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Land of the Lost -- Downright literary?

post #1 of 22
8/9/06 at 10:41am
Thread Starter 
I've been browsing random Wikipedia pages this morning, and for some reason looked at their entry on Land of the Lost. Yeah, the show with the Sleestaks and fake dinosaurs, but when I checked out the episode list, the names of some the writers for the first two seasons blew me away -- David Gerrold? Walter Koenig? D.C. Fontana?? Ben Bova??? Norman Spinrad??? Theodore Sturgeon??? Larry Niven??? You've got to be kidding me. How did that show manage to pull that off?

Now I'm curious to check out some of those episodes.
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post #2 of 22
8/9/06 at 10:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson
fake dinosaurs
I coulda sworn those were actual dinosaurs.
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post #3 of 22
8/9/06 at 7:32pm
It was the '70s and science fiction as a genre was still well regulated to the publishing ghetto. None the writers you mentioned were bestselling authors and took work wherever they could get it. Sturgeon in particular had really fucked up his life by that point and was probably about ready to start doing handjobs in public restrooms for a dollar when this show threw him a bone.
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post #4 of 22
8/10/06 at 9:59pm
I was reading a book called Saturday Morning Fever and apparently the Kroffts brought in a linguist (a cunning one, no doubt) to invent the Pakuni (or whatever the fuck Chaka was) language; so anyway, in one ep, Chaka got mad about something and the guy wrote the dialogue where he was running around going "shit! fuck!" and the Kroffts got WAY bent out of shape - "you can't say that on a kids show!"; the linguist was amazed, since the language was made up and NO ONE would know what the translation was anyway.
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post #5 of 22
8/10/06 at 10:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cruikshank
It was the '70s and science fiction as a genre was still well regulated to the publishing ghetto. None the writers you mentioned were bestselling authors and took work wherever they could get it. Sturgeon in particular had really fucked up his life by that point and was probably about ready to start doing handjobs in public restrooms for a dollar when this show threw him a bone.
Didn't know that about Sturgeon, but at the time Niven, Spinrad, Bova, and Gerrold were certainly big names within the genre, and to find out the wrote for a cheesy kids show was still pretty eye-opening.
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post #6 of 22
8/10/06 at 11:01pm
I don't know if it's that much, considering both Gerrold and Fontana wrote for the Trek animated series, Gerrold wrote for Real Ghostbusters and Fontana wrote for Beast Wars and Buck Rogers.
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post #7 of 22
8/17/06 at 9:56pm
Almost as interesting is that Adam McKay is signed on to direct the movie.
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post #8 of 22
8/17/06 at 10:08pm
The Trek animated series produced some great episodes. Vey much underrated.

As for the names on LOTL, it was a network show that was fairly popular so I'm assuming the checks were nice and big. Good work, if you can get it.
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post #9 of 22
8/18/06 at 12:23am
Makes me wonder what a Robert Heinlein-scripted episode of "Bigfoot and Wildboy" would've been like.
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post #10 of 22
8/18/06 at 2:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Madman Mundt
Makes me wonder what a Robert Heinlein-scripted episode of "Bigfoot and Wildboy" would've been like.
Violent, trippy and a depressing ending.
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post #11 of 22
5/25/09 at 9:02pm
Thread Starter 
SciFi is running a marathon of Land of the Lost today. This is the first time I've seen these episodes since I was a kid, and while the production values are pretty crappy even for the era and the acting leaves a lot to be desired, there's some pretty cool sci-fi concepts going on in the stories, and even an attempt at some continuity and mythology. Pretty imaginative stuff for a kid's show of the time.
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post #12 of 22
5/25/09 at 9:17pm
I too was amazed at how many SF authors wrote for this show. While some may have done so out of desperation. Larry Niven had already had a genuine best seller with Mote in God's Eye. I think these guys were attracted by the prospect of getting interesting and fucked up ideas into the heads of impressionable young kids. Like me!
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post #13 of 22
5/25/09 at 9:24pm
I just flipped this on and geeked out. God its been soooo long.
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post #14 of 22
5/26/09 at 2:15am
First two seasons are great fun. The third one....not so much.
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post #15 of 22
5/26/09 at 12:58pm
I saw these when I was a kid, and I've been trying to remember what it was for years, until Bubbleboy reminded me what it was, oh thank you Bubbleboy.
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post #16 of 22
5/26/09 at 1:20pm
THE Walter Koenig? The hell you say!!

Fontana and Gerrold wrote for the Trek cartoon, didn't they? They needed work.

The bug-eyed, flop sweat-soaked acting between the two male leads is kind of fascinating to watch as an adult. Pretty sure the dad was drunk in all of them/
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post #17 of 22
5/26/09 at 1:24pm
Caught a few episodes of this yesterday. The dad definitely seemed off for a good bit of it. I'd completely forgotten that he disappeared in the 3rd season only to be replaced immediately by Uncle Jack and oh my god I'm talking about this.
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post #18 of 22
5/26/09 at 1:42pm
Glad to see that I wasn't the only person who caught the marathon of this. The show is better AND worse than I remember; it's a total trainwreck that you absolutely can't tear your eyes away from.

How soon before we get a marathon of 'Space Nuts'?
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post #19 of 22
5/26/09 at 2:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Misfit View Post
Caught a few episodes of this yesterday. The dad definitely seemed off for a good bit of it. I'd completely forgotten that he disappeared in the 3rd season only to be replaced immediately by Uncle Jack and oh my god I'm talking about this.
I watched the beginning of one episode, and couldn't take it. I do remember the dad in the episode talking to Holly after she had made some "adult" decision to let a pet dino back into the wild, and he said, "...That was a very grown-up decision........Holly." Kind of like he forgot her name for a second.

Oh, and I called my seven year old son into the room to watch opening and to show him this is where the movie came from, and during the opening, he turns to me and says, "What happened...did they shrink or something?" He's referring to their raft on the "rapids" and "waterfall". Man, that kid can already nail bad SFX.
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post #20 of 22
5/26/09 at 4:56pm
Shit... I don't remember much about this show aside from the intro and watching it on saturday mornings in the 90's. I'm guessing you guys are probably talking about the one from the 70's though!
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post #21 of 22
5/26/09 at 8:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
How soon before we get a marathon of 'Space Nuts'?
That's 'Far Out Space Nuts' to you, mister.
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post #22 of 22
5/27/09 at 7:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Judas Booth View Post
Glad to see that I wasn't the only person who caught the marathon of this. The show is better AND worse than I remember; it's a total trainwreck that you absolutely can't tear your eyes away from.

How soon before we get a marathon of 'Space Nuts'?
when the movie comeing out?
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