Flash Gordon GAF Viewmaster

Model Kit of the Week: Flash Gordon and the Martian (1965; Revell)

Board Game of the Week: Flash Gordon (Waddington; 1977)

Action Figures of the Week: Flash Gordon (Mattel)

Pop Art: Flash Gordon (RCA Edition)

Lunch Box of the Week: Flash Gordon (1979)

Theme Song of the Week: Flash Gordon (1979 - 1980)

Advert Art: Flash Gordon (Filmation Edition)

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Flash Gordon: "Survival Game" / "Gremlin's Finest Hour" (November 6, 1982)

In “Survival Game,” Arkon Bay, a bounty hunter (and reptile man), is hired by Ming to retrieve Flash Gordon, dead or alive. 

When Flash and Arkon crash land on a small island following a pursuit, they must work together to survive.

In “Gremlin’s Finest Hour,” Dr. Zarkov detects some unusual happenings in Mongo’s polar region.  

There, at the site of an ancient civilization, he is detecting unusual power readings.  Flash, Thun, Dale and Gremlin travel to investigate, taking along a “retro-scope” which permits them to see back in time thousands of years.

Once in the polar region, they encounter Ancients who mistake Gremlin for their lizard God.

Well, Filmation's Flash Gordon ends not with a bang, but with a whimper, with two underwhelming stories.  

“Survival Game is basically yet another “My Enemy, My Ally” story in which Flash and an opponent, here a bounty hunter, learn to respect and help each other so they can survive a crisis.  And yes, Flash Gordon just recently did a similar story in the second season: "The Warrior."

Meanwhile, “Gremlin’s Finest Hour” hauls out the old trope involving a tribe of ignorant natives mistaking somebody mortal for a God (see: Return of the Jedi [1983]).  Here, that individual is Gremlin, who sits on a dragon throne and eats berries with satisfaction while demanding that Thun fan him.

Both stories exemplify the problems Flash Gordon had after Season One. Basically, for all intents and purposes, Flash’s most interesting narrative ended with the fall of Ming. Season Two feels like an after-thought, a catalog of inconsequential adventures following the main event.  

A better approach, I submit, would have been to come up with a new arc for Season Two that would have kept all the characters occupied and in real danger.  

Personally, I think the “Gor-don” character, the once-ruler of Mongo (and Flash’s double) who was prophesied to return to Mongo one day, should have become the main villain as he returned to Mongo and invaded it. 

Ming could have still played a part, but our heroes would have been fully engaged and fighting for their lives (and freedom) as this new enemy arrived to take advantage of the power vacuum created by Ming’s fall.

I still love Filmation's Flash Gordon, at least it's first season.  But the second season was a grave disappointment.

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Flash Gordon: "Beware of Gifts" / "The Memory Bank of Ming" (October 30, 1982)

In “Beware of Gifts,” Ming claims to have had a change of heart. He wants peace, and to prove it, he gives Arboria a present: a huge statue of a warrior from Mongo.  

Flash and the others allow the statue within the city walls, and the “stone avenger” promptly comes to life and embarks on a campaign of destruction. 

Flash uses electron torpedoes to attempt to destroy the destructive statue, to no effect.  He realizes he must destroy the statue’s controls, located in Ming’s lab.  He uses Zarkov’s experimental cloaking device to get there undetected in his rocket.

In “The Memory Bank of Ming,” Arboria activates a revolutionary new computer or A.I. system, named “Arnold,” to control the operation of the city.  

Things go awry, however, when Gremlin accidentally slips Arnold a memory tape containing the personality of Ming the Merciless.

This week, “Beware of Gifts” is a straight-up re-telling of the Trojan Horse myth. 

One would think Flash might specifically bring up this historical/literary parallel (especially since he’s been spending time in a library, if we are to believe “The Freedom Balloon”). The story also evokes memories of “The Seed,” another second season story in which Ming hatches a plan to get a monster inside of Arboria to destroy it.

“The Memory Bank of Ming” finds every device in Arboria “totally out of control” when a friendly A.I. gets reprogrammed with Ming’s personality, thanks to Gremlin.  

Here, Dale distracts Arnold in the final act by playing tic-tac-toe with him. It’s a rather underwhelming story, but I like the depiction of Arnold as a hovering, friendly drone.

Next week we come to the end of our Flash Gordon season two retrospective with “Survival Game” and “Gremlin’s Finest Hour.”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Flashbak: Flash Gordon: "The Freedom Balloon" / "Sacrifice of the Volcano Men" (October 23, 1982)

In “The Freedom Balloon,” Flash and Dale are captured by mutants, led by the evil Racar. Fortunately, Flash has been watching history tapes about cowboys and westerns at the library in Arboria and knows just the ticket to escape enslavement: a hot air balloon.

In “Sacrifice of the Volcano Men,” Thun is captured by vicious ape men and taken to Volcano City. There, he is to be fed to the active volcano as a living sacrifice to the ape man God.

Only two more episodes of Flash Gordon (1979-1982) to go, but the second season has more than worn out its welcome by this time.  

These fifteen minute stories are hobbled by hoary narratives, and rendered dopey by the ubiquitous presence of trouble-prone sidekick, Gremlin.  Worse, Flash acts more like first season Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) than like his dependable, stolid self in this batch of episodes.  He has a wise crack for every scenario, every danger.

I don’t know what it is about Saturday morning shows and hot air balloons, but every 1970s series -- from Land of the Lost (1974-1977) to Valley of the Dinosaurs (1974) -- seems to feature an episode about one.  “The Freedom Balloon” is Flash Gordon’s version.  

The big question to ask here is why Flash is watching library tapes about Westerns on Arboria, a kingdom on distant Mongo…

The second story in this half-hour is just as clichéd as the first. Thun is captured so as to be a sacrifice to a volcano God.  That is also the plot of “An Act of Love,” a 1977 episode of The Fantastic Journey.

I suppose one could make the argument that Flash Gordon season two is attempting to function as a pastiche of 1930s serials, reviving old tropes like The Most Dangerous Game, or the volcano god.  But the stories are told without flair and without regard to context.. They are without any sort of fresh touch at all, and feel long, even for their brief length.

.

Next week: “Beware of Gifts” / “The Memory Bank of Ming”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Flash Gordon: "Flash Back" / "The Warrior" (October 16, 1982)

In “Flash Back,” Flash’s rocket approaches a space phenomenon like a black hole.  Flash disappears inside the vortex and materializes on Mongo. But to his surprise, it is an evil version of Mongo.  

There, he encounters a sinister version of himself.  “Welcome to the negative side of the universe,” he greets himself.

In the end, Dale must choose which Flash is “hers,” if she is to save the day.  Fortunately, she chooses wisely.

In “The Warrior,” Flash and Ming end up on an unexplored continent together. They are captured by a warrior who judges them the two most powerful men on Mongo.  He decides to hunt them, making them his prey.

This installment of Flash Gordon’s second season relies heavily on clichés, or more accurately, genre tropes. 

“Flash Back” is a variation on Star Trek stories such as “Mirror, Mirror” and “Whom Gods Destroy.”  From the former, the story adopts the idea of a negative dimension, where good people are evil, and vice versa. 

And from the latter, the episode takes the idea of a person (whether Spock or Dale) having to select the “right” person from a pair of physically identical beings.  That selection can only made on how well the "guesser" understands the identity or character of the person duplicated.

“The Warrior,” meanwhile, is pastiche of two other tropes.  

It is part The Most Dangerous Game, a story of a great hunter choosing people as prey, and the commonly seen “my enemy, my ally” chestnut.  In “My Enemy, My Ally,” for instance, committed enemies must work together to stop an immediate threat.

Intriguingly, I am concurrently reviewing another Filmation animated series of the 1980s, Blackstar (1981) and it also relies on the same tropes.  

For instance, upcoming Blackstar episodes revive the “Mirror, Mirror” trope (in “Tree of Evil”) and the My Enemy, My Ally trope too (in “The Overlord’s Big Spell.”)

Next Week: ““The Freedom Balloon” / “Sacrifice of the Volcano Men”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Flash Gordon: "Witch Woman" / "Micro Menace" (October 9, 1982)

In “Witch Woman,” Arboria is attacked by a monster called “Lobos.” This wolf monster -- one of Ming’s creations -- is worshiped as a God by Liza, Queen of the Lizard people.

In “Micro Menace,” the city of the Hawk-men is falling out of the sky and must be repaired. 

It can be fixed only with a device invented by Dr. Zarkov called a “reverser,” but matters are not so simple. 

Ming uses a shrink ray on Flash, Dale, Thun and Gremlin. Now they must work with a race of intelligent mouse/rat people to undo the shrink ray and save the city.

This week, we get two further rather undistinguished episodes of Flash Gordon (1979-1982).  The second season format is really a downgrade from the serialized season one. And because there are two episodes per half-hour, the narratives feel simplistic and half-thought-out. The episodes are mostly mindless action and dopey comedic hijinks from Gremlin.

Surprisingly, “Witch Woman” features some nice moments involving Princess Aura. We see her checking security precautions in Arboria, and grappling with the Lobos without assistance from Flash or Barin.  

It's nice to see that she is depicted here as capable and strong. It’s just too bad that for every good moment with Aura (one of the series’ most intriguing characters, given her arc…) we are also treated to moments with Gremlin doing magic tricks or juggling plates too.

“Micro Menace” brings back the Hawkmen, though they have almost nothing of interest to do in the story.  

Instead, we get a story that feels like it came straight from Irwin Allen’s Land of the Giants (1968-1969). The episode strains our suspension of disbelief since Flash and Dale already have everything they need -- namely the reverser -- to escape all their predicaments.

At the end of the story, one character makes the pronouncement “may your cheese never go stale” (vis-à-vis the rat people…).  

These stories are evidence, perhaps, that Flash Gordon, season two, has gone pretty stale indeed.

Next week: “Flash Back,” and “The Warrior”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Flash Gordon: "The Game" / "The Seed" (October 2, 1982)

In “The Game,” the rulers of Cavern City burrow into Arboria (interrupting a dance) and capture several denizens -- including Flash -- to serve as gladiators in their arena games.

In “The Seed,” Ming the Merciless embeds a new weapon inside a meteor, and then crashes it into Arboria. The strange seed sprouts a giant tentacled monster, which goes on a killing rampage.

The second season of Filmation’s Flash Gordon (1979-1982) doesn’t gain much momentum from the two stories in this installment.

We have already seen Flash in an arena fight before (in the first season installment “Chapter 12: Tournament of Death”), and we’ve also seen him lead slave rebellions too.  Accordingly, "The Game" doesn't break much in terms of new ground.

However, this story does feature a nice opening shot. We move down, from Mongo orbit, through the clouds -- down to Arboria.  It’s a nice segue, and one that gets reused a few times in the second season, and in the next batch of episodes.

As, we get to see Flash act like a “first rate ham” dancing with Dale in “The Game,” and it is hard not to reflect how his character has become more cocky and less sincere than in his first season incarnation.  He doesn't feel like Flash anymore. He doesn't take anything, even danger, seriously.

“The Seed” is pretty dire too. 

The monster that the seed looks like a cross between The Real Ghostbusters’ Slimer and the creature from Cloverfield (2008), but is vaguely humorous all the same.

Here, the best character touch involves Dae Arden learning to fly a rocket on a simulator in Arboria (about time too…).  I also liked the new hovercraft design we see during the attack on the creature.  

The episode’s ending, with the monster turning on Ming in his science lab, is pretty risible. It's a typical cartoon ending.  The villain gets his comeuppance, but by the next episode everything is back to normal.  We are never told how Ming gets rid of the beast.

Next week: “Witch Woman” and “Micro Menace”

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Flash Gordon: "Sir Gremlin/Deadly Double" (September 24, 1982)

In the second episode of Flash Gordon's (1979 - 1982) second season, Gremlin the Dragon is once again a central character.

In "Sir Gremlin," the hapless pink dragon is on hand to help Flash when Azura the sorceress once more attempts to win the heart and soul of Earthman.  

On the "Night of the Magic Moons," Azura executes her strategy, ordering her "magic men" to abduct Dale Arden. Naturally, Flash follows,,and Azura offers him the chance to be king. When he refuses, the witch makes Flash battle a giant beast man.

In "Deadly Double," Ming the Merciless is back with another evil plan. His chief cyberneticist, Dr. Tavv, has created a robot duplicate of Gremlin and replaced the real thing, causing havoc for Flash and his friends.

There's not much positive to write about this second installment of the second season of Flash Gordon. The first season of the series did such a great job diagramming Flash's attempt to win over he chaotic kingdoms of Mongo and defeat the tyrant Ming the Merciless that these episodes feel largely pointless.

The second season of Flash Gordon, in other words, is AfterMASH, a kind of footnote, at least narratively-speaking to the main event.  

There's no real sense of urgency, and threat of Ming is totally undone since he doesn't operate, anymore, from a position of power. Instead, he's just sort of a bungling has-been, hatching ridiculous plans.

In "Double Dragon" his entire (silly) plan revolves around replacing Gremlin, and using that robot replacement to lead Flash to his doom.  

While it's interesting that the episode introduces Dr. Tavv, the scientist who designed Ming's (awesome) metal men, it says something that Ming's plan involves using Gremlin against Flash.  Is Gremlin really such an important figure in Flash's life? In Mongo politics?  

A better plan might have been to replace Dale Arden, or Flash with a duplicate, and sow discontent from within Mongo's new ruling regime. 

Instead, we just get a robot version of Gremlin that Thun recognizes instantly as a phony, and that shreds a football.  In two words, this is all small potatoes, isn't it?

The first story of this half-hour resurrects one of the crummiest aspects of Flash Gordon season one, which was that female rulers on Mongo all desperately desire Flash, and would give up their royal seat for his love and partnership.  

Azura already tried that last season, and she does so again in "Sir Gremlin," with the same results. 

That's the definition of insanity, right?  

Anyway, why would an amazingly powerful ruler, with fearsome magical abilities, willingly render herself secondary to a man she has met once?  Forget the sexist aspects of the story. We never, for example, see a male ruler, like Ming, offer to give up his throne for Dale's love.  Instead, just focus on what a bad idea this is in terms of logic.  Would any ruler give up power to a lover she or he hardly knows, and one from another planet at that?

The worst quality of this episode, however, is just how darn inconsequential it all feels after Ming's take down. 

I think what the writers needed -- and didn't have here -- was a second story to equal the first season's  

Perhaps the story of how Flash, Dale and Zarkov try to find what they need on Mongo to get home and return to Earth?   Maybe that could have learned that somewhere on Mongo, in a cavern or lost city, rests a teleporter that can beam them to any location in the universe.  

Another story possibility:What if the legendary Gor-Don, precursor, to Ming, came home, and wants power again? 

Next week: "The Game/The Seed."