Category: GR:40 - Dan Fiorella: Writer @ large

Dan Fiorella

GR40-One Writer's Space Odyssey

9/14/2026

Picture it: Manhattan, 1985. An ever-aspiring writer checks the trade papers for a writer's gig that will help him escape his hum-drum work life. In May 1985, he sees a classified ad in the Village Voice (the city's funky weekly publication): Wanted: Writers. Animated, science fiction, action/adventure series. Send resume & samples to: Transcom Media, 58 Walker St., NYC 10013.

Sure, that sounds legit, right? It was something. I just had to send a sample. And a resume. Which in 1985 was a Mad magazine joke and maybe a Steve Allen joke. Now you have to understand, my previous exposure to science fiction was "Abbott & Costello go to Mars." It really wasn't my thing. But I had a radio script, which I had written with my classmate, John Rawlins, for a show called "The Adventures of Captain Useless." It was a comedy about the misadventures of a clumsy super hero who had to stop and alien invasion. So, that's sci-fi, right? I mailed it in and, much to my surprise, got called in for an interview in June...

GR:40-Thar She Blows!

9/9/2026

The main office was still having us draw ideas from the master list they had created. They had many. But they couldn't get around to doing them all, hence we were hired. There was one idea on the list that one of the GR founding fathers had written up:

GR: 40-Getting the Ax (Part 3)

9/7/2026

I really started to go far afield here, which is what happens when a story is getting worked on over and over. The title becomes "The Tomb of Ra." A minor thing about Egyptian culture being seeded by aliens goes from a brief take away to a whole "Battlestar Galactica" level of plot. Sun gods, boccie ball, spider webs, they all are here. Some of them stay in, some don't. My boccie ball joke got folded into a running gag that Doc went to some "finishing school," whenever he brings up his past.

Apologizes for the quality. I only had a 2nd generation xeroxed copy of the script in my files.

GR:40-Getting the Ax (Part 2)

9/4/2026

After submitting draft one, I got to work on draft two.

The 1st act with all the rangers seems longer and I went very quirky with Q-ball. Roy and Niko are now old friends. The flash backs are more elaborate. But then it gets weird. I go all "Abby Normal" and lift a plot device from "Ghost of Frankenstein" and the robot now has an evil brain. And he's a lot more chatty now. As for stopping him, I gave the Ax an actual Achille's heel, a power switch located on the back of its foot, which activates him in the beginning and deactivates him at the end.

And I have Doc just waving his hand, wizard-like, at the Ax, as his way to control the robot. His software apps weren't here yet.

Both drafts have and underlaying message of "you don't know what you're capable of until you do," where the tech-guy eventually proves his meddle. Also, the GR shows always had some lesson, whether it was about the environment, civility, or tech gone wild. It wasn't always just white hats vs. black hats. It took some work to roll back the flashbacks and their whole "Doomsday weapon" theme.

On this draft, I found the actual notes I got:

The biggest take-away? No Robots! I mean that was the whole deal of the episode! But suddenly, kid's TV was overrun by robots: Go-bots, Transformers, Robotix, Ninja Robots, Voltron, so we had to have something else. I want to take credit for coming up the the Golem take on the creature. Why is it crystal? Not sure. Doc taking down the robot with his software hacks? Not a thing. Unless...Well, something else to figure out.

To Be Continued...

GR:40-Getting the Ax (Part 1)

9/2/2026

As noted elsewhere, my first script assignment was "The Ax." I was just learning the ropes here, but it was noted that not every ranger had to appear in every episode. However, they didn't care for the rangers going solo either. So I had to pick my cast and insidentials from our writer's guide.

Since the Ax was going to be a robot, it seemed to make sense to bring the computer guy, Doc, aboard. As for the unstoppable killing machine; how was I going to stop that? I borrowed an old Star Trek idea of subverting the Ax's programing. If it was built to destroy, what would happen if its actions created? I devised the holographic projector in the opening as my Chekhov's gun to be used in the 2nd act. Early on, a lot of the episodes would turn into "rangers on the run" stories, and this was certainly one of the first. So, I submitted my 4 page outline and hoped it didn't get me fired.

The good news was it didn't get me fired.

So, here's the deal; I found hard copies of the first 3 drafts of "The Ax." Re-reading them is jogging some memories.

GR40-The Ballad of Ol' Roy

8/28/2026

(ETA: Naturally, I reread the scripts today [the first time in 40 years] to discover they song I wrote for "The Ax" was a different song to the tune of "My Darling Clementine." Adjustments will be made and those lyrics added below. Now I'm starting to wonder how many of my other GR memories are wrong?)

So, my first assignment as a GR writer was the episode "The Ax (no "e")" So the description tells me that miner finds a buried monster. Now, this being a western, I simply assumed that a "miner" meant "prospector." That seems like a logical assumption, no? So I created a character right of 1849, the old west prospector and named him Ol' Roy. Now, it being an outer space series, I had to make Roy "high tech." That meant giving him a pack animal, a robotic pack animal, Burr0-5000. I gave him a laser pick axe, a digital divining rod, a space shovel, all that stuff. But I also had to give him an old-timey Western-style ballard to sing while he mines. I'm not a song writer, but I have written my fair share of song parodies. I pulled up the tune "My Daring Clementine" and updated the lyrics to the future, which I'm sure Walt Disney would have done in the "GE Carousel of Progress" if he didn't have the Sherman Brothers.

I tried to capture the style of "My Darling Clementine", "Oh, Susanna" and "She'll be Coming 'Round the Mountain When She Comes," which often had silly and jokey lyrics. That's why they were hits. So, I wrote it with a ton of space puns.

When it came time to write "Boomtown" (which was originally called "Gold Rush") I wanted to repeat the bit with the song, only this time I choose to do "Oh, Susanna." I wrote a couple of stanzas that open up the scenes. After all was said and done, I for some reason wrote more lyrics. I honestly don't remember if I created it all while doing the episode on a lark, or would pocket it for later episodes featuring Old Roy, which was pretty gutsy on my part, since I didn't know if I'd be invited back or there would be future Old Roy episodes. I got lucky, Old Roy became a continuing character in this universe, and even in an episode NOT written by me.

Anyway, the lyrics have been posted here and there along the internet by fans of the show, which is lucky, because I couldn't find the file. I did, weirdly, find my handwritten version of it, *shrug*.

The Ballad of Ol' Roy
(sung to the tune of “Oh, Susanna)

GR:40 And the Reviews are In!

8/24/2026

The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers did get some nice coverage when it came out. The creator, Robert Mandell, gave an in-depth interview to Starlog Magazine, one of the leading periodicals on Sci-fi in movies, TV and comics.

Galaxy Rangers was included in Wizard magazines list of 100 Best 'Toons Ever!

None of the other cartoons that came up lasted much more then GR did...expect Ghostbusters, I seem to remember the Real Ghostbusters cartoon came out that season.

So, no toys, a lot of competition, but people did watch and the ones that liked it liked it a lot. So, a one-season wonder like GR making the list was pretty slick.

GR40- A Fan with a Plan

8/19/2026

Jim Therry. We referred to him as Fan Zero. He contacted the production office after the show started airing. He seemed normal, so the office put us in touch with him, if we wanted to speak with him.

He loved the show and wanted to speak with and interview as many of the staff as he could. He was putting together a fanzine for the show (fanzines were the blogs of the analogue era). I spoke with him and offered to write something for him. I pulled in John Rawlins and we agreed to do an article for the fanzine. Afterward, he sent me a copy of the 1st issue of "New Frontier." I do not know if there was ever a second issue.

GR:40-The Roy Rodgers Years

8/19/2026

Okay, the Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers didn't have toys, but we had Kid's Meals! In the fall when the show came out, the old roast beef/fast food chain, Roy Rodgers, began promoting the Galaxy Rangers with kids meal packaging and "toys." It wasn't until recently I figured out why Roy Rodgers was so open to a sci-fi cartoon show promotion. You have to remember, Roy Rodgers was a famous movie cowboy. And we were a western in space! Do you see it now?

The first week they served the food put in plastic clamshells designed to look (kinda) like the space crafts on the show. The blue one was the Inceptor. The grey one, the Commander. The green one was the Iron Falcon, the bad guys' ship. Each came with stickers so you could put the various details on the ships; stripes, decals, people in the windows, etc (I only put the stickers on the green one, I dunno why. Ruin collector value?). Rawlins and I worked in lower Manhattan at this time and there was an actual Roy Rodgers restraint by us. We would meet for lunch and each order the kids meals, so we could start collecting the pieces for ourselves (and maybe raise awareness?). And yes, we were the only people in lower Manhattan ordering kids meals. Then in the evenings, I'd drive to the one by my house and get dinner there way too often to get more stuff.

I have several of each, but only 1 gray top. It's an even number of tops and bottoms, so I don't know what happened there.

GR40: The Rawlins/Fiorella Interviews

8/14/2026

Okay, so as I've been gathering up my Galaxy Rangers past, I came across this. We were contacted by a Mr. Jim Therry, back in 1986, after the show had been on the air for a few months. Therry introduced himself as the editor and writer for New Frontiers, a GR fanzine. He was contacting staff of the show and get them to submit to his publication. He wanted to print stories about the making of the show and perhaps be open to interviews. So, my friend and I decided to oblige with both.

John Rawlins and I wrote and submitted an article about our life in the GR matrix. It's not the most scholarly text, but we enjoyed doing it. And as we were both comedy writers by nature, it turned into a bit.

Unfortunately, the fanzine folded and we never heard from Therry again. So it's been sitting in a cardboard box since. I'm glad we did it, it reminded me of a lot of things I had forgotten. It's as good a way to explain ourselves and Galaxy Rangers. And it came in very handy later on. John and I were invited to be part of the DVD release of the GR episodes, with our little "show & tell" segment, and I dug out the interview and so we could review it and jog our memories. But that's a story for another day...

A Brief Interview with Dan Fiorella and John Rawlins
or
Did We Get Away With Murder or What?
by John Rawlins and Dan Fiorella

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