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Originally broadcast as one two-hour episode.
The original Buck Rogers from the 1930s (from Buck Rogers (1939)), Buster Crabbe, made a guest appearance as Brigadier Gordon in this episode (he was most famous for playing the title role in Flash Gordon (1936) and its sequels).
Answering Buck's query on where he learned his starfighter skills, Gordon says he was doing this before Buck was born. This line was actually Buster Crabbe and Gil Gerard stepping out of character temporarily. This is a reference to when Crabbe played Buck Rogers in the original 1939 series (Gil Gerard was born in 1943).
As seen from outer space, the surface of the planet Vistula that Buck comes to is a mirror image of the Great Lakes area of the United States.
Originally broadcast as one two-hour episode.
"Cherry bomb under a tin bucket" had a different connotation back then. Adults in 1979 would remember the original cherry bomb and M-80 firecrackers, the ones about 20 times more powerful than what is legal today. Those old style cherry bombs could launch a steel bucket twenty feet up, or blow off your whole arm.