A Few Space-Dollars More

Perhaps I'm a bit biased as a fan of both western and space stories, but the space-western is a genre that I think has been woefully underdeveloped. That's why I'm always thankful when iTunes starts downloading a fresh episode of Sparks Nevada, Marshal On Mars.

Since 2005, the Thrilling Adventure Hour (formerly Thrilling Adventure And Supernatural Suspense Hour) is a monthly comedy show currently performing at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles. The show consists of a series of scripted sketches done in the style of old-timey radio serials, such as paranormal dectives/lushes Frank and Sadie Doyle (Paul F. Tompkins and Paget Brewster) in Beyond Belief and The Adventures Of Captain Laserbeam featuring John DiMaggio as the eponymous hero, with a rotating cast of regulars, and a crazy-impressive list of guest stars. Being stuck on the east coast, I've missed out on the live shows, but thankfully, starting this past January they've begun posting a weekly podcast of rotating episodes, available on iTunes and through SoundCloud. Easily my favorite of these is the two(-robot)-fisted pulp tale of Sparks Nevada (Mark Evan Jackson) and his somewhat-loyal sidekick, the native Martian Croach (Mark Gagliardi).

Playing the western pastiche to the extreme, America has expanded "ever westward to the wildest west all, outer space", and Sparks roams the Martian wasteland, righting wrongs and wrangling hyper-cattle. Featuring guest stars such as Samm Levine, Chris Hardwick and Comedy Death-Ray's Scott Aukerman, the episodes so far have been telling one-off stories of Spark and onus-bound Croach's adventures in the Martian frontier, encountering aliens, robots, rustlers and mad preachers, as well as competing for the affection of the Martian-raised vigilante, the Red Plains Rider (Busy Phillips), and an over-arcing story of an impending doom coming to Mars in the tail of Haley's Comet.

The first episode, recorded at the Thrilling Adventure Hour's first show at the Largo, is available here, along with all their other currently-released episodes. The series is fun, with dry wit and over-the-top stories, a great play on the old serial tropes, and every episode opens with a damn-addictive theme song by Eban Schletter and Andy Paley. I think Sparks himself put it best: "I'm from Earth."