Far beyond the world I've known

[austin_dern]

Though I watched eagerly the late 70s Buck Rogers TV series, that was because there wasn't a whole lot on in that era if you liked space stuff. I'd never seen the 1939 Universal serial starring Buster Crabbe because when would it have ever aired, and after all it was pop culture from a half-decade before my father was born. (I admit this is a weak excuse considering my old-time radio fandom, and ability to follow the contemporary and highly dated references this requires.) Plus it was a 1930s serial and my impression of 1930s serials is they're all grey men in hats having sluggish fist fights and getting into car crashes at the end of each installment that they're revealed next week to have jumped out of in a scene we didn't see before. This is perhaps a not perfectly fair prejudgement, but Turner Classic Movies started showing the 1939 serial recently and I can watch, two episodes a week, and see where I was right and wrong. (Overlooked: spaceship engine sounds in these things sound like someone breathing into an electric fan.)

The first installment, ``Tomorrow's World'', begins with Buck Rogers, a teenage sidekick unironically named Buddy, and two naval officers flying a dirigible (remember dirigibles?) buffeted by bad weather and made worse by the panicky flying of the naval officers. The Navy guys hilariously panic and parachute to safety, while Buck struggles to restore control. His base tells him, if he does crash, don't worry, they just happened to put a cylinder of animation-suspending gas so they should turn it on and wait for rescue, because of course they do that sort of thing. Unfortunately, Buddy accidentally falls on the handle and knocks out himself and Buck for five centuries. We jump ahead to the 25th Century.

They're rescued by a patrol from the Hidden City, which is hiding from --- well, let me put that in the next segment's discussion, for balance. Buck and Buddy are soon brought to Scientist-General Dr Huer and after a background check which consists of finding that there was in the 20th century a doctor who whipped up this suspended-animation gas, they're put in charge of an expedition to Saturn to seek aid from that powerful planet. It seems like space-operatic super-science cities of tomorrow have really loose security policies, but I know things were just remarkably lax in those pre-Cold War days. The installment ends with Rogers approaching Saturn and being shot down, making his second crash in one installment.

Trivia: On 14 May 1815 the Boston Manufacturing Company's first load of cotton cloth travelled by wagon from Waltham toward Boston Bay. Source: The King's Best Highway: The Lost History Of The Boston Post Road, The Route That Made America, Eric Jaffe.

Currently Reading: Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl.

Comments

[lexomatic.livejournal.com]

So the dirigible crashed and just happened to jam itself into an inaccessible cliff so that the Navy's attempts to mount a rescue/retrieval expedition were futile. Or they didn't get the chance because civilization fell the next weekend. One or the other.

(Googling -- Huh. I did not know the Akron and Macon were operated by the Navy. I'd thought it was the Army Air Corps.)

Also, Buck and Buddy were never eaten by scavengers, macro- or microscopic. Which should be a problem over an interval five centuries, even if you're a cave-prospector who succumbs to subterranean suspension-gases, as in the newspaper comic. (Whatever other problems it might have, the Glen Larson "frozen, lost in a cometary orbit, civilization fell" TV version at least provided a plausible reason for remaining undisturbed.)

I wonder if Buddy is short and has a predilection for strange catchphrases, like "bidi-bidi, bidi-bidi"?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I can give them the crash site being inaccessible, since so much of the Earth is really far away from anything (particularly in 1938/39 when the opening is set), and they weren't able to give a very precise location fix, and they crashed in a mountain range. But that the passenger cabin was reasonably airtight enough to survive the crash and five centuries of weather is straining things. And, yeah, something should have eaten them, although I suppose it's possible the microbes were equally suspended and nothing was able to get in. (By the way the gas is set up, if the concentration dropped below a given level, Rogers and Buddy would wake up, so maybe that at least hangs together.)

I really can't in prose describe how hilarious the naval officers' panicky escape is. The whole suspended-animation gas is weirdly set up, too, with its existence being thrown in like they realized while filming that they forgot to give a way to get Buck Rogers into the future, and then Rogers being given orders to put himself in suspended animation after the touchdown, then getting gassed accidentally ... I suppose it makes it easier to buy that Rogers couldn't give the Navy any hint on how to find them, but still, lost in a remote mountain range seems like enough reason to be lost without hope of rescue.

The timeline of just how civilization falls is left vague, but it does seem like it's meant to be a process that started in the 1930s and by the 2430s is just about wrapped up.

And now it occurs to me that the progression of dates --- 1938, 1939, 1940, 2040, 2140, et cetera --- flashing on-screen to establish how long Rogers was unconscious might have been something that one Bugs Bunny cartoon was riffing on when Elmer Fudd dreamed of getting the best of Bugs in the far-future year of 2000 AD.

Buddy's mostly that obnoxious yet energetic teenage sidekick that would drag down every space-adventure show in some weird effort to make daring tales of adventure in space somehow appeal to children, one of a long line that would go through figures like Winky in Rocky Jones and end in either Wesley Crusher or New Pavel Chekov, although New Chekov has almost eliminated the irritating side of the breed.

I don't think I've actually heard anything that could be a catchphrase yet. They must have known the value of them by 1939, so, that's peculiar.

You snuck in Buck Rogers reference

[reptilemammal.livejournal.com]

And it passed through my internal filtering software, but now I've caught you. You really need to boldly post I am talking about Buck Rogers now somewhere! This was one of my favorite series growing up.
Personally I just like the song too, gave it as YouTube favorite.
Now let me go ahead and start reading your posts and catch-up. Silly sneaky coati, thought you could get away with it, if it weren't for those kids and that mongi!

Re: You snuck in Buck Rogers reference

[reptilemammal.livejournal.com]

Agh... but its the old series I shouldn't of read... Now I have tertiary glance at it instead, but thanks for sharing your unique views.

Re: You snuck in Buck Rogers reference

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry it wasn't so clear. But I think it's an interesting serial. I wonder if they're going to do more Buck Rogers serials.

Re: You snuck in Buck Rogers reference

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't want to risk spoiling things by talking too obviously about it.