Buster Crabbe

The series returned to the NYC airways on WJZ-TV (Channel 7) (now WABC) on Monday September 21, 1953, and was retitled Buster's Buddies! The WJZ TV version of the series included a studio audience of kids and became more of a kids' variety show. Read Less

When Rogers (Gil Gerard) praises his flying, Gordon replies "I've been doing that sort of thing since before you were born." Rogers (who was born over 500 years earlier) responds "You think so?" to which Gordon replies "Young man, I know so!" Crabbe had, in fact, been playing "Buck Rogers" since long before Gerard was born.

Crabbe's Hollywood career waned somewhat in the 1950s and 1960s. The ever-industrious Crabbe became a stockbroker and businessman during this period. According to David Ragan's "Movie Stars of the '30s", Crabbe even owned a Southern California swimming pool building company in later years. In the mid-1950s, Crabbe purchased the campus of a small defunct prep school near Onchiota, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. Renamed Buster Crabbe's Meenahga Lodge the camp advertised itself as swim camp for youngsters age eight to 14, with at least one swim instructor from Hawaii. Using the school's auditorium, along with professionally made costuming and scenery, a couple of musical plays were staged by the campers during the summer under the guidance of several counselors with drama training. Although scheduled to make at least one appearance at the camp each summer, while filming Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, he supposedly needed an emergency appendectomy which prevented his attending. During this period of his life, Buster joined the swimming pool company Cascade Industries of Talmadge Road, Edison, New Jersey. Read Less