Build Your Own Space Opera Table

Behold! In the year 2024, Savage Arts & Sciences joined forces with Applied Phantasticality to celebrate Random Generator Month (also known as April). Here, you may build your own space opera with the cunningly conceived Build Your Own Space Opera Table. There, you may test your credulity with the questionably contrived What Is This Table? Table. Roll on!

Build Your Own Space Opera Table

Roll 1d?

1. Roll on the Excuses for Swordplay Table!
2. Roll on the Cultures from Beyond Table!
3. Roll on the Enemy Robots Table!
4. Roll on the Reasons the Rocketship Crashes Table!
5. Roll on the Rocketship Takeoff and Landing Methods Table!
6. Roll on the Ray Guns Table!
7. Roll on the Non-Ray Guns Table!
8. Roll on the Earthling Occupations Table!
9. Roll on the Cultures from Beyond 2 Table!
10. Roll on the Forest Encounters Table!
11. Roll on the Frozen Wasteland Encounters Table!
12. Roll on the Aquatic Encounters Table!
13. Roll on the Subterranean Encounters Table!
14. Roll on the Jungle Encounters Table!
15. Roll on the Grassland Encounters Table!
16. Roll on the Desert Encounters Table!
17. Roll on the Mountain Encounters Table!
18. Roll on the Aerial Encounters Table!
19. Roll on the Radium Mine Encounters Table!
20. Roll on the City Encounters Table!

N.B. Results of the Build Your Own Space Opera Table are being added daily (starting on 1 April 2024).

Worst Character Names of Mongo 2

Today, I discovered another concentration of ludicrous character names from the Flash Gordon Sunday strips (this time from 1947).

• Sultra
• Defto
• Zugo
• Grisla
• Bruto
• Techno

"Zarkov arranges to have Flash in disguise, arrested and put in the cell next to the girl spy, Sultra." (8 June 1947)

"Before Flash can give himself away, Sultra murmurs, 'Thanks, Defto. Your fake papers saved us—it's all right. This fellow helped me break jail...'" (29 June 1947)

"Kang commands: 'Test your bent-ray, Zugo.' The ray-scientist cackles, 'First, I electrify the protecto-dome, so the ray can't curve back on us...'" (13 July 1947)

"'I won't leave you alone a minute, for one of your famous escapes,' Kang smiles, cruelly. 'I'll just watch Grisla kill you by inches.'" (31 August 1947)

"Half conscious, but helpless, Flash sees Sultra open a secret passage to admit a Kangman spy, Bruto, who growls, 'Can I kill him now?'" (26 October 1947)

"As manager Techno shows the mongonium plant to Flash, disguised as Kang's inspector, a message comes over the fototype ticker." (21 December 1947)

Flash Gordon Thought of the Day 2024-03-14

When the Flash Gordon television show starring Steve Holland first aired in 1954, the original Flash Gordon movie serial from 1936 starring Larry "Buster" Crabbe was renamed Space Soldiers to avoid confusion as the serial was sometimes shown on television, too.

When the Flash Gordon animated television show from Filmation first aired in 1979, it, too, was simply known as Flash Gordon, but it was subsequently renamed The New Adventures of Flash Gordon (presumably when it became available on videocassette or DVD, or perhaps earlier when the Flash Gordon movie starring Sam J. Jones was released in 1980).

Would it not make more sense to give the later projects different titles than to retroactively change the titles of earlier projects? The Flash Gordon television show could have easily been called Flash Gordon: The Television Show or Flash Gordon of the GBI (Galaxy Bureau of Investigation) or Flash Gordon: Space Jerk (because that's how Steve Holland portrayed him). It would have been trivial to call the animated series Flash Gordon: The Animated Series. Why would it be renamed The New Adventures of Flash Gordon when the entire first season was a direct adaptation of the first Flash Gordon comic strips from 1934?

Logic and consistency are sometimes elusive.