Land of the Lost (1974 TV series)

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Land of the Lost

Land of the Lost title screen
Genre Children's television series
Running time approx. 0:22 (per episode)
Creator(s) Sid and Marty Krofft
Starring Spencer Milligan
as Rick Marshall
(Seasons 1 and 2)
Wesley Eure
as Will Marshall
Kathy Coleman
as Holly Marshall
Phillip Paley
as Cha-Ka
Ron Harper
as Uncle Jack Marshall (Season 3)
Country of origin Flag of United States United States
Original channel NBC
Original run September 7, 1974–December 4, 1976
No. of episodes 43
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Land of the Lost (1974–1976) is one in a variety of popular, uniquely produced children's television series created and produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. The prolific Krofft team was very influential in children's television, producing many oddly formatted, highly energetic, and special-effects heavy programs. It has since become somewhat of a cult classic, and is now available on DVD. [1]

Krofft Productions did a remake of the series in 1991, also titled Land of the Lost. A Land of the Lost film is also currently in production.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Land of the Lost details the adventures of a family of three (father Rick Marshall, son Will -- around 15 or 16 years old -- and younger daughter Holly) who are trapped in an eclectic alien world inhabited by dinosaurs, chimpanzee-like cavemen called Pakuni, and aggressive, humanoid creatures called Sleestak that have a mix of insectoid and reptilian characteristics. The episode plots focus primarily on the family's efforts to survive and find a way back to their own world, but the exploration of the exotic features of the Land of the Lost are also an ongoing part of the story. [2]

The series is notable for having a much darker and serious tone than most children's series, and for having a grander and more epic storytelling vision than most shows. The relatively complex plots, unique internal mythology, and ambitious special effects (generally considered unrealistic and even campy today, but advanced for Saturday morning TV in the 1970s) have earned the show a large popular following, particularly among adults who watched the show and other Krofft productions as children.

Many Krofft shows involved similar plots, often including children accidentally trapped in other worlds, but Land of the Lost is easily the Krofft's most serious treatment of the premise.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Plot and format

Left to right: Holly, Will and Rick Marshall. Rick is manipulating a crystal matrix table located in the Lost City.
Enlarge
Left to right: Holly, Will and Rick Marshall. Rick is manipulating a crystal matrix table located in the Lost City.

The Marshalls are brought to the mysterious world by means of a dimensional portal,[1] a device used frequently throughout the series and a major part of its internal mythology.

Outfitted only for a short camping trip, the resourceful family takes shelter in a natural cave and improvises the provisions and tools that they need to survive. Their most common and dangerous encounters are with dinosaurs, particularly a Tyrannosaurus rex they nickname "Grumpy" who frequents the location of their cave. They also tangle with menacing Sleestak and morally ambiguous "cave-men" called Pakuni (one of whom, Cha-Ka, they befriend), as well as a variety of other dangerous creatures, mysterious technology, and strange geography.

The main goal of the three is to find a way to return home. They are occasionally aided in this by the Altrusian castaway Enik. At the start of the third season Rick Marshall is accidentally returned to Earth alone, leaving his children behind, and is replaced by his brother Jack.

Though the term "time doorway" is used throughout the series, the "Land of the Lost" is not meant to portray an era in Earth's history, but rather an enigmatic zone whose place and time are unknown. The original creators of these time portals were thought to be the ancestors of the Sleestak, called Altrusians, though later episodes raised some questions about this. Many aspects of the Land of the Lost, including the time doorways and environmental processes, were controlled by the Pylons, metallic triangular booths that were larger on the inside than the outside and housed matrix tables (a stone table studded with a grid of colored crystals). Uncontrolled time doorways result in the arrival of a variety of visitors and castaways in the Land.

[edit] Production

Land of the Lost is notable in large part for its epic-scale concept, which suggested an expansive world with many fantastic forms of life and mysterious technology, all created on a children's series' limited production budget. The series' intention was to create a realistic fantasy world, albeit relying heavily on children's non-critical eyes for detail. Though many adults and later-era viewers find the production design to be quaint and humorously artificial, they are often impressed by the amount of artistic detail. The show played effectively to children and was an ambitious narrative project, introducing an unusually complex fantasy storyline thanks largely to first-season story editor and writer David Gerrold. It was a marked departure from the Krofft team's previous work, which mostly featured extremely stylized puppets and sets such as those in H.R. Pufnstuf and Lidsville.

The series was shot on a modular indoor soundstage, which made economical use of a small number of sets and scenic props which were rearranged frequently to suggest the ostensibly vast jungles, ancient cities and cave systems. Additional locations were often rendered using scale miniatures. Non-human characters were portrayed by actors in latex rubber suits, or with heavy creature make-up. Dinosaurs in the series were created using a combination of stop motion animation miniatures, rear projection film effects and occasional hand puppets for close-ups of dinosaur heads. (On a commentary track for Land of the Lost's first-season DVD, Wesley Eure points out that the Grumpy hand puppet has no hole in the back of its throat, even though it is often seen opening its mouth wide to roar.) Special effects footage was frequently re-used. Additional visual effects were achieved using manual film overlay techniques, the low-tech ancestor to current motion control photography.

[edit] Additional information

[edit] Cast

[edit] Episode list

Main article: List of Land of the Lost episodes

[edit] References in popular culture

Land of the Lost has achieved a minor cult status among those who were young in the late 1970s. References to the show occasionally crop up in modern media, such as:

  • In the comedy film Bubble Boy, Land of the Lost plays a very prominent role for the characters.
  • In Stargate SG-1, an Unas that Daniel Jackson befriended and who appeared in several episodes was named "Chaka" after the Paku.
  • In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Will Ferrell plays Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly (a reference to the first line of the theme music and the names of the main characters, "Marshall, Will and Holly"). The same film features county policemen from "Sleestak County". In 2005, Universal Studios announced that Will Ferrell was going to star in a movie adaptation of Land of the Lost.
  • The animated show Family Guy, in the episode "The King Is Dead", has Peter singing the theme song during his audition for the play.
  • In the MMORPG World of Warcraft, there are two NPCs named Williden and Hol'anyee Marshall, a play on Will and Holly. One of these NPCs gives a quest entitled "Lost!" Also, the game contains a zone full of dinosaurs (Un'goro Crater) which contains deposits of four different colored "power crystals" as well as three different "pylon" stations. Combining the power crystals at the pylons in different color combinations results in a unique effect.
  • In the MMORPG City of Heroes, a neighborhood in Paragon City where many members of the villain group The Lost can be found is named "The Land of the Lost".
  • A psychedelic rock band from the midwest United States called Sleestak formed in 2003, dedicated to the show and its fiction.
  • In the Halloween 2002 Homestar Runner cartoon, The Poopsmith is dressed as a Sleestak.
  • A famous graffiti tagger in Los Angeles went by the pseudonym "Chaka", after the Paku.
  • An article from the satirical newsweekly The Onion from October 12, 2005, (Issue 41•41) was entitled "Nostalgic Memories of Land of the Lost Ruined in DVD Release".[2]
  • An episode of Xaolin Showdown features a pan from the surface of the Earth to a cave far beneath. During this pan, A sleestak-like creature (Possibly Enik) is seen.
  • The rock band Nerf Herder wrote a song entiltled "She's a Sleestak", which appears on their 2000 release, "How to Meet Girls".

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Circle." Land of the Lost. No. 17, season 1.
  2. ^ "Nostalgic Memories of Land of the Lost Ruined in DVD Release", October 12, 2005 The Onion issue 41•41

[edit] External links

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