BUCK ROGERS (1981) "The Satyr" Network Promo

There's a lot of fun packed into this 20-second 1981 NBC promo for the second season Buck Rogers In The 25th Century episode "The Satyr" - not the least of which is the delightfully goofy monster make-up.

In fine Universal Television tradition*, the script for the episode was recycled from a previous Universal series.  Actually, the TV story - which already owed a huge debt to the 1953 George Stevens-directed Western, Shane - was also re-used, again, on a subsequent adventure series from the cost-conscious studio.

On Battlestar Galactica a couple of years prior, it was known as "The Lost Warrior," and featured the heroic Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch), marooned on an isolated, human colony world and protecting a farm-dwelling widow and her hero-worshiping young son from the amnesiac Cylon "gunfighter" that killed her husband.

On Buck Rogers, the titular space explorer (as portrayed by Gil Gerard) is marooned on an isolated, human colony world and finds himself protecting a farm-dwelling widow and her hero-worshiping young son from the marauding, satyr-like alien creature that was once her husband.

And, a year or so later, on the 1982 ABC adventure series, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, the script would be dusted off again, as "The Lady And the Tiger;" this time so that South Seas aviator Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins of Star Trek- The Motion Picture) could get marooned on an isolated, tropical island and protect a farm-dwelling widow and her hero-worshiping young son from the man-eating tiger that killed her husband!

Ahhh.... classic television.... you gotta love it.

* The most notorious example of Universal's story recycling is when they took the script from the Knight Rider episode, "Good Day At White Rock" and re-used it the following season on The A-Team, where it was titled, "Black Day At Bad Rock!"  Another choice example is the re-use of the Six Million Dollar Man script "Survival Of The Fittest" for The Bionic Woman episode, "Fly Jaime."