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.
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!