Gene Gene the Dancing Machine
Jan. 2nd, 2004 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotnik2004
I was reading up about singing cowboys over the holidays, as a cutting-edge cat like myself is wont to do. It's a genre I love, for complicated reasons, and one that's woefully unrepresented in gaming. I think there might be one singing cowboy chapter in Fistful O' Zombies, the western sourcebook for the zombie rpg All Flesh Must Be Eaten -- further proof of the zombie cowboy phenomenon and also the astonishing variety, and deranged specificity, of AFMBE's sourcebooks. (I fully expect them to publish a zombie romance supplement someday with chapters on Jane Austen zombies, Harlequin Romance zombies, and hot clockwork-on-zombie pr0n.)
Where was I? Oh yeah, there's a singing cowboy zombie chapter in Fistful O' Zombies. So I should really say that it's the non-zombie singing cowboy genre that is woefully unrepresented in gaming. I did play a singing (non-zombie) Mountie PC in
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editswlonghair's old Adventure! game, but it didn't last long enough for me to really get my cowboy ya-yas out. Soooo, I was reading about singing cowboys, as a cutting-edge yadda yadda yadda, and I stumbled on the fact that Gene Autry's first starring movie role, in 1935, was in a science fiction singing cowboy serial called The Phantom Empire.
Let's review: Gene Autry. 1935. Sci-Fi. Singing. Cowboy. Serial.
How idiotically cool is this? Gene Autry, king of the singing cowboys, strums his banjo, sings goony cowboy songs, and does battle with a robot army from the Hollow Earth. There's a synopsis and some images here and here, like this one:
Robots prepare to torch Gene Autry.
That's the actual caption. Robots. Prepare. To. Torch. Gene Autry.
Right, I already used that prose device.
Now, of course, the stupid wheels start turning. "The Phantom Empire", eh? Now what series of films does that corn-ball title remind me of? And from such ignoble beginnings great role-playing fu is born.
Prepossessing Pictures presents
The Phantom Empire!
An Astounding Age! Serial
with Gene Autry, Radio's Singing Jedi
Starring
Gene Autry as Gene Kenobi
Don Mills as Buck Skywalker
Betsy King Ross as Princess Amidala
Wheeler Oakman as Senator Palpatine
Abner Biberman as Darth Tojo
and
Stepin Fetchit as Jar Jar Binks
SEE Gene Kenobi ride out from Radio Ranch to battle the Clone Rangers of the Evil Galactic Empire! GASP as the lovely Amidala performs no-fooling bareback riding stunts! SHIVER as you hear the chilling Dark Yodel of the Sith! CHEER when young Buck Skywalker gives Darth Tojo a two-fisted taste of patriotic Jedi medicine! GUFFAW at the hilarious antics of "Smiley" Burnette and "Cheaplaffs" Johnson as Lovable Alcoholic Ro-Bots!
Hmm. This seems like the sort of high-concept doohickey that would go over well at GrassoCon. Hell, I might just declare the three Lucas prequels apocryphal and pretend in my own mind that this was the original back story to the Holy Trilogy.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 08:07 pm (UTC)You're drunk, aren't you?
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Date: 2004-01-03 09:23 am (UTC)Oh, and rum.
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Date: 2004-01-03 10:59 am (UTC)-John, cranky from lack of gaming
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Date: 2004-01-03 11:48 am (UTC)Good gaming is to be had in plenty in our circle John. You just never show up for any of it.
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Date: 2004-01-06 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 09:47 pm (UTC)Fun series
Date: 2004-01-02 11:39 pm (UTC)Not just robots and singing, but ray guns, airplanes, and saving the ranch. Plus Betsy King Ross and Champion!
Re: Fun series
Date: 2004-01-03 06:24 am (UTC)Re: Fun series
Date: 2004-01-03 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 06:08 pm (UTC)Even More Weird...
Date: 2008-12-08 04:41 pm (UTC)