Does anybody else miss flying saucers? Not the real thing, which probably never existed, but the utilization of flying saucers as the go-to descriptive choice for UFOs. Up until maybe the 1980s, saucer-shaped vehicles were the most common means of transit for aliens from another world. They appeared in movies and even in official accounts of UFO abductions. I blame Steven Spielberg. I think it might have been “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” that ended flying saucers. Could be wrong. If you have no idea what I’ve been talking about, check out these memorable flying saucers from TV shows.
The Invaders
The flying saucer that David Vincent comes across on the first episode of “The Invaders” sets the stage for a classic example of the lone voice in the wilderness crying out to a world that thinks him crazy. Oh man, do I know how David Vincent feels. The flying saucer on stilts that David Vincent sees could actually be bought as a model with a little surprise inside: the control room.
The Lost Saucer
Flying saucers were not just prime voices crying in the wilderness. “The Lost Saucer” was one of those live-action Saturday morning alternatives to cartoons that you hear so much about. Like “Land of the Lost” only not as goofy. Well, maybe just as goofy since the aliens who brought this flying saucer to Earth were played by Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi. And if that means nothing to you, then flying saucers are not the only thing from the past you need to get to know.
The Twilight Zone
Check out the spacecraft that takes the narrator of the “The Twilight Zone” episode episode “To Serve Man” off into space just after he finds out that the book titled “To Serve Man” is a cookbook. It’s a cookbook! And the entire episode is actually just a flashback to the story that he is narrating from within the locked confines of a room on a flying saucer. Another episode of “The Twilight Zone” has Endora from “Bewitched” playing a mute giant fighting off one of the coolest flying saucer models in TV history. The twist is that…well, I don’t want to give everything away. (PS: it’s a cookbook!)
The Simpsons
What do you think Kang and Kodos fly around in every time they show up on “The Simpsons” for Halloween? Yeah, that’s right, a flying saucer. And too bad they don’t make a model of the flying saucer flown by Kang and Kodos. That would be cool. It’s got tubes that can suck up Presidential candidates and spew them into the emptiness of space. Come to think of it, we don’t need just a model of the Kang and Kodos flying saucer, we need the real thing.
Batman
The Joker has a flying saucer in one episode of “Batman.” Or maybe two episodes of “Batman” since every story was a two-parter. Can’t remember much about the Joker’s flying saucer because it wasn’t a Batman episode with Julie Newmar as Catwoman. And, frankly, any episode of Batman without Julie Newmar as Catwoman is not really worth remembering. I do seem to remember that the Joker’s flying saucer was pretty darn goofy looking, though.
The Brady Bunch
First Greg fakes a UFO to make a fool of Peter and Bobby because, well, because that’s big brothers do. Then Bobby has a dream in which he is visited by aliens from another world who arrive in a flying saucer. But of trivia you may not know. The diminutive adults who play the aliens in the flying saucer were stand-ins for the actors who played Bobby and Cindy Brady. What a world!