Land of the Lost (1974 TV series)

File:Land of the Lost (1974) title screen.jpg

Land of the Lost title screen

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.

Krofft Productions did a remake of the series in 1991, also titled Land of the Lost.

Overview

Land of the Lost detailed the adventures of a family of three (father Rick Marshall, young son Will, and younger daughter Holly) who are trapped in a primitive world inhabited by dinosaurs, chimpanzee-like cavemen called Pakuni, and reptilian humanoids called Sleestak. The episode plots focused primarily on the family's efforts to survive and find a way back to their own world. Though the central characters are different, the title indicates that the series may have drawn inspiration from the similar theme of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

The series is notable for having a much darker tone than most children's series, and for having grander and more epic storytelling vision than most shows aimed at children. The relatively complex plots, unique internal mythology, and ambitious though unrealistic special effects (often included in an entertainment category called camp) 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 or quirky variations on superhero stories.

Plot and format

File:Land of the Lost (1974) - The Marshalls at a crystal matrix table.jpg

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 time portal, a device used frequently throughout the series and a major part of its internal mythology. Though the term "time doorway" is used through the series, the "Land of the Lost" is not meant to portray a realistic era in Earth's history, but rather (like Doyle's The Lost World) to be an enigmatic zone whose place and time are unknown. The orginal creators of these time portals were the ancestors of the Sleestak, called Altrusians, and the portals and the related pylons have mysterious and unpredictable powers, sometimes opening and closing unexpectedly. This results in the Land being populated with a large and ever-growing variety of visitors and castaways.

Outfitted only for a short camping trip, the family must take shelter in natural caves and improvise 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 sinister humanoid reptiles called Sleestak and morally ambiguous "cave-men" called Pakuni, as well as a variety of other dangerous creatures, mysterious technology, and strange geography.

As the Marshalls discover more of the Land's secrets, they also attempt a number of means to return to their own world, most frequently by trying to learn how to control and navigate the mysterious time portals. This usually puts them in conflict with the primitive and violent Sleestak, or with the Sleestak's much more intelligent but equally ruthless progenitors, the Altrusians. They are often aided in their struggle by the Altrusian castaway Enik, and to a lesser extent by the Paku youth Cha-Ka.

In the third season of the show, the character of Rick Marshall was written out of the show and replaced by his brother, "Uncle Jack" Marshall, for the remainder of the series.

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 fantasty world, albeit relying heavily on children's non-critial eye for detail. Though many adults and later-era viewers find the production design to be quaint and humorously artificial, the show played effectively to children and was an ambitious narrative project, introducing an unusually complex fantasy storyline. 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 sceneic 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 and rear projection film effects, and 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.

Additional information

Additional plot and character details are provided in separate articles on characters and species and geography and technology.

Cast

• Rick Marshall (Season 1 and 2) - Spencer Milligan
• Uncle Jack Marshall (Season 3) - Ron Harper
• Will Marshall - Wesley Eure
• Holly Marshall - Kathy Coleman
• Cha-Ka - Phillip Paley
• Sa - Sharon Baird
• Ta - Joe Giamalva (1974–1975) and Scutter McKay (1975–1977)
• Enik - Walker Edmiston
• The Zarn - Marvin Miller (voice) and Van Snowden (body)
• Malak - Richard Kiel
• Sleestak Leader - Jon Locke (1976–1977)
• Sleestak - Dave Greenwood, Bill Laimbeer, John Lambert, Cleveland Porter, Jack Tingley, Scott Fullerton, Mike Westra, Bill Boyd

Episode list

Number	Title	Air date	Script writer	Director
First Season 1974 on NBC
1	Cha-Ka	September 7, 1974	David Gerrold	Dennis Steinmetz
2	The Sleestak God	September 14, 1974	David Gerrold	Dennis Steinmetz
3	Dopey	September 21, 1974	Margaret Armen	Dennis Steinmetz
4	Downstream	September 28, 1974	Larry Niven	Dennis Steinmetz
5	Tag-Team	October 5, 1974	Norman Spinrad	Dennis Steinmetz
6	The Stranger	October 12, 1974	Walter Koenig	Bob Lally
7	Album	October 19, 1974	Dick Morgan	Bob Lally
8	Skylons	October 26, 1974	Dick Morgan	Bob Lally
9	The Hole	November 2, 1974	Wina Sturgeon	Dennis Steinmetz
10	The Paku who Came to Dinner	November 9, 1974	Barry Blitzer	Bob Lally
11	The Search	November 16, 1974	Ben Bova	Dennis Steinmetz
12	The Possession	November 23, 1974	David Gerrold	Dennis Steinmetz
13	Follow That Dinosaur	November 30, 1974	Dick Morgan	Dennis Steinmetz
14	Stone Soup	December 7, 1974	Joyce Perry	Bob Lally
15	Elsewhen	December 14, 1974	D.C. Fontana	Dennis Steinmetz
16	Hurricane	December 21, 1974	David Gerrold and Larry Niven	Bob Lally
17	Circle	December 28, 1974	Larry Niven and David Gerrold	Dennis Steinmetz
Second Season 1975 on NBC
1	Tar Pit	September 6, 1975	Margaret Armen	Gordon Wiles
2	The Zarn	September 13, 1975	Dick Morgan	Bob Lally
3	Fair Trade	September 20, 1975	Bill Keenan	Bob Lally
4	One of Our Pylons is Missing	September 27, 1975	Bill Keenan	Gordon Wiles
5	The Test	October 4, 1975	Tom Swale	Bob Lally
6	Gravity Storm	October 11, 1975	Dick Morgan	Bob Lally
7	The Longest Day	October 18, 1975	Joyce Perry	Gordon Wiles
8	The Pylon Express	October 25, 1975	Theodore Sturgeon	Gordon Wiles
9	A Nice Day	November 1, 1975	Dick Morgan	Gordon Wiles
10	Baby Sitter	November 8, 1975	Bill Keenan	Gordon Wiles
11	The Musician	November 15, 1975	Dick Morgan and Tom Swale	Gordon Wiles
12	Split Personality	November 22, 1975	Dick Morgan	Gordon Wiles
13	Blackout	November 29, 1975	Donald F. Glut and Dick Morgan	Bob Lally
Third Season 1976 on NBC
1	After-Shock	September 11, 1976	Jon Kubichan	Joe Scanlan
2	Survival Kit	September 18, 1976	Sam Roeca	Rick Bennewitz
3	The Orb	September 25, 1976	Jon Kubichan	Rick Bennewitz
4	Repairman	October 2, 1976	Jon Kubichan	Joe Scanlan
5	Medusa	October 9, 1976	Greg Strangis	Rick Bennewitz
6	Cornered	October 16, 1976	Sam Roeca	Rick Bennewitz
7	Flying Dutchman	October 23, 1976	John Cutts	Joe Scanlan
8	Hot-Air Artist	October 30, 1976	Jon Kubichan	Rick Bennewitz
9	Abominable Snowman	November 6, 1976	Sam Roeca	Joe Scanlan
10	Timestop	November 13, 1976	Tom Swale	Joe Scanlan
11	Ancient Guardian	November 20, 1976	Peter Germano	Joe Scanlan
12	Scarab	November 27, 1976	Ian Martin	Rick Bennewitz
13	Medicine Man	December 4, 1976	Jon Kubichan	Joe Scanlan

NOTE: "Blackout" is misspelled "Black Out" on the DVD root menu and packaging.

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:

• A famous graffiti tagger in Los Angeles went by the pseudonym "Chaka", after the Paku.
• 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). 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 Halloween 2002 Homestar Runner cartoon, The Poopsmith is dressed as a Sleestak.
• A psychedelic rock band from the midwest United States called Sleestak formed in 2003, dedicated to the show and its fiction.
• 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!"

External links

• Land of the Lost homepage
• Land of the Lost (1974) listing in the Internet Movie Database
• Abridged Paku-English dictionary
• Land of the Lost artwork