The Gemini Brothers in Space

Back in early 2014 I made a funny/silly Sci-Fi serial with my nephews and other members of my family and here it is. Have a good listen please and share it with your friends if you enjoy it.

Here is an interview I got my nephews to do with me

Each episode came with a silly advertisement/sponsor which I made some pictures for, so I will post those here too!

Episode 1 - Alien Abduction

Episode 2 - Close Encounter

Episode 3 - Emperor Fra

Episode 4 - Laser Battle

Episode 5 - No Escape

Episode 6 - Terrible Torture

Episode 7 - No Mercy


Episode 8 - Mad Medicine

Episode 9 - Dylthan Megabeast


Episode 10 - Final Fight

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If you have checked out the show you may well realise that it took a heck of a lot of influence from Flash Gordon. I used to love the old Buster Crabbe 30's series as a kid in the 70/80's when it was played on teatime television. They used to play that and King of the Rocket Men and Champion The Wonder Horse in the same teatime slot if my memory serves me correctly. I have listened to the original radio serial online too. Also the main factor was the film from 1980 with Sam Jones and Max Von Sydow, which I watched at the cinema and I am always happy to be the alt-geek and say that I much preferred it to Star Wars. In fact Star Wars may never have happened if George Lucas had managed to get the rights to film Flash like he originally wanted.

Flash Gordon was created  as a newspaper strip in 1934 by Alex Raymond for King Features Syndicate as a rival to the already popular Buck Rogers, you may recall there was a TV series of that as well, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and of course the parody starring Daffy Duck called Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half Century. The strip proved very popular and soon spawned many spin-off items to cash in on the brand including pop-up books, colouring books, toy spaceships and rayguns. That kind of surprised me as I didn't realise that kind of cynical product tie-in was such an old trend. I assumed it started later than that for some reason but obviously not! In the last episode of my Gemini Brothers show I did parody it in the joke advert but I thought I was projecting a later trend. King also sold the strip to other papers around the World, 130 papers carried the story at one time with a few making slight changes to suit the local market. For example in Australia he was Speed Gordon as 'Flash' had negative connotations meaning 'overly showy' and was likened with dishonesty. During war time some countries stopped running the strip but it reemerged in those territories after it ended. In 1939 there was even a ride with his name on it at the famous New York World's Fair. Reading about it makes it sound a bit like the Nuka Galaxy Ride from the NukaWorld add-on from Fallout 4

Alex Raymond's art and costumes for Flash inspired the Superhero genre too, the art of both Superman and Batman were influenced by his work and Hawkman was based on the Hawkmen race who was led by Prince Vultan who was played so memorably by Brian Blessed in the 1980 film.

The radio serials started in 1935 with 2 series totaling 100 shows in all. It starred Gale Gordon as Flash and stuck closely at first to the strip in regards story but later veered off with Flash, Dale and Zarkov visiting Atlantis! There have been 2 live-action TV series one ran 1954-55 and the latest from 2007/8, it was cancelled after one season which was a real shame. Maybe Flash and the concepts of this type of clean cut, all American hero are no longer resonant with the general public. There have also been 4 animated series for the space hero as well and a number of comic books over the years, the most recent being a series from Dark Horse in 2010 and from Dynamite Entertainment in 2011.

I already mentioned the film from 1980, I saw that in the cinema and I even had the Pannini sticker album which I later sold on Ebay I think, curse my foolishness :( I remember drawing a massive space battle based on the attack on Rocket Ship Ajax, I think I might still have that somewhere!! If I find it I will post the picture up here :D

There are meant to be 2 new films of the hero in development at the moment with scripts being written, so fingers crossed we will see him fighting the good fight some time soon.