More BUCK ROGERS 2nd Season TV Guide Ads!

SPACE STARS (1981) DVD Art Revealed

As noted back in July, the manufacture-on-demand wing of Warner Home Video, Warner Archive, plans to bring the 1981 Hanna-Barbara Saturday-morning animated series, Space Stars, to DVD this Fall. The DVD key art above has recently appeared online, so I thought I'd share it here.

With this show, Hanna-Barbara and NBC jumped on the post-Star Wars boom by reviving and repackaging the studio's 60s outer space heroes Space Ghost and The Herculoids (mixing both classic episodes and newly-made installments) with two other space-themed cartoons - The Teen Force and Astro (from The Jetsons) & The Space Mutts - for an hour-long programming block.

Hmmm. I wonder why The Galaxy Trio didn't make the roster?

UPDATE: According to TV Shows On DVD, Space Stars will be released next Tuesday, on October 8th. Warner Archive is accepting pre-orders on the set now through their site. Price is $29.95.

News: Hanna-Barbera's SPACE STARS (1981) Coming To DVD From Warner Archive

Well, it's a good thing there's been a lot of home video news lately, as I've been too busy with other projects to do much substantial posting here on the blog. Among many other announcements at San Diego Comic Con last week, apparently the folks at Warner Archive teased an upcoming release for the 1981 Saturday morning cartoon series, Space Stars.

As I wrote a while back: with Space Stars, Hanna-Barbara jumped on the post-Star Wars boom by reviving and repackaging their 60s outer space heroes Space Ghost and The Herculoids (mixing both classic episodes and newly-made installments) with two other space-themed cartoons - The Teen Force and Astro (from The Jetsons) & The Space Mutts - for an hour-long, themed programming block.

I don't believe an official release date has been announced yet, but I'll try and stay on top of it and let you all know as soon as I find out.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: SPACE STARS (1981)

In 1981, Hanna-Barbara jumped on the post-Star Wars boom by reviving and repackaging their 60s outer space heroes Space Ghost and The Herculoids (mixing both classic episodes and newly-made installments) with two other space-themed cartoons - The Teen Force and Astro (from The Jetsons) & The Space Mutts - for an hour-long programming block called Space Stars.

I really don't remember much about this series - I was getting to the age where I preferred to sleep in on Saturdays, and aside from Thundarr & Blackstar, I wasn't watching many new cartoons then - but I do remember being disappointed that the new Space Ghost shorts featured a re-designed Phantom Cruiser, eschewing the sleek, classic Alex Toth look in favor of something that more closely resembled a Star Wars or Galactica type spaceship.

So pretend it's Saturday morning, September 26, 1981, and enjoy this brief taste of Hanna-Barbara's Space Stars!

French BLACKSTAR (1981) Comic Book

Apparently, Filmation's 1981 animated series, Blackstar, had a lot more merchandising than most of their (pre-He-Man) shows - and certainly considerably more stuff than I was aware of. Much of it appears to have been European, with a wide variety of action figures and other toys. As far as I know, there weren't any English language Blackstar comic books, but there was at least one French one, as the scan above illustrates!

I still have a lot of affection for this show, despite those annoying "kid friendly" Trobbits. I think it's pretty much the only American sci-fi television show - cartoon or live action - that actually represented the "sword & planet" subgenre, and I've always dug that kind of story. Sure, it owed a debt to Flash Gordon, but it also owed quite a lot to the interplanetary swashbucklers of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his imitators.

The Other BUCK ROGERS Novels

This past weekend, I finally got my hands on the two books I was missing in Ace's 1981-1983 series of Buck Rogers novels (although the name "Buck Rogers" never appears in any of them). These four books are authorized sequels to the original pulp novels Armageddon 2419 A.D. (1928) and The Airlords Of Han (1929) by Philip Francis Nowlan, and were written by various authors from an outline by SF pros Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. As in the original stories, the hero's name is Anthony Rogers, and the titles (and authors) were: Mordred by John Eric Holmes, Warrior's Blood and Warrior's World by Richard S. McEnroe, and Rogers' Rangers by John Silbersack.

Although published within a few months of the cancellation of the Buck Rogers In The 25th Century teleseries, there was no connection between the program and these books. In fact, I suspect they didn't use the "Buck" name, in part, to distance them from the show.This is not unlike the Flash Gordon novels published by Tempo Books around the same time - those books had no connection with the recent animated and film versions of Flash, either.

I haven't actually read any of these yet because I wanted to collect all four first. Now that I have them on the shelf, I'm hoping to get to them soon.... and further hoping that they're a lot better than the two awful Buck Rogers TV tie-in paperbacks published a couple of years before by "Addison Steele" (Richard Lupoff).

THE POWERS OF MATTHEW STAR (1981)

The Powers Of Matthew Star was another show, like The Phoenix, which appeared at the very tail-end of what I define as the Space: 1970 era, premiering on NBC in the Fall of 1981. It starred Peter Barton as the titular character, an alien prince in exile on Earth possessing various psi powers. Helping him hide from his extraterrestrial enemies and keeping his alien identity a secret from us simple Earthlings was his guardian, played by future Academy Award-winner, Louis Gossett Jr. Matthew's human girlfriend was played by Amy Steel.

The show had a troubled production, with considerable changes made between the pilot film (including the character's name) and the subsequent, single-season series. There was also a mid-season course change as the show more-or-less dropped its original premise of a super-powered teenager trying to keep his true identity secret while struggling with the trials and tribulations of high school (rather like Smallville's early years, actually) in favor of Matthew and his guardian becoming secret agents for the government.

A number of Space: 1970 vets worked on the show, including Six Million Dollar Man/The Invisible Man's Harve Bennett, and producer Bruce Lansbury, fresh off Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. Star Trek actor Walter Koenig wrote an episode, and Leonard Nimoy directed one.

I honestly don't recall much about the show. I remember watching the first episode and not getting into it, despite my love of the genre. I think part of it was that I was getting older, and could sense, even if only subconsciously, that the producers and network were battling over the show's direction, and it just wasn't coming together. I also remember thinking Barton looked too mature to be a High School kid.

But it did just well enough in the ratings to get a full season - which is more than shows like Planet Of The Apes, Logan's Run, and the aforementioned Phoenix managed. As the clip embedded above shows, it also aired on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the 90s.

THE PHOENIX (1981)

Admittedly, my memories of the 1981 television series, The Phoenix, are pretty dim. This short-lived series starred Judson Scott of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan as a Von Daniken-inspired ancient astronaut named Bennu, who was wakened from suspended animation within an Incan pyramid by a team of archeologists. Possessing various psi powers, he became a target for government agents (led by the always-sinister Richard Lynch), who constantly pursued him. (As we all know, if a character has any sort of super-abilities on a Space: 1970-era television series, he has only two options: secret agent or fugitive.)

According to the IMDb, there were only five episodes produced (although I coulda swore there were more than that). There was a subplot about Bennu searching for his mate, whose body disappeared sometime before his resurrection, and all the usual "stranger in a strange land" tropes. Scott was a good choice for the role - he always had a certain "alien" quality about him, which served him well when he guested on sci-fi TV shows like the original V, The Powers Of Matthew Star, Babylon 5, The X-Files and Star Trek - The Next Generation.

As I say, I don't remember much about the show. I'm sure I watched all or most of the episodes when it aired, and I saw part of one again back in the mid-90s when it aired on the Sci-Fi Channel.  What little I can recall is reasonably positive, though. I don't think it was much worse than many more successful genre shows... but obviously, the network was unhappy with it and cancelled it almost immediately.

As it does fall within my arbitrary Space: 1970 timeframe (1969-1983), I wanted to include it here; I'm sure there are some Star Kids who remember it both more clearly and more fondly than I do.

BUCK ROGERS (1981) "The Satyr" Network Promo

There's a lot of fun packed into this 20-second 1981 NBC promo for the second season Buck Rogers In The 25th Century episode "The Satyr" - not the least of which is the delightfully goofy monster make-up.

In fine Universal Television tradition*, the script for the episode was recycled from a previous Universal series.  Actually, the TV story - which already owed a huge debt to the 1953 George Stevens-directed Western, Shane - was also re-used, again, on a subsequent adventure series from the cost-conscious studio.

On Battlestar Galactica a couple of years prior, it was known as "The Lost Warrior," and featured the heroic Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch), marooned on an isolated, human colony world and protecting a farm-dwelling widow and her hero-worshiping young son from the amnesiac Cylon "gunfighter" that killed her husband.

On Buck Rogers, the titular space explorer (as portrayed by Gil Gerard) is marooned on an isolated, human colony world and finds himself protecting a farm-dwelling widow and her hero-worshiping young son from the marauding, satyr-like alien creature that was once her husband.

And, a year or so later, on the 1982 ABC adventure series, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, the script would be dusted off again, as "The Lady And the Tiger;" this time so that South Seas aviator Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins of Star Trek- The Motion Picture) could get marooned on an isolated, tropical island and protect a farm-dwelling widow and her hero-worshiping young son from the man-eating tiger that killed her husband!

Ahhh.... classic television.... you gotta love it.

* The most notorious example of Universal's story recycling is when they took the script from the Knight Rider episode, "Good Day At White Rock" and re-used it the following season on The A-Team, where it was titled, "Black Day At Bad Rock!"  Another choice example is the re-use of the Six Million Dollar Man script "Survival Of The Fittest" for The Bionic Woman episode, "Fly Jaime."

Coming Attractions: OUTLAND (1981) Theatrical Trailer

And, for those who don't remember the movie very well, here's the theatrical trailer for Peter Hyam's Outland. Featuring a great cast - Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen - and a fine score by Jerry Goldsmith (Star Trek - The Motion Picture, Alien, Logan's Run, etc.), Outland is one of my personal favorites from the latter part of the Space: 1970 era. As noted yesterday, the movie will be receiving an HD Blu-ray release from Warner Home Entertainment in July.

News: OUTLAND (1981) Coming to Blu-ray in July

The 1981 space Western, Outland, directed by Peter Hyams and starring Sean Connery, Peter Boyle and Frances Sternhagen, is coming to Blu-ray disc in July, just in time for my birthday. Considering how crappy the 2007 DVD looked, I'm hoping for a full-fledged, HD remaster. Since Warner Home Video generally does a decent job on their catalog titles, I'm hopeful.

The plot is High Noon on Io, with Connery as a Marshall stationed at a mining colony, who finds himself pitted against both the corruption of the company running the colony, and hired assassins imported to kill him. Even though the story is familiar, I like the production design and miniature effects a great deal, and the cast does a solid, professional job with the material, bringing a lot of humanity and conviction to their stock roles.

You can preorder the Blu-ray (currently priced around $15) at Amazon: Outland [Blu-ray]

William Shatner For Commodore Computers

Star Trek's William Shatner shills for Commodore Computers' VIC-20 - "The wonder computer of the 1980s" - in this vintage commercial from around 1981. Gotta love the cutting-edge video "transporter" effect!

PLANET OF THE APES (1974) - Roddy McDowell TV Movie Epilogues

When 20th Century Fox television repackaged episodes of the 1974 Planet Of The Apes television series into two-hour TV movies for syndication in 1981, they apparently shot original wraparound footage for each of the new "features" with Roddy McDowell as an aged Galen, who would wrap up the loose ends of the plot and tie the flicks together. According to what I've read, these short bits were only used once, during the original airings of these "movies" and only in the New York market. Here are two of those rare clips from the fifth and final flick, Farewell To The Planet Of The Apes:

Gil Gerard PSA (1981)

Buck Rogers himself, Gil Gerard, encourages young people to embrace technology and pursue high-tech careers in this Public Service spot from 1981. I love these sort of pop culture artifacts!

More BUCK ROGERS 2nd Season TV Guide Ads!

Thanks to Space: 1970 reader "Bishop37," here are two more vintage TV Guide advertisements from early 1981, promoting the delayed second season of the revamped Buck Rogers In The 25th Century television series. Both of these illustrations appear to be the work of the same unidentified artist who created the ad I posted a few days ago.

The top ad heralds the two-hour season premiere episode, "Time Of The Hawk," which introduced Thom Christopher as the series' new resident alien, avian humanoid "Hawk." The other is for the third episode, "The Guardians." When I was a kid, poring over TV Guide each week, planning my viewing schedule, I loved these kinds of advertisements, which always promised so much... which is one reason why I post them on this blog. They spark great memories from a less cynical time.

A bunch of Buck Year One TV Guide ads can be found HERE.

BUCK ROGERS 2nd Season TV Guide Ad

Here's the only TV Guide advertisement I've found so far for the second season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. In this case, it's for the second episode of Year Two, "Journey To Oasis," guest-starring 70s sci-fi fave Mark Lenard (Star Trek, The Planet Of The Apes, Cliffhangers!) as an old flame of Wilma's (!?).

I posted a bunch of first season Buck Rogers/TV Guide ads HERE, a while back.

FYI: I just noticed that the complete Buck Rogers (as well as the original Battlestar Galactica) series is now available for instant streaming on Netflix.

CONQUEST OF THE EARTH (1981) Theatrical Posters

I'm kind of amazed that I never stumbled onto this before, but here are a couple of posters (British quad at top) for the feature film compiled from the premiere episodes of Galactica 1980.

I wrote about the Battlestar Galactica "movies" a while back, and I've seen the poster for Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack many times, but this is the first I've heard of or seen any promo art for Conquest Of The Earth.

GALAXY OF TERROR (1981) Blu-Ray Review

As a Halloween Special, here's my review of the Shout! Factory Blu-ray release of one of my favorite "Space Horror" films, 1981's Galaxy of Terror. This review originally appeared at my DVD Late Show site in July of 2010.

Intended as a budget-conscious rip-off of Alien, the Roger Corman-produced, sci-fi horror thriller, Galaxy Of Terror (1981), has been a much sought-after title for cult film fans for years. Previously released back in the 80s on VHS in a dark, fuzzy, full-frame version, Shout! Factory has now brought the movie to digital disc in high style.

The spaceship Quest, with a hastily-assembled crew, is sent to the dread planet Morganthus on a mission to investigate the crash of another vessel and rescue survivors, if any. A quick trip through hyperspace later, they land on the mist-shrouded, wreckage-strewn planet. There they find a gigantic alien pyramid, and upon entering it, each crew member finds themselves being attacked by the physical manifestations of their own deepest fears....

With the kind of eclectic cast that makes B-movies so much fun to watch - including Jason Of Star Command's Sid Haig, Robert Englund, Erin Moran, Edward Albert, Ray Walston and Grace Zabriskie - imaginative production design and second-unit direction by a young James Cameron (fresh off of Battle Beyond The Stars), and a memorable, show-stopping, classic exploitation sequence where a beautiful young woman (Taaffe O'Connell,) is sexually assaulted by a gigantic space slug, Galaxy Of Terror delivers a solid 81+ minutes of late night sci-fi horror for cult film aficionados.

There's really very little story here, and director Bruce Clark seems to have been just going through the motions, but Cameron's sets, costumes and miniature effects designs (as well as his stylish second unit direction) make the film look much more expensive than it really was, and the veteran actors manage to breathe a surprising amount of life into the cyphers the script gives them to play. Corman's crew - most of whom went on to stellar Hollywood careers - also accomplishes some genuinely striking pre-CGI special effects that hold up astoundingly well, even nearly 30 years later. There's lots of great miniature work, a bit of stop-motion animation, and plenty of convincing and disgustingly bloody demises.

Originally released theatrically as Mindwarp: An Infinity Of Terror to disappointing box office returns, Corman quickly retitled it Planet Of Horrors, and then Galaxy Of Terror, and created a new, more lurid, pulpy ad campaign. It worked, and the movie was a moderate hit in the autumn of 1981.

Shout! Factory gives another "Roger Corman Cult Classic" the Rolls Royce treatment on Blu-Ray disc, with a remarkably clear and detailed 1.77:1 1080p HD widescreen transfer that is light years away from the murky VHS version that I bought more than a decade and a half ago. Audio is presented in Dolby 2.0 mono. As with their other Corman titles, Galaxy Of Terror is just loaded with supplemental features, including an entertaining cast & crew commentary, an extensive, multi-part documentary on the making of the film, huge still galleries, and trailers for the feature and other Corman titles coming from Shout! In addition, there's a 12-page booklet of liner notes!

And if, for some reason, you prefer the MINDWARP title, the company has thoughtfully printed that title and poster artwork on the reverse side of the disc sleeve, so you can shelve your disc under that name, if you like.

It's exciting to finally see a good (far better than good, actually) presentation of this long-time B-flick favorite, and the abundance of informative and engaging bonus features is just icing on the cake. If you're a fan of "astronauts in hell" movies, Galaxy Of Terror is one of the best. Sure, it's illogical and tasteless, but it's also a heck of a lot of fun, and looks great in high-def. Besides, how many other films have little Joanie Cunningham meeting her gory demise in the bowels of an alien pyramid?

Highly and enthusiastically recommended.

BUY: Galaxy Of Terror (Roger Corman's Cult Classics) [Blu-ray]

BUY: Galaxy Of Terror (Roger Corman's Cult Classics) [DVD]

Cover Gallery: MAD about STAR WARS

Nothing much to say except that I bought the first two of these issues when they came out, even though I usually preferred Cracked. Yeah, I was that kid. What can I say - I liked John Severin more than Mort Drucker....

OUTLAND (1981) Theatrical Posters

Outland is another favorite space Western of mine. When I saw this in the theater during the summer of 1981, I was at the peak of my James Bond fanaticism, and, as far as I was concerned, Sean Connery could do no wrong. Of course, the best thing about this film is Frances Sternhagen, although I really like the production design, miniature effects and Jerry Goldsmith score, too.

Despite the "functional" look of the Io mining station sets, Outland is no more realistic than most of the other films I write about here at Space: 1970. Slightly less fanciful, perhaps, but it's still good, old fashioned space opera, just dirtied up a bit.