Buck Rogers

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Buck Rogers is the central character of Philip Nowland's story Armageddon 2419, which appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. The full title of most of his appearances in various media is Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Buck Rogers, an American air force officer, fell into a coma and was awakened in the 25th century. Together with his comrades, the beautiful Wilma Deering and intrepid Dr. Huer, he struggled to rid the world of evil warlords and "Mongol" hordes.

Comics, Second story and Radio show

In January 1929, the story was turned into a comic strip that ran for 38 years (1929-1967). It was the first comic strip organized around a science fiction theme. "The Airlords of Han," which appeared in the March 1929 issue of Amazing Stories was his second story appearance. His enemy, the Han, were later renamed Mongols. In 1932, the Buck Rogers radio program began, the first science fiction show on radio. It aired four times weekly. The show ran for 15 years (1932-1947). Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin as Buck Rogers voiced the character at various times.

First movie

1939 saw a twelve part movie serial of Buck Rogers, starring Buster Crabbe who had previously played Flash Gordon along with Constance Moore as Lieutenant Wilma Deering, Jackie Moran as Buddy Wade, a character not seen in the other media. The movie was later edited as a movie and released in 1953 as Planet Outlaws and for television in 1965 as Destination Saturn.

First television series

Kem Dibbs and Robert Pastene acted Buck Rogers in his first television series in 1950-1951. The show was acted live and no known copies of the program exist.

Second movie and television series

In 1979, the character was revived for a prime-time television program. The pilot was shown in theaters in the spring and on television in September. The show centered around the character of Captain William Buck Rogers, played by Gil Gerard, a US Air Force pilot who commands Ranger 3, a space shuttle that is launched in 1987. The character Buck Rogers is based on the comic and movie serials of the 1930s.

Captain Rogers is frozen in space for 500 years and is revived in the 25th century. There, Captain Rogers learns that the Earth has been united following a devastating nuclear war in the late 20th century and is now under the protection of the Earth Defense Forces.

Captain Rogers has adventures with his friend and semi-romantic interest Colonel Wilma Deering, played by Erin Gray, and his comic sidekick robot, Twiki, played by the voice of Mel Blanc (who had previously voiced Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers in spoofs of the early Buck Rogers and other science fiction serials).

Buck Rogers chief nemesis over the series was the sexy Princess Ardala of Draconia, played by Pamela Hensley, whose insatiable desire was to conquer and possess both the Earth and Captain Rogers.

The program introduced an essential new element of Rogers lore: Twiki, a pint-sized robot who could speak, but preferred to express himself with the dispeptic ejaculation ”biddi-biddi-biddi.” Dr Theopolis ("city of God"), another chatty robot, was housed in a large medallion worn by Twiki. (In one episode, Twiki was paired off with a pink female robot, whose lively dance moves were both a parody and tribute to the disco culture in which the show revelled.) The show ran from 1979-1981 and was later shown in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Cast

Buck Rogers games

A Buck Rogers board game was produced in the 1980s. The game was a space-based wargame similar to Risk, in which the players moved playing pieces representing starships around the board trying to eliminate one another.

Buck Rogers also featured in a role playing game from TSR, Inc. and associated books published from 1988-1995. In it the player characters were allied to Buck Rogers and NEO (the New Earth Organisation) in their fight against RAM (a Russian-American corporation based on Mars). The games also extensively featured "genies" (genetically enhanced organisms). Strategic Simulations, Inc. produced two computer role-playing games based on this setting: Countdown to Doomsday and Matrix Cubed.

Sega released the arcade video game Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom in 1983. The user controls a spaceship that must destroy enemy ships and avoid obstacles; Buck himself is never seen, and its only real connections to Buck Rogers are the use of the name and the outer space setting. Home versions were released for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari XE, Colecovision, Intellivision, and Sega Master System video game systems, and the Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, and ZX Spectrum computers. Its only real connections to Buck Rogers are the use of the name and the outer space setting.

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