Gil Gerard: Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

RIP Gil Gerard. A New York cab, a day job in drama class, and a shot at the 25th century: that’s the unlikely runway that launched Gil Gerard into Buck Rogers, and it still glows with neon charm. We open the vault on Gerard’s early grind through commercials, soaps, and 70s disaster flicks, then follow the thread back to Buck’s pulp origins in newspapers, radio waves, and the 1939 serials that taught America to love ray guns, zeppelins, and cliffhangers. It’s a fast, affectionate tour of the DNA that links John Carter’s planetary romance, Flash Gordon’s space opera, and Lucas-era spectacle, all converging in a TV series that dared to mix swagger with sincere camp.

Transcript

The Circle Of Lurch

SPEAKER_01 0:00

That's Lurch. Orda the I always think of him from that the Twilight Zone to serve man. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

I always think it's kind of hilarious that he plays Lurch in the Addams Family and then plays Rock in What Little Girls Are Made Of in the original series of Star Trek. And then later on, the actor who plays Loaxana Troy's like right-hand man footman valet or whatever plays Lurch in the updated Adams Family movies. The one that was also the giant in Twin Peaks.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

It's the the circle of Lurch.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

The Circle of Lurch. I'm gonna write that down.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Are they in the proper approach pattern for today? Negative.

unknown 1:02

Charge the lightning field.

Introducing Gil Gerard’s Life

Early Roles And DIY Producing

SPEAKER_02 1:09

All right, well, welcome back to Dispatch Ajax. I am Skip. Hey, I'm Jake. Hey, he's over there. Look at that. Hey, hey, I'm gonna try to be upbeat. How about that? Jake is currently dialing in from a prison phone. We're on two sides of glass here. That's the great divide between us. Oh Billy. Lick my nipple through the glass. Oh Billy. I don't know why she sounds like a goat in my version, but. Well, it's a Billy goat. I mean that it makes sense. Oh, but it's Rosie Perez! Maybe she was just haunting him, I don't know. Alright, well, okay. A little bit of a serious tone here for just a moment. And well, pretty much for this whole thing, but relatively lighthearted, but in actual serious tone. Gilbert Cyril Girard was born on January 23rd, 1943 in Little Rock, Arkansas, as the youngest of three. In Hollywood, he would go by Gil Girard. His mother was an educator and his father was a salesman. He acted all the way through his lower education and dropped out of Central Arkansas University just before he would have graduated, because throughout his life, to that point, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Act. And so, after his dropout from college, he traversed across the country to New York. New York City. Get a rope. Where he got a rope. And then where he then studied drama by day. And at night drove a taxi. It was a vigilante. Vigilante avenging the wronged and the the injustice in the world. Sometimes you clean up the bird people feathers. He's not the Buck Rogers we wanted, but it's the Buck Rogers we deserved. Are you bucking to me? Did you imagine it? I would like to see Gildraard in Taxi Drivers. That would have been a completely different film. You think Gil would often take unemployed actors to and fro auditions. One day, Gil picked up a fair who worked in the industry and took pity on unemployed actors. And so on his way out, as he was being dropped off, told Gil that he should show up on set to Love Story, which was being filmed in New York. And he did. And when he did, he was immediately hired as an extra. He was singled out for a bit part, but unfortunately was cut in the final edit of the film. But that didn't matter. He had arrived. He started acting in commercials, many of them Ford commercials, and then after small roles in movies like the It's listed as some places as gay themed. I'm not exactly sure. I haven't seen it, so I don't exactly know what they mean by that, but some of my best friends are ellipsies in 1971. And Man on a Swing, but that one's not gay? Okay. 1974. He then gained a big role in the daytime soap opera, The Doctors, not the reality show bullshit with Dr. Drew or whatever the fuck that asshole is. Sure, I wish. That would be better. He did that for two years. Then he managed to create his own production company. He established himself enough through bit parts that he was able to establish his own production company. Back then you could just kind of do that. Because I remember George Hamilton had his own production company at one point.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Huh. But he did that before like he became big? Yeah. That's crazy.

Disaster Films And TV Guest Spots

Pivot To Buck Rogers Tribute

Buck Rogers Origins And Influences

SPEAKER_02 4:55

It's really weird. He co-wrote a movie called Hooch in 1977, which he starred in. And produced. That's one of his only two uh produ yeah. I've never seen Hooch. I'm intrigued. Written, produced, starred. I've seen Turner. I have yet to see Hooch. But if Gil Gerard's involved, sign me up. Gil Gerard's playing a large dog. Not Clifford, unfortunately. That was played by Martin Short. He then later would go on to star in Universal's Airport 77, which nobody remembers Airport, the Airport movies anymore, though at the time, those were the biggest franchise disaster films of all time. They were enormous, but it kind of got overshadowed by the fact that they stopped doing disaster movies for a long time. Back then you had Towering Inferno, Airport, you know, stuff like that. It was a big craze back then. Poseidon Adventure. Poseidon Adventure. But also it was 1977, and I don't know if something else came out that year that may have overshadowed it just a little bit. I have no idea of what you speak. Good, because we're not going to talk about that later at all. He appeared in an episode of Hawaii 5.0, he was in Little House on the Prairie. He went on and on for a while until he came to his most iconic role, one of our favorites. And so here's the point where I'd like to pay tribute to Gilgerard. But I also don't want to bore people in someone like Gilgerard's Wikipedia page. So, what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about Buck Rogers, because we have touched on Buck Rogers briefly in our Flash Gordon episode, but we focused more on Flash in that one. So I'd like to talk briefly about Buck. It is his most iconic role, and did pretty much define his career and Aaron Gray's career. So I kind of want to go through a very brief history of Buck on his own. Give him a little bit of credit. Flash Gordon was based on Buck Rogers, and we kind of just only glossed over it. So, and not long. This is just just very briefly. So Buck Rogers, as we have addressed before, was originally named Anthony Rogers, a World War I vet who found himself in the future after being exposed to a mysterious gas that put him in a state of suspended animation. Yeah, he got gassed in a cave, if I remember right, and passed out for 500 years, because that's how that works. That's like the same thing that happens with the John Carter, I believe. No, John Carter is teleported to Mars. Doesn't he like Buck is based on John Carter? Is there, but is there like a teleporter in a cave? It might be in a cave, sure. That's very possible.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

I could have sworn that like he went in a cave and then like he disappears.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Yeah, that probably is the element they're taking from that. John Carter was a Confederate soldier, so obviously we're on his side from the get-go. The South will beam again. It's very similar to what's the what's the DC version of that? I wanted to say Noran Rad, but that's the Silver Surfer. He gets teleported to Ran, R-A-N-N. Adam Strange? Adam Strange, thank you. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah, there we go.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Second cousin of Stephen Strange, Adam Strange.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Strange bedfellas, you might say. Yeah, but he was he was in a cave, kind of doing the Rip Van Winkle story.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Or if you will, that hilarious Kids in the Hall skit where Dave Foley falls asleep on his desk for 20 minutes and then wakes up in the future. Those aren't the cars of 20 minutes ago. So, like we said, he wakes up 500 years later, like a normal person, and then obviously the world has completely changed, and we get into some of the geopolitics about that. There's a lot of yellow peril stuff and a lot of anti-communist stuff that's going on in that, and we we already covered a lot of that. But essentially, Earth is burning dystopia, and he has to side with rebels as a freedom fighter, sort of a Paul Atreides type, and you know, he goes on these adventures later on in space with all this future tech and and you know kind of stuff. Honestly, the Flash Gordon archetype to me kind of works better if you're gonna do spacefaring things because this seems more like John Carter than it does Flash Gordon. He has to fight for freedom on a planet. I guess they're both just kind of like weird two sides of John Carter, right? John Carter is teleported to Mars, where then he becomes a domestic freedom fighter. In this one, in Buck Rogers, he is an earthbound, earth-based freedom fighter because of the the future. And in Flash Gordon, he's sent to another series of worlds where he becomes the leader of a resistance against fascism.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Kind of like Buck Rogers is the meeting of the Venn diagram of Flash Gordon and John Carter.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yeah, I think that's probably true. And Adam Strange is in there too. Like, hey guys, I was invented years later, but I'm here. Shut up, mini buck. Get the fuck out of here, new blood. The young Buck over here. That's funnier than I anticipated. My name is Buck.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Not gonna go that way. The reason it popped in my head is that I I watched uh the night of the comet last night.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Oh, really?

Pulp Heroes And Sci-Fi Lineage

SPEAKER_01 10:06

And the guy who plays Buck is in that. Along with Chicote. Yes, Robert Beltran is top build! Yeah, really? He's top build? Yes, he's top build. Last night was my first time, so I hope it was gentle.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

I hope it was respectful and you got aftercare. They spat on me, but I did ask for it. Hey, I mean, as long as they fulfilled your expectations. I was fulfilled. Those zombie cops that pulled you over at the end.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Not enough zombies in that film, but that's that's uh not here or there.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Do you know what I like about that movie though, is that they do the whole Valley Girl thing, right? Mm-hmm. But they're not typical Valley girls. No. In an era where that was like prime time for Valley Girls. Yeah, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

I mean, they're like army brats, but don't necessarily act like that except when it comes up. And a lot of like the relationships and like the dialogue is atypical. Like the a lot of us like the Cinderella thing or the evil stepmother and who literally punches the one girl in the face after a slap.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

That's right, yeah. Oh, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Then they, I mean, that's all like wiped away, you know, and then they start over with their own story, and then you have the the weird possible government lost adjacent agency who may or may not be responsible. The the comet research organization or whatever the fuck it is. Yeah, but but they have like this labyrinth design, like logo on all of their stuff, which is an unsolvable maze.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

And it's like, what is people have actually broken it down, like the actual image of that logo, it's not solvable. There's no way out, which I think is a really brilliant metaphor for what they're doing, and that was 100% intentional.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah, but I I love how so little is both to its benefit and its detriment, that so little is explained or is typical of what happens in those types of films.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yeah, it does suffer from those both advantages and problems. I mean, it it's brilliant that they managed to somehow get completely empty streets that they shot in, which is insane, but they they did it.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Well, I mean, 28 days later to yeah, and that was just the timing they happened to like it was it was at a time when there weren't 24-7 traffic and they could still do that. It was like right, I think, at the edge. Yeah, 17.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Reagan gotta work, work, work, work, work. I mean, that's what people are strange by the doors is about. How there's nobody out on the streets of New York until the sun comes up and then it just like everybody just floods the streets.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Never sleeps. I do appreciate that movie though for being so atypical for the type of movie that it is. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

I think it is an ideal film to remake, if possible. Oh, sure. And you could crank up the things that were great and minimize the things that didn't quite nail it, and you can do a lot of stuff with that premise. I still think it needs to function kind of outside of the studio system.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yeah, probably. So then Buck Rogers made his comic strip debut on January 7th, 1929, through the National Newspaper Service. It was illustrated by Dick Culkins, and it was a huge hit. It showed, for the first time, to many of the common folk, rockets and ray guns, traveling the stars, and then in 1932 was the premiere of his radio presence. One of the first sci-fi properties ever broadcast in the radio format. It aired from 32 to 47. That's a run. That's a pretty good run for the radio, especially back then. And then he made his silver screen debut in a 1939 Universal serial starring Buster Crab, who had already played Flash Gordon.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Again, we covered that in the uh our Flash Gordon episode, so do listen.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

It feels like Johnny Depp uh playing Hunter Thompson in rum diaries kind of thing. It's like you go back after the fact. In this iteration, it said in 1938, and Lieutenant Buck Rogers and his sidekick buddy Wade fly uh fly a dirigible or Zeppelin or blimp. Oh blimp? Well, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

I I won't get off on another tangent. I was like, I saw a blimp conspiracy theory tangent recently. No, do tell. Okay. It was this guy, and he was gonna go to the ice wall. Oh, flat earther. Theoretical end, yes. Essentially, like there is a wall of ice that is stopping us from progressing, and we don't know what's beyond it. There may be ancient mysterious lands beyond there, maybe uh aliens, there may be nothing, whatever. But he he wanted to find out. He was trying to figure out the best way to do this, and he was thinking of using a blimp because that's how they they used to. And then there was like this conspiracy theory about how there were so many Zeppelins and blimps, and they were so in vogue at the time, but then after the Hindenburg disaster, they were quickly extinguished, and planes and trains and things really took over along with the the proliferation of cars for like personal use and whatnot. But they did that because if they had used Zeppelins, one, it was actual like ancient technology from like the Tartarian Empire and that they had been using and they had to get rid of that because they didn't want people to find out the history, but also they could use that and go over places that you couldn't normally get. So if you use zeppelins, you could go past the ice wall, unlike planes and helicopters and anything on the ground. And if they if they let that proliferation expand, then people would find out the truth of what they were hiding behind the ice wall. So the world governments had to get rid of that technology because they didn't want it becoming prolific and normal people having the ability to see what was being hidden.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Right. Okay, that totally makes no sense whatsoever.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Hey, you know, sometimes you're just online and you see something stupid and you click on it because that sounds stupid. I want to see what they're talking about, and then you go, you know, down the drain. You just describe what being online means. Once upon a time, that was just a lark. Now it's all the time.

Comic Strips To Radio History

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yeah, there is a difference between a zeppelin and a blimp or a dirgeable. The difference being, and I'm going off the top of my head here, but I'm pretty sure it's that a zeppelin very specifically had a wooden infrastructure and a blimp or similar craft are are simply large inflated balloons that are so the the Zeppelin was filled with hydrogen, which is why the the Hindenburg happened, because hydrogen is extremely flammable, and it most likely s right no no shit, right? It most likely suffered from St. Elmo's fire, the movie, which set it ablaze. We all suffer from a blimp is actually like a soft body, like a like a hot air balloon, but filled with helium. The Empire State Building still, to this day, has a Zeppelin slash blimp docking port at the top. One of Hitler's greatest dreams was his vision was when he finally conquered the US, was to fly a Zeppelin and dock onto the Empire State Building. Well, he was big into docking, so that makes sense. That's true. Yeah, well, well, I mean, he only had the one ball, so he didn't really like to show it to a lot of people, but but there is a difference. But anyway, so they were flying, as per what you were talking about there, over the north pole. Also, have you heard about the the the the new like weird retcon flat earth thing where it's like now it's like either a rolled, like a ho-ho that unfolds, or the layered one rolled world? Well, how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

The mental gymnastics are amazing. All right, it's flat and there's a dome, and there's you know something, or there is an endpoint, and you can just drop off into ether or something, but a rolled world that I know that one and the um the half dome version, it is curved, but it's only half of a sphere.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

That's also a thing. And then there's also it's flat, but it's shaped like a half circle. I don't know how or why that makes more sense, but it's like every time somebody corners somebody with logics in fact, they come up with this weird crazy idea to like justify it. But it's but then if you like put those side by side, you're like, how do any of these correspond to each other in any way, shape, or form? Like then none of these like that now you're getting even weirder with it.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

I love the perseverance though.

1939 Serial And Zeppelins

SPEAKER_02 18:36

They mean that they say. Wow. Anyway, this is supposed to be the short one. In 1939, that's when the universal serial came out with Buster Crab. Had marshmallows. The Buster Crab bake. While they were in a dergible flying over the North Pole, they were caught in a savage storm and crashed. Little Fantastic Four. Did they land in a savage garden as well? They sure did. They were ordered to release the experimental Nirvana gas. Which is what I'm pretty sure killed Kurt Cobain. Which would put them in suspended animation until they were rescued. Which means, hey, you know what? 500 years from now, Kurt Cobain's coming back. That's pretty cool. There's the upside. And then 500 years from now, Courtney Love gets sober.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

I don't think that one's ever gonna happen. A boy can dream. There's a video guy, he makes the videos on the tube of you.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

All of them. Yeah, so then their airship gets buried in an avalanche, though they dig it out 500 years later. And when Buck and Buddy are found, they're in the year 2440. Oh, that and this is awesome. The world is now ruled by an autocrat named Killer Kane. Yeah. Do you read Killer Kane? I'm forced to. It's in all of my schools. That was the Killer Kane was one of the proposed love interests for Batman during the McCarthy hearings. I think Killer Kane is Undertaker's brother as well, so that's uh he also went to Truman. Weird, isn't it? Also Republican, so well, the best and the brightest representing us, ladies and gentlemen. So at this point, Buck Rogers and Buddy have a loyal band of underlings, kinda like in Buckarobanze, the Blue Blazers. But they're called the Super Space Cateers! Hey, they're not just regular Space Cateers. It's another level. I mean, you have to get your Thetan level down to ascend to that level. Put some respect on it. A tithe, a hefty donation to the the organization. Did Xeno get your check? No? You don't get a badge. Look, I got an I got a nasty email from Xenu, and I I just gotta I gotta get this by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

I am Zenu.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

I am Xenu from Collections. We're gonna need your tithe by the end of the day. Love is light.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I am Xenu.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

No, we decided that was Xeno. So in this, only those who live in the quote hidden city run by Dr. Hewer and his military counterpart, Air Marshal Krag, proud Klingon warrior. So yeah, they leave just like in all of these archetypes, they run the resistance. And then, and for some reason, halfway through the serial, they volunteer to go to Saturn, where they hope they can help in the fight against Killer Kane. Yada yada yada. But here's the best part. So the character did finally see a revival after that. A lot of filmmakers and a lot of producers and a lot of people in Hollywood in general grew up on these type of serials, those types of comic books, or amazing stories, which Buck Rogers originally appeared in. And so just like with Spielberg and Lucas, you know, they they loved those types of serials. That's where Star Wars comes from, that's where Indiana Jones comes from. In the late 70s, a television version of Buck Rogers in the 25th century premiered. That was 1979. Kind of reactionary to Star Wars, but what are you gonna do about it? I don't know what you're talking about. Almost everything was in reaction to Star Wars. That's where you get Star Trek the Motion Picture, that's where you get Buck Rogers, the show, that's where you get Battlestar Galactica, which was originally a movie. It's where you get Space 1999, you know, all sorts of really amazing stuff back then. But this is the best version for me of Buck Rogers. Because before this, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon are essentially interchangeable, as evidenced by Buster Crab playing both of them. Swap one after the other, whatever. But in 1979, Gil Gerard stars as Buck Rogers and these and I don't want to sound like I'm like objectifying somebody, but the super hot Aaron Gray in satin jumpsuits. I've met Erin Gray, by the way, and she looks fantastic still.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

It's funny that she's the one that you're like salivating over and not like the Princess Ardala character who is just in lingerie constantly.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Oh god, I don't want to sound like a misogynist. She was one of the most attractive women to me.

Flat Earth And Airship Myths

SPEAKER_01 23:31

We're allowed to find women attractive. That's not their sole purpose, but we are allowed to appreciate, especially as they are playing a character that is meant to be attractive.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

In that vein. Uh is it Sherry Jacks is it Sherry Jackson?

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Sherry Jackson?

SPEAKER_02 23:49

In specifically in the Star Trek episode, What Little Girls Are Made Of.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

The cross yeah, yeah. The the the top is made of multicolored, like one's blue stripe and one's this brown stripe that crosswise over her bust to uh contain her uh yeah. Oh, into it. It's a whole like bodysuit thing. Yes, it's like a jumper. She looks very uh hot girl next door.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Some people love Spock and some people love Kirk. And you know what? Some people love McCoy. That's just the thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

I'm not planning a date with any of them, so I mean it's not like I'm gonna date any of these women that were in the Star Trek original series, so.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Don't say that! Don't you dare say that I still have a chance to.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

You need to let it go, Skip. Let it go.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Anyway, Aaron Gray was really hot. I'm sorry. Anyway, Aaron Gray. No, no, dude, you're not you're not wrong.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Aaron Gray played Colonel Wilma Deering, which was not in any of the original texts. A lot of the 70s Buck Rogers was sort of created out of a whole cloth, which I think was necessary because it needed to be updated, and a lot there aren't a lot of really good characters in any of those texts, especially ones that are kind of original. So they created a lot of original characters, all of whom would be actors who would later play in Star Trek.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

But great show.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Yeah. Oh, you have you have to mention, I mean, the the character always stuck out in my mind was Hawk. His his like best friend, essentially a bird person playing a a Spock kind of role, which to the larger audiences who may not have seen Buck Rogers, but have probably seen the more culturally relevant well, used to be culturally relevant. Well, I mean, of the past decade, it's much more relevant than Buck Rogers, I would say. In Rick and Morty, sure, Bird Person is essentially Buck Rogers Hawk.

Back To Buster Crabbe’s Plot

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Not essentially, like literally. Well, I mean, not literally, but I mean, like, that's as close as you can possibly get. Yes. He's based entirely off of that actor, who also shows up in a lot of other sci-fi stuff from that era, too. And not to be confused with the Spencer for Hire sidekick, which is basically that character called Hawk, played by Avery Brooks, who then would go on to have his own spinoff called A Man Called Hawk, who plays Commander Benjamin Sisko in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. The Ring of Lurch continues. Yes. Time is a flat circle, right? But anyway, for me, Buck Rogers, and please give your feelings, opinions about Buck Rogers. For me, Buck Rogers was when I was a little kid, I really took Star Trek really seriously, and I took Star Wars really seriously, and I like wanted people to take them seriously because they were like elevated versions of these things that were considered campy. But I do feel like now, as time, you know, things have changed, we can look back on it differently now, our opinions about all these things have changed, just in the mainstream culture have changed. I really love the over-the-top camp of because it's over-the-top but well-meaning camp of Buck Rogers in the 25th century, starring Gilderaard. Even though it only ran for two seasons, it is the show that that uh Gildraard is known for. And it's quite entertaining. Season two can get a little plodding because they were trying to be it's fun, and everybody remembers Mel Blank as Tweaky.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

And people don't, but they should remember Tweaky's AI companion that hung around his neck called Dr. Theopolis.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Which is a fantastic name.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

If you're gonna do something about like AI companion devices, you gotta name one Dr. Theopolis. Let's let's just put that out there for all the tech bros. It's one of the most absurd, one of the most silly, one of the most over-the-top sci-fi shows I ever seen. And I'm including like the pilot of Battlestar or Space 1999 or UFO, even, even though UFO is probably on another fucking level.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

I mean, I think later they would get, I mean, when they embrace it on a different when when sci-fi became a much more accepted part of things, you'd get like a red dwarf or a Lex, you know, or a a Farscape, or you know, where it's like uh they're a little looser.

1979 TV Revival Context

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Which then leads into Angel and Buffy, and I mean those are kind of in that same vein, you know, like the the self-aware, campy, but unknowingly so uh genres. I mean, which is all just living in the house the Doctor Who built. Douglas Adams is pretty much the progenitor of all of this kind of stuff in the modern era. But for all those reasons, and if you get a chance, go back and watch some ridiculous Buck Rogers episodes. Gil Gerard's great. I don't want to do him a disservice, but like everything after he did Buck Rogers is you know good for him. I'm glad he got work. That was kind of his swan song, and I think we should remember him at his peak, you know. And for those reasons, for me, he is Buck Rogers.

Gil Gerard And Erin Gray

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yes, I think by far Buck Rogers is the thing that defined him and his career, the way we view Gilgerard after that point, you know, is Buck Rogers. There are two things I wanted to point out. Please do specific for this pod. Now, I have a vague recollection of the show Sidekicks, which is a series that spun out of a TV movie special called The Last Electric Night. Let's get into this. The Last Electric Night was is essentially starred Gil Girard and Ernie Reyes Jr. Ernie Reyes Jr. You would remember as kind of like the Asian child actor of the early, early 80s. So if you remember Red Sonia, he's the little kid emperor, you know, is very, very vocal and trying to fight everybody. He played the Donatello stunt man in Teenage Me Ninja Turtles films. Yeah. Uh he was in Surf Ninjas, you know, a lot of a lot of those things. So that was kind of his role at the time. But in this, in this show, well, in the movie that turned on the show, he is the last heir of a secret martial arts cult thing. And Gilgerard plays his like adoptive father to like watch over him as they get into you know various hijinks or like these other martial artist people are coming, and then dealing with bullying in school and stuff like that. It wasn't a good show, and I I just have vague recollections of it, but it's kind of one of those other things that I remembered. Oh, the guy who played Buck Rogers. Oh, that's him. Oh, he's on the sidekicks. It's like little martial arts, you know, blah blah blah. It ran like 20 some episodes. Interesting. Didn't do much. Uh just like a little thing that stuck out in my mind because there aren't a whole lot of other things I like I personally remember Gilger Art in, other than Buck Rogers. Yeah, he didn't do a whole lot.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

I mean, he did stuff. I would push back on your on your on your assessment of that kid being the it Asian kid from the 80s, though, because Asian kid.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I'm saying like he's one of them. I mean, data and short round. I mean, like, come on. But I believe those happen a little, those roles are a little later. Ernie Reyes is a little older at that point, so pre that period of time.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Honestly, the best role that Ernie Reyes ever had was a model for Chuck Norris action jeans. Mmm. Alright. I am unaware of the action genes. Pants that Chuck Norris tried to pedal. He was really young. I'll put those in the chat. That's very funny. Chuck Norris action jeans, which I'm kind of now regret what we've already named our podcast, because that would be pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Chuck Norris action jeans. That'll be the spin-off.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

It would be jeans spelled G-E-N-E-S, and then we go into like the break down all of the gestalt of Chuck Norris films.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Hey, that's that's fodder for a series right there. That's actually not bad. The other thing I wanted to point at, you know, as being like this icon of 80s, you know, late 70s sci-fi, you know, that was kind of formative for you and I, he was in that other major property that you were into, Star Trek. But not official Star Trek.

Hawk, Bird Person, And Trek Links

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Oh, yes. Okay. I know where you're going with this. Uh refer to our fan, our fan, what did we call that? Our fan made episode. Uh what did we call it?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Fan films, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Fan films. Fan films, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yeah, he was part of the the TV series, as they they call it. Star Trek Phase 2 or Star Trek New Voyages.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

Right. With one of the legitimate fan film series, yeah. Before Axenar ruined everything. Right. Again, not official. Though it had a bunch of original actors from it.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Yeah, but they were they were like uh original actors and other varying levels of quote-unquote big time actors, like a Gilderard, did show up in these episodes. Made from love. Just a way, you know, as like we've touched on the fan films, especially Star Trek fan films before. Gildirard actually was in Star Trek as well as Buck Rogers, if if not official, but in spirit.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

If only he could do the Buster Crab and then show up in Flash Gordon somehow. That would be that would be the ultimate uh tribute, but nope. Yeah, sad to see him go. We'd like to say Gilgerard has a very special place in our hearts, our multiple hearts. RIP Gilgerard.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Please go away.