Star Wars Clone Wars pop culture reference

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 26 Mar 2005 10:45 pm

I was watching with my 7 yr old son this Cartoon Network production set in the Lucas mythology between the movies.. at one point a clone trooper jet packs into the scene to report to General ObiWan Kenobi, and ObiWan adresses this individual with the line "Commander Cody.. what have you to report?"

I nearly fell off my chair laughing and trying to explain to my boy why was difficult... [This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 26 March 2005 at 10:47 PM.]

Al Carmichael · Post by **Al Carmichael** » 26 Mar 2005 11:54 pm

That IS funny!

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 27 Mar 2005 11:06 am

Uhhh, sorry Dave...I don't "get" it.

What, exactly, did you find so humourous?

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 27 Mar 2005 12:59 pm

Donny,
One of the more high profile ( and "high" in general" ) country-rock groups of the 1970s was "Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen" featuring the tele work of Mr Bill Kirchen, and the steel work of among others Mr. Bobby Black... the Commander (Real name George Frayne)played piano

They took their name (possibly) from an old Republic films serial "Commando Cody" from the early 50's

Hard to tell which Lucas may have been name checking (apparently Cody figures in the plot of the upcoming Sith movie), but the coincidence caught me off guard and hit my funny bone....[This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 27 March 2005 at 12:59 PM.][This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 27 March 2005 at 04:52 PM.]

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 27 Mar 2005 3:13 pm

Geez, how could I have missed that! I'll have to watch it again. My kids wouldn't miss the humour. My 19 year old daughter prizes her copy of "Tales From the Ozone" signed by Bobby Black, and my seven year old loves the Commander.

Jason Odd · Post by **Jason Odd** » 27 Mar 2005 5:21 pm

Yeah, Star Wars (the 1977 film, or Part 4 as it's known as these days) was a result of Lucas not being able to gain the rights to a Buck Rogers film.

He was a massive fan of all the old Republic stuff, especially the sci-fi adventurer stuff. Can't get above the roots of yur rasin' I guess.

I'm pretty sure there was a Cody serial with the Lost Planet Airmen.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 27 Mar 2005 6:28 pm

Cody (Commander Cody) was the name of Rocketman in one of the old movie serials. He was referred to as "Sky Martial of Outer Space", or some such appelation. That's why I didn't see humour in the characters name. I used to watch the old serials (Rocketman, Masked Marvel, etc.) when I was a kid. Just a plain ol' tribute to Buck Rogers, et al, I figured.

The old Rocketman serials, by the way, had some of the best "flying human" sequences ever photographed. When they were preparing to make the first Christopher Reeve "Superman" movie, word has it that the studio asked their special-effects people to duplicate those old flying effect sequences. They couldn't, and no one could even figure out how they did it so well 30 years earlier!

Jason Odd · Post by **Jason Odd** » 4 Apr 2005 4:54 am

Those Superman sequences are so bad!
Even when I was a kid I was sitting there thinking, howcum she's gliding along so well, if Superman was holding her hand, wouldn't she drag along rather than perfectly glide alongside him?

heh..

Of course there was a retro beauty to it all that I realised in later years, the whole thing was a homage to the older style Superman. Which I guess was Donny's point all along.