The Thrilling Adventure Hour

Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars, "Red All Over"

Added 2025-10-31 15:11:01 +0000 UTC

The venue messed up our recording of this one in San Francisco, so we did it in the studio! And it sounds great. Here's the episode early and ad-free for you nice folks.

Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars, "Red All Over"
Written by Ben Acker & Ben Blacker
Starring Marc Evan Jackson as Sparks Nevada; Mark Gagliardi as Croach the Tracker; Busy Philipps as the Red Plains Rider; Josh Gondelman as Iron Regular Size; Joshua Malina as Cylus; Annie Savage as the Marshal Station AI; and Hal Lublin as the Bank AI and Folksy Hal.

This is an image that I don't think we've ever officially shared before? Waaaay back in 2007-2008 we pitched an animated version of Sparks Nevada to the few outlets who would entertain it at the time. It was a fun process in which we (Acker & Blacker) brought along Andy Paley to underscore the pitch and we had the actors--Marc Evan Jackson and Mark Gagliardi, as well as others who dipped in and out--perform a few scenes so buyers could get a feel for the show.

We had an animator on board who drew up these great designs for the characters. We have the other ones around somewhere and will share with you at some point.

The show ended up selling to Nickelodeon as a middle-grade series. The whole process of putting it together was pretty easy and fun. Our exec there really understood the show and was excited about it. Of course, as frequently happens with these things, network mandates changed, our exec left, and the project reverted to us. There was really nowhere else to bring it at the time, unfortunately. (And there are even fewer homes for it now!). But it was a good experience overall, and it emboldened us to find Thrilling fans at other outlets over the years.

podcast produced by Ben Acker & Ben Blacker
Music by Jonathan Dinerstein
Sparks theme by Eban Schletter
Podcast produced and engineered by Jordan Katz