MovieChat Forums > Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979) Discussion > The 'lost' Buck Rogers TV series

The 'lost' Buck Rogers TV series

posted 20 years ago by BijouBob8mm
4 replies | jump to latest

There was an earlier BUCK ROGERS TV series made in 1950--anyone know anything about it? I see dozens of dollar DVD episodes of the 1954 FLASH GORDON, but Buck seems to have vanished.

[–] efrasnel-1 19 years ago

Good point. There is always the possibility that they have been destroyed, erased, stolen or otherwise. Erasing has happened in the late Sixties and early Seventies when videotape was still expensive. Probably the current owner (whoever that is) is waiting for it to come in public domain and then rip off fans like you (and me) with cheap, shoddy DVD's. Don't you love capitalism...

[–] adam-621 19 years ago

The 1950s version was filmed LIVE so DVD release doubtful.
See www.buck-rogers.com for more info.

[–] Andy M. 17 years ago

Yeah, unless someone thought to kinescope it at the time, it was probably never preserved. Commercial videotape didn't come about until the 1960s, so the only way to preserve live shows was to point a film camera at a studio monitor and film the picture. Even after videotape, kinescoping continued to be practised, as it was less expensive than making master-tape backups. Some of the old DARK SHADOWS episodes only now exist thanks to kinescopes, in cases where the original master videotapes were lost.

[–] tomm4004 15 years ago

From what I've read no copies exist, and yet it gets a 7.6 rating. Maybe raters who saw it in 1950?