Gots me my "Land of the Lost" DVD!

Cafe Society
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Yes, friends, season one of my favorite childhood show has been released by Rhino, featuring all episodes, many with commentary by the Kroffts, the cast , and the writers, as well as interviews, the “Land of the Lost” interactive quiz, and a Pakuni language dictionary.

From the “I did not know that” file:

Wesley (Will) Eure (billed throughout season one as simply “Wesley” at the behest of his managers, who were trying to generate some sort of mystique) sings over both the beginning and end credits. He beat out Kathy (Holly) Coleman for the priviledge.

Cha-Ka the Pakuni was named for Chaka Khan. The name was later appropriated by a notorious LA tagger.

The chief art director went on to create the look for Next Generation and other later Star Trek series, which explains a lot.

Enik the Altrusian was the brain-child of Walter (“No Matter What I Do, I’ll always be Chekov, and I don’t mean Anton”) Koenig, who created him for an episode called “The Stranger”. His name was originally to have been Eneg, “Gene” spelled backwards, in tribute to Mr. Roddenberry.

Walker Edmiston, who played Enik, ALSO played the Civil War Era soldier in the caves with the cannon, in a time-loop script by Larry “Ringworld” Niven.

Niven originally had the Civil War character be a Miner 49’er with a Winchester, but story editor David Gerrold wanted to refrain from anything dangerous that a child could easily recreate during imaginitive play (Look! Grandpa’s old gun looks just like the one in Land of the Lost!), so a cannon was substituted. Maybe this explains why Sleestak used crossbows.

Sleestak were conceived by David Gerrold as “Lizard Men”, in tribute to the old Flash Gordon serials, which answers the question posed by my last Land of the Lost thread.

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That is so cool! The opening sequence of Land of the Lost used to scare the bejeezus out of me when I was 5 – that, and whenever The Count started counting and made it thunder.

How are the episodes holding up? This is something I might like to buy myself.

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They are amazingly short, contrary to my recollections of them. And, as the authors of the book “Saturday Morning Fever” put it, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The acting is really overblown, a lot of the dialogue is cheesy (not to mention the HEAVY use of Chroma-Key, which was more or less brand new at the time. One is forced to come to terms with the fact that one’s youthful standards were not quite as high as one would like to remember. Still, we made do with what was avaiable, like every generation.

The obvious “messages” are even more annoying than when we were kids, partly because seeing the dinosaurs in the wake of Jurassic Park, is, well, less of a thrill nowadays, shall we say, making the morality all that much harder to sit through. And as much as we had an inkling as tiny tots that some clips of the dinosaurs were used more than once, you ain’t seen the HALF of it, folks.

But there are so many images that leap straight out of my deep childhood memories, it doesn’t matter. We have eagerly watched the whole set over the last couple of days. And the CONCEPTS behind many of the episodes are still excellent. The last two on this set in particular. I can’t believe a network ever allowed children’s programming to be this cerebral.

My wife is STILL scared by the Sleestak! Money well spent on our part, IMO.

Although, considering that I have seen all the best memories I have of the show (I have terrible ones of season 3, when I stopped watching in disgust) on this set, I find I can’t remember for the life of me a single plot from season 2. Both the other seasons will be out before the end of the year, but I’m not sure I’ll get them.

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I purchased the DVD a few weeks ago. Oh my! My beloved Holly, the years have not been kind to Kathy Coleman. :frowning:

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^^^But, she looks better here than she did on the interview which accompanied the 2000 four-episode DVD release. On that one she had dirty lank, black and purple hair and wore no make-up, and cackled even more maniacally than she does on the recent box-set release.

Sir Rhosis

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Was it just me, or did you get the feeling that Wesley Eure and Kathy Coleman were going to do a little more than “reminesce” together once the commentary taping was over?

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^^^Nah, I think that is just her and Eure’s personalities. She was the same way with Phil Paley on the 2000 DVD (though she and Paley did have a relationship in the late-80s–Paley spoke briefly of it in a posting on a LOTL website).

Sir Rhosis