Flash Gordon

This was the best adaptation of the classic comic strip by Alex Raymond. The series captured both the look of the strip and faithfully adapted the adventures. The 16-part serial format of the first season created added excitement. You had to tune in the next week to find out what would happen. This was almost unheard of for Saturday morning fare. Each episode built on the previous one, with each adventure covering two episodes. The series reached its finale with the final part. A second season followed, but with twelve minute episodes, and featuring a comic relief dragon called Gremlin. Needless to say, it didn't survive.

Filmation was one of the cheaper animation houses. They produced such cartoons as The Archies, The Groovie Goolies, and Fat Albert in the 70's; and He-Man and She-Ra in the 80's. They were known for their use of stock footage and cheaper voice artists. Their previous pinnacle had been the Star Trek cartoon, featuring the voices of the original cast. Flash gave them a new milestone. Filmation used rotoscoping, a technique where live actors are filmed, and animation is traced over their movements. This gave the characters more fluid movements in many of the action scenes. The design work for the series was a nice blend of Raymond with some Star Wars updating; ironic, since it was Flash Gordon that inspired Lucas to create a sci-fi movie.

The voice work was quite good, at least the equal to the original movie serials and better than most of the performances in the Sam Jones film. Robert Ridgely gave Flash the right All-American voice, with Allan Oppenheimer (voice of Skeletor in He-Man) as Ming and Zarkov. Diane Pershing gave a light touch to Dale, although she was still mostly just there to be rescued. Melendy Britt gave a very sultry voice to the vixen Aura.

The series main fault was the overuse of stock footage, which could get annoying. The same Hawkmen were disintegrated, the same ship gets hit in the tail section, the robot soldiers always line up the same way, etc. Still, the stories were good enough to keep you from dwelling on this. Also, the broadcast standards and practices kept the series from having the characters in too much jeopardy. Ming's soldiers were robots and his ships were remotely piloted. However, Hawkmen did disappear, or disintegrate and Barin's ships would as well. Since it was shown that those ships were piloted by humans, it could be assumed that they were killed. They did allow monsters to attack, but they always seemed to be buried under rubble, and never killed. The only other major fault is that the series begins with the Earth trio already orbiting Mongo, with no explanation as to why. This would be cleared up later.

After the series had been broadcast, a feature version was shown in primetime, on NBC. It included a new opening, establishing how everyone got to Mongo, and included new scenes and voice work. The time period was set at 1939, during the Nazi invasion of Poland. Mongo was given a connection to Hitler. Actually, the feature had been commissioned first; thus, the more detailed backgrounds and fuller animation. The series was commissioned after screening footage from the feature. The feature was used to provide the stock footage for the episodes and wasn't fully broadcast until later.

This was one of the best Saturday morning cartoons of its era, but, its ratings were never that good. It was retooled for its second season and then quietly disappeared. It later turned up in limited video release and on the Sci-Fi channel. It's worth viewing if you can find the episodes or feature from tape traders. The commercial videos only covered a few episodes.

I'm watching the Flash Gordon cartoon, and it's hitting all those pulp fiction itches I needed scratched. Throw in the rotoscope and early CGI, and it's a great cartoon. The best part is that the same guy who did Skeletor (Alan Oppenheimer) does Ming (including the throwing back of the head and laughing) so it's even more glorious. I even love it when they reuse animation bits every so often.

There is a notable lack of color, but the women are presented as large and in charge, so that's pretty cool. Overall, the cartoon has aged well, and is all sorts of fun.

"The New Adventures Of Flash Gordon",was a brilliant masterpiece of animation that was probably the greatest piece of animation that ever grace the late 1970's well into the early 1980's. This Saturday Morning cartoon series came out a full year before the theatrical version with Sam Jones and Max Von Sydow(just to let you know the cartoon version came out in 1979 and the theatrical version came out in 1980). But for sheer entertainment value you couldn't ask for more on an early weekend morning. And with this new installment of Flash Gordon,this was a excellent series that delivered the goods. This was the best adaption of the classic comic strip by Alex Raymond. The series captured both the look of the strip and it remained faithfully adapted to the adventures. Produced by Filmation Productions,the new installment of Flash Gordon is richly realized,beautifully animated and at the time this came out was a highpoint for television especially in the animation department. Filmation captured perfectly the splendor and the overall spirit of Alex Raymond's strip utilizing(for its time in 1979)the best technology could offer and was the first cartoon series to show new techniques in animation that were never before seen or presented to audiences on television. This was a series that featured body rotoscope,special effects animation,moire patterns that were rotoscoping over motion control shots of model ships. The end result? A 16-chapter serial that delivered some of the most breathtaking animation ever presented along with non-stop action and delivered a truly "full" look and feel to it not to mention some of the scariest monsters ever created. The 16-part serial format from the first season was incredible since it created excitement. And since some of the episodes ended in a cliffhanger of sorts,you'll probably had to tune in next week to see what happens next or find out what would happen. Expect the unexpected.

Speaking of the rotoscoping effect,Filmation managed to use this same method some three years earlier with the animation series "Tarzan,Lord Of The Jungle"(which was also a brilliant masterpiece as well using the splendor and spirit of Edgar Rice Burroughs'character),basing it partly on the work of comics artist Burne Hogarth. The new version of Flash Gordon went beyond what the theatrical version did not to mention bringing a more updated style of the comic strip with some of the best animators and writers around(one of the writers for this series was that of Samuel A. Peeples,who was also behind the scenes for Filmation's animated Star Trek series six years earlier)under the direction of Hal Sutherland. Of the 16 episodes that were produced for NBC-TV from September 8,1979-May 20,1980,the network repeated the episodes until 1981. In some of the episodes,and this was especially in the first season that each chapter was built on the previous one,with each adventure covering two episodes.

The first 8 chapters from the first season were not only virtually flawless but was masterpieces within there own right. The best among them are beginning with the pilot episode "A Planet In Peril". The rest included "The Beast Men's Prey", "Vultan:King Of The Hawkemen",and "To Save Earth". The serial blazes away in epic proportions leaving with as much non-stop action and adventure as anyone can handle and them some. There are fighter ship battles,gunfights in grand palaces,exotic locations,damsels in distress,not to mention alien creatures and creations that drop from out of a hat. The second part consisted of chapters 9-16,but during those chapters there is a slight drop in animation quality but what almost killed it was the adding one of the most infertile and annoying characters in the series...a overly cute pink dragon named Gremlin who was just a repulsive as anyone can imagine. As for voice work it was impressive featuring the voices of Robert Ridgely(who gave Flash the right All-American voice),Alan Oppenheimer(as the voice of Ming The Merciless and Dr.Zarkov),Diane Pershing(who gave a light touch to Dale although was in some of the episodes was mostly there to be rescued),and Melendy Britt(who gave a sultry voice to the vixen Aura).

This was one of the best Saturday Morning cartoons of the era,but its ratings were never that good. NBC however kept it on the roster until 1981. And it was one of the great serial cartoons shows that was made for pre-teens and kids alike but adults were watching this too.

The 16 episodes are without doubt one of best cartoons of the late 1970's. The graphics sometimes repeated themselves as you saw the same ship getting hit over and over again during some of the battle scenes. But, they had other scenes that were great and the overall story line was great. I only found out later that some of the great facial expressions were the actual actors who did the voices. It should have run more then just one season and the movie they made later. I don't count the 2nd season run later in 1980's as the new episodes were not as good as the ones from 1979. Being a Flash Gordon buff like I was. I loved this cartoon and wish it was available on DVD. I have videos of the originals from the 1930's and Movie made in 1980. I wish I had a copy of this. This was true to comic and the original story and deserves the 10 stars I gave it and two thumbs up.

I only discovered this cartoon in 2021 during the Covid lockdown, and it was a very pleasant surprise for several reasons: it was presented as one long serial broken up into 16 chapters (at least for season 1), it features often gorgeous painted backdrops and solid animation, and had some pulpy adult themes. Pretty well every episode involves Flash, Dale and Zarkov visiting some new kingdom or meeting a new species, usually with a too-literal name like "Arboria" or "Frigia" . There's Hawkmen, Lionmen, Arborians (tree dwellers), giants, dinosaurs, etc. Ming is indeed merciless, Princess Aura a femme fatale, while all the local queens fall in love with Flash as Dale frets in the background. Well deserving of a DVD re-release.