Flash Gordon (animation)

Flash Gordon (also known as The Adventures of Flash Gordon and even The New Adventures of Flash Gordon) was an adaptation of the comic strip Flash Gordon made in the 1970s by Filmation, the people who did Star Trek: The Animated Series. Perhaps best described as a children's version of a sketchy rock album cover come to life, with lion-men instead of ligers.

The series had a movie-length pilot, Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All, which for some reason was not aired until after the rest of the series.

Though the best-known animated version of Flash Gordon, it was not the only one. Flash Gordon also appeared in two animated Massively Multiplayer Crossovers with other King Features heroes: the one-off special The Man Who Hated Laughter and the series Defenders of the Earth, which also featured Flash's archenemy Ming the Merciless as its Big Bad. Another animated series debuted in 1996, featuring hoverboard-riding teenaged versions of Flash and Dale.

The first season was serialized and followed the original comic strip remarkably faithfully. After the network complained that the serial was too difficult for kids to follow, the second season consisted of standalone episodes, and a Team Pet was added, Gremlin the dragon. Older viewers are likely to prefer the serialized episodes, while younger viewers are likely to prefer the later, more simply-plotted standalones.

The Filmation animated series provides examples of:

 * Actually a Doombot:
 * AI Is a Crapshoot: Ming's computer, in the second season.
 * Amazon Brigade: Princess Aura had an elite guard of female warriors under her command known as the Witch-Women.
 * Apparently Human Merfolk: The people of Corallia, who are green but otherwise look human. As opposed to Ming's grotesque gill-men.
 * Back for the Finale: The first season climaxes with almost all the allies Flash has made through the course of the series gathering together for one big attack against Ming.
 * Beast Man: The Beast Men.
 * Big Door: The Beast Men's drawbridge that takes up most of a cliffside.
 * Drill Tank: The Mecho Mole, first used by Ming, then hijacked by Barin.
 * Energy Being: Voltana the Blue Fire Worm and the Lobos are both described as being made of energy.
 * The Faceless: Azura's cloaked minions, the Magic Men.
 * Fish People: Ming's gill-men.
 * Flaming Sword: Ming wields one.
 * Heavyworlder: It's occasionally mentioned that Mongo is smaller than Earth, so Earthlings have above-normal strength there.
 * Kaiju: Anywhere and everywhere. Notable ones include the two-headed  Tesak, and Azura's giant energy caterpillar Voltana.
 * Killer Rabbit: Squirrelons--killer flying squirrels who attack in swarms, and whose venom causes madness.
 * Kirk Summation: Flash gives one of these early on to Barin and Thun because he's sick of their racial bickering, and says the only reason a tyrant like Ming is able to hang onto power is that the peoples of Mongo are busy fighting each other instead of uniting against him. Thun comes to agree with him pretty quickly, but Barin takes a couple more episodes to convince.
 * Lizard Folk: The Lizard Women. There are Lizard Men, too, they just don't show up as often. Also the reptillian bounty hunter from the second season.
 * Mecha-Mooks: Ming's Metal Men. The series eventually introduced their inventor, Dr. Tav.
 * Parallel Universe: The second season episode "Flash Back."
 * Pragmatic Adaptation: The pilot movie, which was intended have Dr. Zarkov to be sympathetic from the start, changed the circumstances of Flash and Dale boarding his rocket. The solution was that the visitors are forced to enter Zarkov's lair while being chased by a flood of molten lava caused by a meteor shower inflicted by Ming. In that crisis, Zarkov immediately invites them into his rocket and since it is the only means around to escape certain death, the young heroes get in as fast as they can before it launches for Mongo. Furthermore, once Zarkov explains what he hopes to do there, Flash and Dale agree to help.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: If the legends are true, both Azura and Ming are centuries old.
 * Redshirt Army: Hawkmen.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Well, the Lizard Women may not be very nice, but one wouldn't exactly call them abhorrent.
 * Retro Rocket: Most of the Mongonian rocketships are streamlined to look a little more like aircraft, but Zarkov's rocketship is a classic cylindrical Retro Rocket.
 * Robot Master: Dr. Tav.
 * Slave Revolt: Flash ends up leading a lot of slave revolts. Mostly because the bad guys keep, well, trying to enslave him.
 * Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: After Zarkov has had the chance to study the Blue Magic Kingdom's equipment, he describes it as "another kind of science," and he's able to manipulate it. It's not entirely clear whether it's actually supernatural or just advanced technology dressed up to look like magic, but it's at least internally consistent enough for Zarkov to get a handle on it.
 * Team Pet: Gremlin.
 * Trick Arrow: The Arborians' ice arrows.
 * When Trees Attack:
 * The Arborians are able to get their trees to defend themselves against Ming's Mecho-Mole.
 * There are also a few Man Eating Plants over the course of the show. Thun finally comes to trust Flash after Flash risks his life to save him from one.