Before he was The Scarecrow in Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983) Bruce Boxleitner played real life game hunter Frank Buck in this adventure series designed to capitalize on the success of Radars of the Lost Ark. Buck was a sensation in the early 20th century as a big game trapper and conservationist who wrote the book this series, and a film in 1932 was named after. Set in 1930's Malaya, the real-life history of Buck has been embellished to make him a matinee idol who defeats bad guys in each hour long episode.
The series has never made it to DVD. You can find full episodes on YouTube, however. Above is the second episode to air - The Seven Keys to Singapore, uploaded by MrDougwarner69.
Obscurity factor: 8 (rarely heard from since it first aired, not on DVD, available on YouTube)
I may be mistaken, but I believe that the filmmaker character in the original "King Kong," was somewhat based on Frank Buck, as well. However, IMDb has a note indicating that writer/director Merian C. Cooper was partially inspired by W. Douglas Burden, who brought the world's first captive Komodo dragons to the Bronx Zoo in 1926.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. He was a phenomenon back then...
ReplyDeleteThere was another short-lived series from around the same time that was also inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark called "Tales of the Gold Monkey."
ReplyDeleteboth "bring 'em back alive" on cbs and "tales of the golden monkey" on abc (?) starring stephen collins unfortunately lasted for only one season
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