Capt. William 'Buck' Rogers

Sometimes they were kind of elf-like.

This is gonna be in things like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, that you'd see them fighting aliens kind of like this or with similar features.

There's also a book called The Case of the Little Green Men that was a story where a detective is hired to investigate disguised aliens, and they are little green men in flying saucers and they have the antenna.

It became very popular, like iconic, and some very famous characters like The Great Gazoo from The Flintstones.

It's kind of tough to stub your toe on the moon, isn't it? Just a few of us who can do it.

Superman, Buck Rogers, the cow who jumped over thee, and myself.

Tonight, I will be accompanied by the Rhythmaires, a charming group of toe stubbers, if I've ever seen one, in green chartreuse.

What is that? Grand, are we ready, John? ¶¶ Oh, there's nothing to be ashamed of If you stub your toe on the moon When a dream's at the top of the sky Well, you just have to jump pretty high But don't give up too soon If you stub your toe on the moon.

I did ten on that.

What was your reaction when they read you that sentence? Buck Rogers' date.

I was like, damn, it never caught on.

That's a long time to show up.

And I, I like the whole concept of Cartman, you know, wanting the Wii, and he gets sent to the future, and it was a play on which TV series?

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

And that's why I liked the intro to this.

It felt like a 1960s, '70s kind of sci-fi show.

So the episode kicks off, um, we're getting that recap, like you were saying.

Yeah.

It's like the intro to, is it Buck Rogers, you were saying?

Buck Rogers.

Was he just saying weird syllables? Because nobody remembers those characters anymore.

Nobody remembers Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.

And nobody remembers the Phantom.

Myths die because they speak their piece.

As early as nineteen twelve, Edgar Rice Burroughs referred to green men in his first science fiction novel, A Prince of Mars.

And, uh, in the following decades, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon often battled green extraterrestrials.

But when stories started to circulate about aliens being recovered from a crashed flying saucer in Roswell, New Mexico in nineteen forty-seven, the extraterrestrials were usually portrayed as having a green skin.

Then the image of a green alien was further strengthened by a curious, widely publicized event on a Kentucky farm in nineteen fifty-five.