Friday, February 3, 2017

TV Guided: Land of the Lost



Martinex1: Today on TV Guided, we leave prime time behind and leap into the Saturday morning soup of 1974 with an exploration of Land of the Lost.

Sid and Marty Krofft had a history of children’s programming production with outlandish shows like H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, when the puppeteer brothers from Montreal created and revealed one of their strangest offerings ever – the time-paradox sci-fi adventure Land of the Lost on NBC.  

In 1974, the show told the tale of the Marshall family, Rick and his two children Will and Holly, and their camping trip gone awry as they plunge down a 1000 foot waterfall, travel through time and space to a strange parallel world filled with dinosaurs, lizard-men called Sleestaks, long haired ape-like characters called Pakuni, strange portals and mystical crystals.    This was not Earth – past, present, or future - as the land had three moons and a history all its own.

The entire series, which ran until 1976, focused on the efforts of the family to return home.  In the meantime, they outfitted a cave for a place of security and fought off a Tyrannosaurus Rex named Grumpy by ramming a giant “toothpick” down its throat.   They also befriended a small brontosaurus Dopey, a young Paku named Cha-Ka, and an intelligent and arrogant Sleestak named Enik.  

The show had an interesting pedigree with writers from Star Trek, D.C Fontana and David Gerrold contributing to the weirdness.  Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov in Star Trek) also contributed; he was a writer on an episode titled “The Stranger” that I viewed recently.

In that tale, Rick (portrayed by Spencer Milligan) plays referee to the squabbling siblings Will (Wesley Eure) and Holly( Kathy Coleman).   Through some misadventure they are chased into a cave by savage Sleestaks with shockingly limp arrows.   There they meet an English speaking Sleestack, Enik, with a glittery gold vest and a crystal that has various powers including the ability to stop people in their tracks and induce their worst fears.   He helps the Marshalls chase away their persecutors and tells them a twisted tale of the history of his planet and some secrets about the interdimensional portal.   Through some exploration against a backdrop of blue-screen ruins, Enik realizes this crazy land is not his past, but… dun dun dun… his future!

It is definitely a weird show with what seems like a shoestring budget by today’s standards, but it kept me mesmerized as a single digit youth.   And I have to say even today that the show crammed a lot of ideas, topics, and twists into thirty minutes.   It didn’t last long as an original, ending its run in 1976 with the final year losing the father (over salary disputes) and replacing him with Uncle Jack (played by Ron Harper).     The show is loaded with trivia tidbits including the fact that basketball legend Bill Laimbeer portrayed one of the Sleestaks during his college days and that a linguist was hired to create an actual language for the Pakuni.   As a whole, the show seems like a local production with grander plans than it has the means to achieve– Jurassic Park performed on your local high school stage.   But it does have a strange and nostalgic charm. It was a fairly decent hit for the Kroffts with some spinoff merchandising.   I don't recall much about the board game but I know that I had it back in the day.  
So if you are looking for pylons, skylons,  lost cities, waterfalls that look like a flush of a garden hose, some wooden acting, puppet dinosaurs, and time portals run by brightly colored crystals – search out Land of the Lost.  Grab a bowl of Honeycomb and join me in front of the old Sylvania and share your thoughts on this 40 year old Saturday AM slightly tarnished treasure!

 










18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Land of The Lost was never broadcast on British TV - I would definitely remember a show starring Ron Harper from Planet Of The Apes !! But we did get a cartoon series called Valley of The Dinosaurs which was kind of similar.

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Greetings! I remember Land of the Giants and The Land That Time Forgot (Ray Rayner or Frazier Thomas for Chicago folks???) but never saw this "Land." Pufnstuf... oh brother....

Martinex1 said...

Valley of the Dinosaurs was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that premiered the same year 1974. The premise was very similar with a family getting sucked into a whirlpool, ending up in prehistoric times and befriending a caveman family. It only lasted one season.

And yes, Harper played Alan Virdon on the TV POTA also in 1974. It seems that was a pretty good year!

Martinex1 said...

And Pufinstuf scared the bejeebees out of me in my preschool days. Don't know why. The Krofft brothers sure had some imagination. Witchie Poo and that talking boat at the beginning - I did not like at all. Weird stuff. Jack Wild was well into his teens when he played 11 year old Jimmy. The Kroffts had so many shows on Saturday mornings here; they were always a little askew and definitely "70s" in style and feel.

david_b said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
david_b said...

I remember seeing the ads for it, it seemed alright for a low-budget venture, but it was aimed more for a younger crowd that myself. I strongly preferred watching the Animated Trek series on NBC.

'Course that didn't stop me from tuning in 'Far Out Space Nuts' on CBS Saturday mornings every so often, or SuperFriends, since I was into the Megos for a brief spell at that point.

I just went to Seattle 2ys ago for the Galactica convention where they had most of this cast there for a reunion of sorts. I know the lady who played the girl was quite sweet and nice to talk to, but the show itself never held any interest personally.

Unknown said...

Land of the Lost was a must see on Saturday morning. It was one show all us kids liked, so it was big fun watching it together, eating cereal by the mixing bowl. Martinez, HR Puffnstuff creeped me out too! Although not enough to keep me away. A great CD came out in the 90s, that was remakes of the Saturday cartoons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Morning:_Cartoons'_Greatest_Hits
I still listen to it and the School house rocks CD

Charlie Horse 47 said...

For some reason I recall seeing puffin-stuff on Sunday mornings like 7:00 am around 1971ish. It kept our attention,sort of, while my brother and I played hot wheels, Lincoln Logs, or Tinker Toys, and then had the inevitable fight before going to church, lol.

Anonymous said...

You know the old cliche when faced with something really weird -- "What were they smoking?" Supposedly, both Krofft Brothers actually WERE major potheads. If you want to see their absolute strangest creation, go to YouTube and type in the words "Fol de Rol"....

david_b said...

Puffnstuff weirded me out..., I thought Witchiepoo was alright along with the 'Mechanical Boy' song/dance, but the rest was waaaay past what I could enjoy.

Hence why in 1969 I stuck with the likes of Scooby Doo and 'Banana Splits'..

William said...

Ahh, Land of the Lost, as a kid I never missed an episode. You didn't mention in your review that it also had one of the best theme songs ever for a Saturday morning show. "Marshall, Will and Holly, on routine expedition, in the greatest earthquake ever known…" Great stuff.

They made a movie based on the show starring Will Ferrell as Marshall. Needless to say it wasn't very good. It completely changed who the characters were, and badly missed the entire point of the show by replacing the sci-fi weirdness with bad humor, and over the top slapstick. (You know, like all of Will Ferrell's terrible movies do).

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Dudes, I misspoke about "The Land that Time Forgot " and meant "A Journey to the Beginning of Time." I don't know if this was a Chicago-only thing on Garfield Goose??? But it was a great show. When the Colins and Steve come from England to visit they must see Chicago's Museum of Broadcast History." Believe it or not, Chicago was a serious player in TV through the 1970s.

Martinex1 said...

Luther Manning that is actually a great CD; I have it too. We may have to review it here at some point.

Ah yes Anon... "Fol de Rol" starring Cyd Charisse, Howard Cosell, puppets and Rick Nelson.

And William, you are right, not only is the theme song for Land Of the Lost great but the whole opening sequence in front of a blue screen on horribly fake white water rapids is classic. I should have included that.

I'm sure at some point we will get to other Krofft shows. After all, who could forget Captain Kool and the Kongs with "Electro Woman and Dynogirl," "Bigfoot and Wild Boy," and "Dr. Shrinker?" Whooo boy! I wish I could forget them... especially Dr. Shrinker; that was so horrible and I was cringing at the jokes when I was 8 years old. I think the laugh track even struggled to chuckle.

Martinex1 said...

CH 47, I bet before the year is out we cover Bozo, Garfield Goose, Ray Rayner. Family Classics, and all their friends on a WGN post. Watch for it!

Charlie Horse 47 said...

Lord, where did all the fun, clean entertainment go??? Thanks for keeping it alive Martin and Red!

Redartz said...

Nice overview of the show, Marti! Afraid I can't add much to the discussion today; I never watched the show. I generally avoided live action, preferring animated shows- "Valley of the Dinosaurs" being a prime example...

Humanbelly said...

My buddy Bryan and I sort of loved the show, but never hesitated to poke utter fun at it and nitpick mercilessly at its weaknesses. Ha!

- In the opening theme sequence? Toy/bluescreen/whatever raft goes over the "falls"? Holly shrieks out, "Daddy, DO SOMETHING-!!". . . followed by their chorus of hilariously un-energized cries of terror: "...aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh. . . ", as though the cast were literally reading the word "aaaaaaahhhh" out of the script.

-- Wesley. . . Eure? Was that his name? He was on a soap opera at the same time. Even as a young teen is was hard to ignore how transparently and hopelessly in love with himself this young actor was. He took on the hot-celebrity trend of going by a single professional name for awhile. .. "Wesley". Ugh. Also-- WAAAAAAY over the top in his hammy acting style-- particularly for a show shot on video tape, which is terribly unforgiving with that sort of thing.

-- Liked the actor playing Rick! And he popped up a lot in small parts on other shows over the years.

-- This show popped up, if you recall, at the height of the whole Bermuda Triangle/Chariots of the Gods craze-- and man, it did not miss a TRICK in jamming just about every oddball lost civilization, time-warp, space invader, elder gods type plot elements into this poor, overloaded scenario-! And a lot of these were truly high SF concepts that were just hopelessly out of whack with the more juvenile "regular" elements and the impossibly low production values.

-- I do know that we didn't make it into the. . . second? Third?. . . season where somehow the uncle came in when Marshall-actor quit. That was the exact year that we outgrew Saturday morning cartoons pretty much for good. . .

HB

Humanbelly said...

Hey hey heyheyhey--- anybody besides me prefer KORG 70,000 BC--?


HB

You Might Also Like --

Here are some related posts: