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!