How is this the most faithful adaptation of FG and yet...

Two possible reasons: the physical state of the master and rights issues. King Feature Syndicate owns Flash Gordon, but I believe (though I have no proof) that NBC owned the movie. If the first is true, it might need a lot of cleaning up, which might be expensive enough that they probably wouldn't see a profit. If the second is true, the parties involved would have to negotiate a split of the dvd revenues, which is the main holdup for the Batman tv series. You can add the fact that there isn't a particularly large audience screaming for its release.

"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"

I just watched it again. I only have a watchable VHS recording in digital form, but that's the best version I've come upon. This is such a great Flash Gordon adaptation, it has everything just right for me.

Never paid much attention to the Saturday morning show but I vividly recall being glued to the TV when this aired in '82. Always wanted to see it again, but it was never rerun or issued on video (there was no Internet to tell me otherwise, so I kept looking for it at video stores). 25 years later the "complete series" dvd came (and went), but still no release of "The Greatest Adventure." Finally had to settle for a VHS download -- better than nothing and I'm truly grateful to whomever leaked it but the quality leaves a lot to be desired.

There's no end credits on my copy, but I highly doubt NBC holds any stake in it. Although NBC had US TV rights, those lapse after so long, and they only own stuff done through thier production companies. This was Filmation's production. As for the character rights being the problem, that's also illogical since the TV show (which recycled tons of footage from this film) was issued on disc (as well as the live-action Buster Crabbe, Sam Jones, and Eric Johnson versions, plus the animated "Defenders of the Galaxy," which also features the characters). And as for the state of the masters... well, Filmation's masters seem to be in generally good shape. Lots of thier stuff has been released on disc and from what I've seen, only the live-action portions of "Hero High" were dodgy quality (which probably explains why they only included a few live-action clips). I'm still baffled as to why it was excluded from the Flash complete series set.

If ever there was a made-for-TV animated film crying out for a lavish 1080 special edition release, this'd be it. It's without question Filmation's most impressive artistic achievement as well as the most faithful adaptation of the comics and it really sucks that it's only available as a bootleg.

It's a real shame that it hasn't been restored as of yet. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that Filmation was capable of tv animation that was this good at the time.