The Saturday Serials - Filmation's Flash Gordon!

I wasn't smart enough to snatch up a copy of The New Adventures of Flash Gordon complete series when it was available for all too brief a time some years ago. The company which produced it dissolved and only an incomplete DVD package with most of the first season is currently available for a reasonable price. That said, it's an impressive achievement and one fondly remembered by cartoon fans from of the era.

This Filmation series was triggered by the interest which sparked the Dino DeLaurentis film, and has some details in common though I don't think there was any direct connection between the productions. Both were sparked by the sci-fi boom ignited by Star Wars and it's that  common new influence which takes the classic Alex Raymond material and gives it a somewhat new gloss, especially in terms of machinery.

This series, at the first season, is formatted as were the  vintage serials of decades gone by, with cliffhanger endings, or at least incomplete conclusions for most of the episodes in this run. The first five are actually derived from a feature-length version of the story which appeared on television in prime time and drew direct comparisons between the Nazis in WWII and Ming the Merciless and his cutthroat empire. Much of that is missing from the serialized version.

Given that this is a Filmation effort, it's marked by many of the gimmicks the company used to present animation for TV on a limited budget. There are lots of repeated shots, many used enough to be called stock and it's the clever reuse of these which tell the stories of our trio of heroes from Earth battling Ming on Mongo and surviving the effort. There are many callbacks to the classic original comic strip by Don Moore and Alex Raymond as well the structure itself being evocative of the vintage Buster Crabbe movies.

(Frank Cho Artwork)

There's a lot to love about these shows for Flash fans and I only wish the whole series were available again for a decent price. The series is available on Youtube though and it's there that I finished up the first season.

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