Sci-Fi Malady

July - in America we celebrate our independence from Great Britain. So it seemed like this month should all about Patriotism or seeking freedom from oppression. Or something like that.

We conclude conspiracy month with the most nerve wracking, confusing, ignorant and absurd of them all - flat earthers. Yes, there is a growing, vocal, crazy movement of people who believe the Earth is flat and NASA and all world governments are working together to hide the truth from all of us, because, um, I don’t know, something.

Wacky, wacky skeptics. Last week we explored the conspiracy theory that the Moon landing was faked. Once those conspiracy theorists were thoroughly and resoundingly debunked, they changed their tune. We did land on the moon. We however stopped going because we encountered aliens and we were told to stop coming to the moon…or something like that. Aliens are on the moon, because they need an advance staging base to attack Earth. Beings that can travel light years in space need a staging area to attack us, and require more than 50 years to set it up.

This one is only topped by next weeks conspiracy.

If you make a short list of the most famous and most enduring conspiracy theories nearly all of those lists will contain this one. Somehow, starting almost immediately after July 20th, 1969, this theory was hatched. Maybe it is because of the sheer immensity of the task of placing a human being on another world, maybe it is because the video evidence was grainy, and maybe it was just born out of the distrust that characterized the late 60’s and 70’s, but regardless, this endures even to this day. For whatever reason a small though sizeable about of people refuse to believe that humanity has reached and walked on the moon. We investigate and debunk this conspiracy in symptom 153.

Bigfoot - why can’t we ever find him? Well according to the Ancient Aliens crew it is because Bigfoot is a transdimensional alien. Or maybe he is a creature made by aliens to mine gold for them, who then mated with primitive humans to create us. Or maybe he is part of an advance scouting force to either conquer us when the time is right or let the aliens know when we are ready to be attacked. Confused? Me too. But it is Ancient Aliens and they never make sense. But the general idea is…bigfoot is an alien and “THEY” are hiding the truth because…reasons.

June is conspiracy month, but not the good ones, the crazy ones, like Bigfoot is real and an alien, the USA didn’t land on the moon, or we did and aliens made us leave and finally, the Earth is really a flat disc people. Wake up! Stop believe mainstream science and believe the guy, who thinks is “could be possible” and remember, the truth is out there.

We have talked about him all month, and for this symptom we are joined by Don O’Malley from Don’s Breakfast Serial on YouTube! He helps us review Undersea Kingdom - which stars Crash Corrigan. It is awesome. It is a little derivative of Flash Gordon, but Flash Gordon is derivative of Buck Rogers, so its ok.

Symptom 150. Doesn’t’ seem like it has been that long, but it has. It has been a labor of love, certainly not profit. Here we are though, 150 Symptoms in and it is time to review the 1936 Flash Gordon serial. It’s a lot of fun. It is well paced, plot driven, well acted and with characters that you come to care about and enjoy. It is easy to see how this comic strip turned serial spawned two more serials before 1940, multiple movie adaptations and shows and has stayed part of American and world culture for 84 years.

For this weeks episode we review The Fighting Devil Dogs from 1938. This serial is fantastic. It has a villain that inspired Darth Vader, a lackey/henchman who is every henchman stereotype but played perfectly and a great mix of action, suspense and mystery. This serial, while not perfect, is fun, inspirational and very well written and acted.

The Phantom Creeps is a 1939 serial. It has everything old science fiction is about, mad scientist trying to conquer the world, revenge, robots, invisibility cloaks and an underground secret lab. What else could you want? Well better pacing. But, it also stars Bella Lugosi! So it gets points back - and it inspired the Star Wars crawl.

The Phantom Creeps - it is someting