The new year will start with the capping of the last episode of Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, which means it’s almost time for me to start getting screengrabs from the next serial. It also means that since the last two episodes will be running on holidays, I’ll play them each on their regular spot on Monday at 6 PM AND Tuesday at 8 PM for those of you who’ll be celebrating/hungover on the 25th/1st. At any rate, I’m going to let you good folks vote on the next serial to get capped. Also, if anybody has any suggestions for a new time slot, I’m open to that too. Here then, the choices:
1. Radar Men From The Moon:

Pros:

• Some cappers may already be kind of familiar with it thanks to its presence on mst3k.
• Goofy looking moon men and cool looking jet packs.
• I’ve already got all 12 episodes grabbed, so I can sit back (though I’ll probably go ahead and redo some episodes and trim the chaff from the rest).
• Grabs coming from relatively decent prints.

Cons:

• The first nine episodes have been part of the last four Turkey Week marathons.
• Suffers from GISRAS (Guys In Suits Running Around Syndrome).

2. Dick Tracy (1937):

Pros:

• I haven’t watched this one, but I imagine it’s fewer goofy suits, if you don’t care for that sort of thing.
• It’s entirely new to Inventing Situations.
• Dick Tracy. It’s a funny name.
• Familiarity born of being on the funny pages for decades.

Cons:

• Looks like chapter two might be missing from the archive.
• Probably also suffers from GISRAS.
• Questionably print quality.

3. Undersea Kingdom

Pros:

• Unspeakably goofy.
• MST-borne familiarity.
• Only two episodes have appeared on IS so far.

Cons:

• Unspeakably goofy.
• Questionably print quality.

4. Zorro’s Fighting Legion

Ok, this one’s a total unknown for me. I just figured it probably doesn’t suffer from GISRAS as badly as some of the others, but apart from that, all I know is I can get the whole thing from the archive.
p.s. Wasn’t it sporting of me not to mention the drama over at that other capping site? Darn. Guess I just did. Ooops.

The serials will now start at 6 PM Mondays. When it started that half hour later by accident today, it seemed to generate a bigger crowd. Could be a coincidence, but maybe it’ll coincide again next week when we show episode four of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe - The Destroying Ray!

And since you folks seem to enjoy the blog more when I’m talking about the Brains instead of capping minutiae, here are two fake campaign ads from Michael J. Nelson:

p.s. “Michael” is in fact the answer to the question that was so hotly debated during today’s Flash Gordon episode.

Based on the good response to last month’s showing of the Flash Gordon film, Rocketship, I’m finally giving old time movie serials their own time slot at IS - Mondays at 5:30 PM. We’re starting off with Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe on Monday the 9th. To celebrate, there’s even a set from the serial at WPT.

Flash should take us into 2007, then I’ll probably dip into one of the serials used on mst3k, like The Phantom Creeps, Radar Men from the Moon, or Undersea Kingdom. Be sure to tune in every Monday to see what Flash does next!