SITE CONTENTS Front Page Resource Links The Evolution VINTAGE 1930s+ Buster Crabbe Vintage Collectibles Daisy Pistols VINTAGE 1979/81 Small Figures Large Figures Vehicles Misc Collectibles Arcade Collectibles Media Collectibles TV Props Pg 01 TV Props Pg 02 TV Props Pg 03 REVIEWS & INFO TV Show Info The Technology Space Vampire Thunder Fighter Behind The Scenes Gil Gerard Erin Gray Felix Silla Thom Christopher Pamela Hensley Tim O'Connor Wilfrid Hyde White GALLERY'S Publicity Photos Black & White High-Res Captures DOWNLOAD'S Videos Wallpapers Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - A Media and Collectible Resource, 1928-2005 Philip Francis Nowlan - The Evolution of Buck Rogers, 1928 - 1981 PART #1 - The birth of the writer and his vision - 1928 Philip Francis Nowlan, Science Fiction author and prophet, was born 1888 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. At the age of 39 Nowlan wrote a short novel called "Armageddon-2419 A.D" and it was published August 1928 in the popular fiction magazine "Amazing Stories". Nolan's creative insight predicted technologies that were yet to be invented such as the bazooka, jet planes, walkie-talkie's, night vision and many more inventions that are far from realizing. Above the August 1928 edition of Amazing Stories and on the right, an early edition book..Click To Enlarge But it would be a simple fictional character called "Anthony Rogers" that would take the world by storm and on August 1928 the story caught the eye of John Flint Dille, president of the National Newspaper Service syndicate. He commissioned Nowlan to make the worlds first science fiction comic strip with the help of artist Richard Calkins. So in 1929 Nowlan began developing the strip for the daily news papers appropriately named "Buck Rogers in the Twenty Fifth Century", from within these comic strips the characters Wilma Deering and Dr. Huer were brought back to life with fantastic new gadgets such as jumping belts and disintegrator guns. Below are some examples of the original comic strips.. Click To Enlarge Buck Rogers, a former Air Force officer awakens from a 5 century-long sleep and finds himself in a devastated America overrun by Mongol invaders. With the help of Wilma Deering, Buck defeats the Mongols and liberates America, but new enemies are on the horizon... The Sunday page first appeared on March 30, 1930, and although it was signed by Calkins himself it was actually drawn by Russell Keaton up until 1933, later artists were Murphy Anderson, Rick Yager, and George Tuska. PART #2 - From Cartoons to Radio - 1932 Buck Rogers Radio Cast, Click To Enlarge Three years later on November 7th 1932 Buck Rogers aired as a radio serial on CBS, originally titled "The World in 2432", the program was noted for its sound effects which included a regiment of marching robots and the crash of a rocket ship. The stories were similar to those of the comic strip and aired daily for 15 minutes, the serial was sponsored by Kellogg in its first year and was an immediate hit producing a flood of premiums and toys. The radio show cast the following announcers/actors.. Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin : Buck Rogers Adele Ronson: Lieutenant Wilma Deering Edgar Stehli : Dr. Huer Ronald Liss as Buddy Elaine Melchior : Ardala William Shelley, Dan Ocko and Arthur Vinton : Killer Kane Fred Uttal, Paul Douglas and Jack Johnstone : the announcers PART #3 - From Radio to Moving Pictures - 1939 Buster Crabbe as Buck Rogers,Click To Enlarge The renown actor Buster Crabbe was already famous for his screen role portraying Flash Gordon when In 1939 he finally took on the film role of Buck Rogers in a 12 episode film serial. The similarity's between the cartoon strip and the films were apparent and with a much larger budget the series was able to capture the energy of the original cartoon. Oddly enough in 1953 the serial became a theatrical release called "Planet Outlaws" and aired again for television in 1965 under the title "Destination Saturn". The cast of the film serial included the following actors.. Larry "Buster" Crabbe : Colonel Buck Rogers Constance Moore : Lieutenant Wilma Deering Jackie Moran : Buddy Wade Jack Mulhall : Captain Rankin Anthony Warde : Killer Kane Philson Ahn : Prince Tallen C. Montague Shaw : Dr. Huer Guy Usher : Aldar PART #4 - From Moving Pictures to Television - 1950 ABC TV Series 1950, Buck Rogers In 1950, ABC began airing a Buck Rogers series produced entirely within the confines of a small studio, with only a handful of sets the history of Buck Rogers was recounted verbally in the first episode as an ordinary American who wakes up in the year 2430. The photos above are from an issue of TV Forecast dated May 20th 1950 and are perhaps the only photos in existence. The actor Kem Dibbs who apparently played Buck with swashbuckling flair was later replaced by Robert Pastene with the John F. Dille company marketing a number of items during the time of the series. Credits for the TV serial included the following.. Kem Dibbs and Robert Pastene : Buck Rogers Lou Prentis : Lieutenant Wilma Deering Harry Sothern : Dr. Huer Harry Kingston : Black Barney Sanford Bickard : Killer Kane Directed by Babette Henry Produced by Joe Cates and Babette Henry Written by Gene Wyckoff PART #5 - From the big screen and to our televisions - 1979/81 Movie Poster from 1979 Click To Enlarge On March 30th 1979 Buck Rogers was once again reborn to the theaters starring Gil Gerard as the intrepid hero and Erin Gray as Wilma Deering, then on September 20th of the same year it aired on NBC as the pilot episode for the intended television series, the outline of the story goes like this.. In 1987 NASA launches a manned probe piloted by Captain William Buck Rogers, in a freak mishap something goes wrong and Buck's life support systems are frozen solid. He is propelled into deep space when the spacecraft returns to Earth in the year 2491, Buck awakens from a cryogenic sleep to find the Earth in the aftermath of a late 20th Century nuclear holocaust. With his piloting skills Buck becomes a valuable member of the Earth's Defense Directorate which is headed by Dr. Elias Huer, he then becomes part of a fighter squadron headed by Colonel Wilma Deering. Among his friends he meets Twiki, a lovable robot who becomes his best pal and Dr. Theopolis, a genius who is part of Earth's Computer Council. In season two of the series Buck joins the crew of the star ship Searcher, Commanded by Admiral Asimov the ship is on a mission to locate the lost tribes of Earth. Aboard the Searcher are scientists Dr. Goodfellow and Crichton, a intellectual robot built by the good doctor. The crew is later joined by Hawk, a birdman whose people were hunted almost to extinction by a band of murderous humans.. and he has a really cool space ship!.. Above, Larry Buster Crabbe (Left) makes a special appearance during an episode of season one, next to him is Erin Gray (Center) and Gil Gerard (Right). Gil started his television career in the soap opera The Doctors back in 1973, with appearances on Beretta, Hawaii Five-O and Little House on the Prairie. Then his career took off literally, landing him a role in the movie "Airport ’77", from there he has starred in numerous films up until present day. The Cast of the Cult 1970-1981 television series as follows: Gil Gerard : Captain William "Buck" Rogers Erin Gray : Colonel Wilma Deering Tim O'Connor : Dr. Elias Huer Pamela Hensley : Princess Ardala Felix Silla : Twiki Mel Blanc : Voice of Twiki Thom Christopher : Hawk Jay Garner : Admiral Efrem Asimov Wilfred Hyde-White : Dr. Goodfellow Paul Carr : Lieutenant Devlin Dennis Haysbert : Helmsman Eric Server Jeff David : Voice of Dr. Theopolis / Crichton PART #6 - So what happened to Philip Francis Nowlan? Well unfortunately as with most things the comic strip slowly began loosing favor with the public and competition with other stories such as Flash Gordon caused Nowlan to finally leave the comic strip in 1939 after an amazing 10 years, then in 1940 at the age of 61 he suddenly passes away leaving a legacy behind him that has lasted right up to present day. Who knows, perhaps people will still be hearing about Buck Rogers in the year 2432 and Buck would have finally reached the century he was destined for.. All "Buck Rogers" related media including images, video and characters etc are owned by the original author's or copyright holders. This website is neither sponsored or endorsed by the above mentioned nor does it affiliate with any other divisions thereof. Contact Webmaster : buckrogers_nz@yahoo.com.au Viewed best at 1024x768 with Internet Explorer AFFILIATE SITES