A Website Devoted to Land of the Lost
A Website Devoted to Land of the Lost
The
Pylon Express
Archive
Land of the Lost news from around the world and
beyond
The oldest items start at the bottom of the page.
LOTL70 = the three seasons of the original Land of the Lost series of the 1970s featuring the Marshall family.
LOTL90 = the two seasons of the Land of the Lost series of 1990s featuring the Porter family.
The World Within
Lester Fountain is attempting to get his World Within stories (inspired by LOTL) made into a movie. Click here for updates on his progress.
Pope Blesses Sleestak
Hopeful news about LOTL action figures, as reported in an item dated August 2000 at Kidscreen:
Meanwhile, toy stores have gotten Krofft-ier with a new a new line of LivingToys-produced action figures and beanie dolls that portray the likes of Pufnstuf and Electra Woman. "The Sleestak (the creatures from Land of the Lost) and Freddy The Flute (from Pufnstuf) are our most requested figures that we haven't released yet. Rest assured they are in production," says Pope. "Next up is developing projects around superheroes Electra Woman and Dyna Girl and Sigmond and the Sea Monsters. It's a lot of fun. Everyone we're in business with is a big fan-and they also make great movies."
The Pope mentioned in the news item is, of course, Randy Pope, a producer for Krofft Productions.
Name That Lizard
Read a brief bio of an iguana named Sleestak.
Does Her T-Shirt Actually Say Holly..?
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Wesley Eure On a Roll!
(Hold the mayo.)
Reports indicate that either Artisan or Disney studios is making an animated film based on Wesley Eure's children's book, The Red Wings of Christmas, that should be out around Christmas 2001.
Also, be on the lookout for Wesley's new children's book, Fish Out of Water.
(Thanks to
Underwhere?
I haven't found a copy of
it yet, but I found reviews of an alternative comic book from
Uncle Jack, We Hardly Knew Ye
No, he's not dead. But his official website is.
This link used to lead to The Official Ron Harper Website. But now it's been shut down, apparently at his request. Bummer. I discovered it when it was still running near the end of summer this year (2000) but didn't get around to trying to investigate it until December. That's what I get for procrastinating. :(
It's Practically an Urban Legend
Here are some past articles regarding the old "Chaka is the lead singer of Sugar Ray" controversy from from Wall of Sound, Music Central and E! Online.
The Lost Url
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The Lost World TV show now has its own official website. |
Will the Real Cha-ka Please Stand Up?
Rod Sheppard, lead singer of Sugar Ray, apologized in September, 1999 for jokingly claiming to be the actor who portrayed Cha-ka the Paku. Of course, all true fans know that Cha-ka was played by boy karate champ, Philip Paley. See the article by Buck Wolf of ABC news: Cha-ka the Monkeyboy Speaks. (Thanks to Robert Porter for digging up the link.)
Philip has also been known to post messages at landofthelost.com, so check it out!
He Don't Smell That Bad, Really!
Check out this short but fun biography of Bobby Porter, the one and only Stink the Paku, from the days when he was Andy the robot on Quark.
Are you into S&M? Krofft that is...
Sid and Marty Krofft will be appearing at The Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles for the The World of Sid and Marty Krofft seminar on Wednesday, December 1, 1999. The price is $10.00. Here is the clipping from the website:
| Wednesday, December 1, 1999 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. Sid and Marty Krofft, creators of such innovative children's television programs as H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and Land of the Lost, will discuss their television work over the past decades, joined by cast members from several of their most popular shows. In Person: |
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"You think that's funny? You think that's funny?! I'll show you funny..!"
Okay, boys and girls get out your video tapes! In the original series episode, "Skylons", there's a scene in which Will is trying to catch some red, white and blue chickens by hand for supper. While he runs around trying to grab one, the chickens are, of course, clucking...and a stage hand or someone off camera can just be heard laughing!
I first noticed this around a couple months ago, I think, when I was rewatching the episodes. But I wasn't sure what I was hearing was actually some man's laughter or just a strange chicken noise. Fan Robert "not Bobby" Porter also noticed it and asked me about it, and we confirmed for each other what we'd heard.
Be on the listen for this amusing gaff.
(I wish we could get ahold of a LOTL blooper reel..!)
The Man in the Sleestak Mask
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Here is Tom Allard, the Shakespearian trained actor who played both Shung and Namaki in the 1990's LOTL. I'm telling you, you've never heard Shakespeare until you've heard it in the original Sleestak. |
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A Very Attractive ItemI've seen this refrigerator magnet for sale on ebay for about $5.00 but I managed to pick it up for 3 at the San Diego Comic Con. The image is from the lunchbox. |
Land of the Lost Becomes an Hour Long, Adult Series
Well, almost.
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I was at the San Diego Comic Con the weekend of August 12-15 and learned that a new TV series will soon be premiering in syndication called The Lost World. Based on the Arthur Conan Doyle novel of the same name, the series, set in 1914 (I think), is about a group of people who become stranded on an enormous, high and nearly unreachable plateau in South America filled with dinosaurs, ape-men and other strange creatures, and lost civilizations. Some of you may have already seen the two-hour premiere movie on TNT. |
In fact, it you have the DirectTV satellite dish, you may have already seen several of the episodes as the show is being produced for that service's Action Adventure Network. The syndicated episodes are edited versions of the programs and will air approximately 3 months after their first run on AAN. The AAN version of the premiere one hour episode was shown at the Con by producers John Landis and David Abramowitz (some of you may be familiar with David as the producer of the Highlander series) and actually contained a nude scene, hence the aforementioned editing for its syndicated run.
In the movie, unlike the novel, our heroes do not manage to escape from the Lost World at the end in order to allow it to flow into the actual series. In the premiere, the stranded adventurers are struggling to survive in their new home and hope to someday find a way off the plateau. They live in a Swiss Family Robinson-type treehouse and have only a few modern (for 1914) conveniences such as guns and metal knives. I won't give away the story except to say that it involves them encountering a race of lizard-men who enslave humans. Landis and Abramowitz said the stories for the series will run the gamut from action to drama to comedy. This episode was very cheesy, a la goofier episodes of Xena, but was fairly fun. The vote remains out for me until I see a few more episodes.
The Lost World will premiere in syndication during the last week of September. Check your local listings!
DirectTV Press Release 2nd Press Release
Where There's a Will There's a Wesley
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Wesley Eure as host of Nickolodeon's game show, Finders Keepers. (From Finders Keepers Frenzy) |
Here's a bit of information about the career of Wesley Eure post-LOTL...
The Toolbox Murders - 1978A ski-masked psyhco spends his time spying on the pastimes of the women who inhabit an apartment building, then takes his toolbox over there to hammer home some moral points! A woman is masturbating in her bubble bath when the masked bad guy chases the girl around the room and dispatches her with a nail-gun shot into the head. Director - Dennis Donnelly Starring - Cameron Mitchell, Pamelyn Ferdin and Wesley Eure. |
 from Where Are They Now?
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Wesley wrote a children's book titled "The Red Wings of Christmas" in 1992. Disney has acquired the rights to turn it into a animated feature film and Wes is writing the screenplay. In the story, Albert accidentally climbs into Santa's sack, and he finds himself drawn into a conflict between good and bad toys that could result in no toys being given out on Christmas Eve. The illustrations were done by Ron Palillo (Arnold Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter). A book tour is forthcoming. He has written 8 children's books. He's also been expanding his company, "Games At Sea," which produces on-board entertainment for cruise lines. In 1990, Wesley wrote a humor book on office life called "That's the Fax." It contains "the world's all-time greatest fax cover sheets." That same year, he wrote "On the wall off the wall office humor." For a few years, he hosted a children's game show on Nickelodeon called "Finders Keepers." After leaving in 1981, he performed a variety show in Vegas, opening for Bill Cosby. He later produced Totally Hidden Video for Fox for 2 years. He also worked on PBS' animated series "Dragon Tales." Wesley went on Dick McInnes' Salem Reunion Cruise in 1995. These cruises often feature people who have been away from Days for years. The others on the cruise were Susan Seaforth Hayes and Roberta Leighton. Wesley's only acting jobs since leaving Days were an appearance in "Toolbox Murders," a movie by Stephen King and "Chomps," a movie about an out of control robotic dog. (Where Are They Now?) |
Eure as guest on Password. (The Allen Ludden Page)
Forget the Raft! The Marshalls Should Have Arrived in a DeLorean
The Onion has an interview with Marty Krofft in which he makes this startling revelation:
MK:
...Michael J. Fox came in for casting on Land Of The Lost.
O: The first or the second?
MK: The first. We thought he wasn't right. You don't always guess right.
Marty doesn't specify, but Fox must have been auditioning for the role of Will Marshall. I think Fox is only a few years older than I am, and I was about 7 when the show started, so his casting would have made Will significantly younger than he ended up as played by Wesley Eure. If he had been cast, then would Holly have been an older character? Imagine if Fox had been cast how that could have radically changed all the characters on the show. If Holly was older, the role would have to have been played by an actress other than Kathy Coleman. And since it's said that Spencer Milligan was cast in part because of his resemblance to Eure, we can assume another actor there, too!
And who would have been cast as Uncle Jack in the third season? Christopher Lloyd?
(Or maybe Fox was auditioning for Cha-ka! He is rather short...)
The Gamesters of Altrusia
Play Hot Lava at your home, a game that somehow involves Sleestaks...
| I bought these Land of the Lost wind up heads from Figures Inc. The heads are made of soft rubber and not the hard plastic you might think, but they're well sculpted. |  |
I'm Lost, I'm Lost, Find Me...
See The Krofft Oeuvre for the source of this interesting quote:
Joseph Nebus, a 23-year-old grad student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said he liked the science fiction aspects of the Krofft shows. "I liked the many ways in which it was about exploration and discovery and attempting to understand the world. I liked the storylines in which the show would explore new aspects of the Land of the Lost, looking for the boundaries and discovering what was there. It was recently pointed out to me that the entire show has a subtext, which I think I appreciated without understanding back then, about the search for identity." What do you all think? Is this an intended subtext of the show? And if so, was this carried over into the 1990's version of LOTL as well? The Schoolhouse Rock page at this same site also has the following quote: At the same time Chicago was also home to Hooray, a take-off on the PBS show Zoom, and Saturday Morning Live, which featured actors portraying characters from Scooby Doo, Land of the Lost, and Fat Albert along with songs from Schoolhouse Rock. Is anyone out there familiar with this show, SaturdayMorning Live? Were there really "actors portraying characters from...Land of the Lost" on this show and, if so, do you have tapes?Message From a Cunning Linguist
A message posted (several years ago) on the Linguist List from Paku language creator, Vicki Fromkin:
<IYO1VAF%MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>Michael Kac -- Sorry -- I should have known better re your suggestion.I also would love to have a copy of the Dr Syntax Poster. Someone canget rich out there.Who painted the paiting ' irrecoverability of deleted tracers'? I don'treally believe tyis but it is a wonderful put-on.Re tv programs and linguists etc (noone really mentioned them but wothehell) --I think my major claim to fame with the Linguistic 1 students at UCLAis that I wrote a language called PAKU spoken by the Pakuni (monkeypeople) in a children's TV program called Land of the Lost. I had no ideaanyone knew of it and happened to mention it and got a standing ovationfrom the usual bored, noisy group of 500 students. It seems they keepshowing it. For those of you who are Africanists out there -- you willnotice that it is very much like a Kwa language of West Africa. This ofcourse has no relation to any of the linguistic novels.To finish -- re Paku andLand of the Lost -- I never saw the show -- just the scripts which I had totranslate into Paku. The whole experience was very funny. They -- theproducers were worried about the sear words I wrote in Paku. I tried toconvince them that noone would know what they meant anyway but I amnot sure they believed me. Anyway, it is a lovely language which I understandchildren were beginning to pick up (which was my purpose of course) --nice regular anti-penultimate stress, homorganic nasals, nasalization ofvowels before nasals, deletion of final vowels before vowel initial suffixes.A wonderful language!Vicki Fromkin
This site has nothing to do with Land of the Lost except that it recommends that you might want to name your pet iguana "Sleestack" (sic)!
Mice to See You Again
Former Mouseketeer Sharon Baird, who played Sa on Land of the Lost, is featured in a bio at the Mousestars website.
Masters of Their Krofft
Here is an article from the Courier about Pufnstuf and Other Stuff: The Weird and Wonderful World of Sid and Marty Krofft.
LOTL DVD ASAP
Speaking of DVD releases of TV shows, I've seen that Best Buy has a three-pack of South Park DVDs containing 12 half-hour episodes for just $50! Imagine if we could get that kind of deal with Land of the Lost! Also available was a three pack of The Avengers--6 one hour episodes--for $40.
Skylons By Any Other Name Just Wouldn't Be The Same
Two volumes of Land of the Lost videos are still set for release on July 13, 1999. Alas, still no news on a DVD release.
Secondly, I only just noticed that Rhino Home Video's press release for the World of Sid and Marty Krofft Boxed Set contains an incorrect description of the Land of the Lost episode contained therein. Though they correctly give the title of Episode 5 as "The Empire Strikes Back"--oops, "Skylons", they give the description of the original script of that episode when it was titled "Sky Snakes"! Here's how it reads in the Rhino press release:
Land Of The Lost -- "Skylons" Episode 5. The action turns colorful and exciting as Marshall, Will, and Holly find the Land Of The Lost has gone insane with wild weather, a multi-colored Sky Snake, and a plague of biting white bugs.
Of course, we know that the episode as shot features no sky snakes (the skylons were instead invented for the story) and no white bugs.
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Niven Spouts Off About "Downstream"See
this link for three informative uncut versions of interviews conducted by John Gosling, published in
SFX magazine, featuring Marty Krofft, Larry Niven ("Downstream",
"Hurricane") and Victoria Fromkin (creator of the Pakuni language).
Images are from Kziniti.freeserve
and come with the caveat: SFX is a publication of Future Publishing,
and images used on this page are not intended to infringe their copyright.
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Land of the Lost Saucer
You simply must check out reptoids.com . This is a site dedicated to the belief that intelligent reptilian creatures are observing Earth and will soon make themselves known to us either malevolently or beneveolently. Their media page suggests that virtually all of our U.S.-centric movie and television entertainment containing reptilian creatures are part of a controlled program to indoctrinate us human beings to the idea of extra-terrestrial or other-dimensional lizards landing on Earth and effecting our lives. Even children's programming like Barney, Dinosaurs and Land of the Lost are part of this plot. You guessed it--Sleestaks will soon walk among us (but only at night I guess). Now, I follow some pretty strange stuff myself (just check out the fortean links on my Links page), but this degree of intentional media influence regarding reptilians is unlikely at best.
This unusual passage is from the Land of the Lost paragraph:
In one particular episode, a reptilian humanoid alien, named "Zarn", arrives on the scene to study humans that radiate "emotional heat"...much like experiencers reports stating that the reptilian aliens appear to enjoy their emotionally heightened state and may even find it nourishing.
Zarn is a reptilian humanoid? Humanoid, yes. Reptilian...there's not much of him to see but there's no suggestion of him being reptilian.
There's also mention of two "unaired" episodes of a cheesy show from which I get a guilty pleasure, V:
It is curious to note that two unaired episodes contained scenes which incorporated two concepts regarding the reptilian alien phenomena that have only recently come to light within the UFO research community. a) A second division of the reptilian alien race exists which are benevolent in their actions, are allies of the human "non-believers" and sworn enemies of the "visitor" aggressive reptilians, and b) the reptilian aliens were shown slipping back and forth from an alternate dimension. These two concepts, although never presented to the public, later surfaced as key factors regarding the modern reptilian alien perspective.)
The "a" sounds like the Fifth Column of Visitors that were in most episodes of V, not an unaired episode. The "b" doesn't sound familiar, but I'm sure there were no "unaired" episodes, though perhaps they mean to say "unfilmed", i.e. an unproduced script. Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any information on this?
This Just In (Months Ago)...
An article by Ross
Plesset in the February '99 issue of Cinefantastique reports that the rights to
do a Land of the Lost movie have reverted back to Krofft Productions after
Disney's option expired. The Kroffts have Adam Rifkin (Small Soldiers)
working on a new screenplay [apparently scripts by other writers had been considered by
Disney; I'd heard that one by one of the writers of Demolition Man had been
written]. The Kroffts say that the film will feature Marshall, Will and Holly and
other characters. It's said they will not rely solely on CGI for the special
effects, so I wouldn't expect Jurassic Park level dinosaurs. But the
stop-motion effects of the Chiodo brothers on the '90s version of the show were great, so
I hope we'll see some of that.
[Thanks to Mike Bisbee for the
reference.]
Anyone for a game of Slackers & Sleestaks?
Here's a quote from some kind of Dungeons and Dragons site, Grymwurld:
The first sentient creatures in Grymwurld were a race of creatures somewhat serpentlike, lizardlike, and yet not cold-blooded reptiles. There are many names for these peoples, Dragons, Nagas, Sleestak, et cetera; yet very little is known of them. Undoubtedly great civilisations rose and collapsed [emphasis mine].
I can hear it now: "The first Sleestak shoots a crossbow bolt at you...he misses. The second one shoots...he misses. The next one shoots...he misses. Next one...misses..."
Sleestak on a Stick...err, Skateboard
Boy are these Sleestak dudes popular or what? The designers must have tapped into some primal part of the universal mind. Here's a Sleeso-influenced skateboarding magazine with the website sleestak.net.
And check out this artwork by someone named Sleestak--what kind of parents would name their kid after a lizard? The guy with the pipe in the picture, by the way, is Bob of the Church of the Subgenius. There are other images made by this Sleestak guy on various Subgenius-related web pages...including another one that features the image of a Sleestak but it's somewhat "adult", so I'm hesitant to link it here. Look for it yourself!
The Sound of Your Voice
Check out DeeT's 70s Page for a blast to the past. This site features many soundwaves of 70s children's shows this gentleman recorded on his tape recorder as a boy. Included here is a promo for the soon to premiere Land of the Lost on NBC! And I remember that narrator's voice now that I hear it! If you're in your late 20s-30s, chances are you'll remember it, too.
I Heard It Through the Suinaku Vine
Rumor has it that Rhino Home Video is releasing the World of Sid and Marty Krofft Boxed Set on May 18, 1999 with videos of specific Krofft shows to follow in the coming months, including Land of the Lost. This is all well and good, of course, but I, personally, am more interested in getting LOTL on DVD. And it just so happens that Rhino is branching out into the realm of said medium. Did I hear someone say e-mail campaign? If you're a DVD lover, start pestering the pachyderms at Rhino with your missives! Send them to drrhino@rhino.com.
The World of Sid and Marty Krofft Boxed Set is said to contain the following episodes:
Sing a Song of Sleestak...
It seems a garage band called Tastes Like Chicken has written a song about the horrors of Sleestakdom. Here is the song and lyrics.
And speaking of Sleestak and music, take a look at this very cool rendition of a LOTL band by Anthony Owsley. Mr. Owsley also has an interview with Jimmie Haskell who did the music for many Krofft shows including LOTL here.
Don't Be Stupid, Be a Smarty, Come and Join the Sleestak Party
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Check out the Election '96 Bob
Dole/Sleestak debates at
Cybermad.
Bet you didn't even know the Sleestak were interested in politics, did you? Try
reading the flippin' newspaper once in a while, fangeek! "I still have nightmares about it. But there it was, I'll never forget it. They were listenin' to Tom Jones and acting like big time swingers. Every Sleestak had a hooker on each arm. The Sleestaks were kickin' back gin and tonics like they were goin' outta style. It was pure uncensored swankness." --Holly Marshall (quoted from cybermad.com) |
I Was Searchin' and Found Uncle Jack At Last...
Back in February of this year, I got to meet Ron Harper, LOTL's own Uncle Jack! He told me a few anecdotes about the show, including the fun fact that after the show ended Kathy Coleman (Holly) was dating Philip Paley (Cha-ka)! As far as he knew there wasn't anything going on with them during the filming of the show. I asked him if he knew the circumstances of Spencer Milligan's departiure (there have been various rumors). He first asked, "Do you know?" I told him, "No, that's what I'm asking." He replied that Milligan wanted more money than Krofft wanted to pay, so they wrote Rick out of the show. The nature of Ron's reply though makes me think there was probably more to it than that and he was too much the gentleman to start spreading information that was no one else's business. I can accept that.
I was the total fanboy geek, wearing my Enik T-shirt (I had the image from one of the videotape cartons digitally scanned and printed on) and Ron recognized it right away, though Enik's name did escape him until I reminded him. Ron was a pleasure to talk to and he said he had a lot of fun working on the show.
Here are two pictures I got signed by him: Uncle Jack ** Alan Verdun (Planet of the Apes)
Little Girl Lost
I also recently came across a site which lists the accomplishements of female child stars. Unfortunatley, Kathy Coleman (Holly) is not listed, but Jennifer Drugan--Annie Porter of the 90's LOTL--is. Plenty of pictures from the series can be found here. Apparently Miss Drugan's not appeared in anything else though.
The Battlestar Galactica Visits Altrusia
I recently came across a brief Land of the Lost reference at one of my favorite movie sites, Ain't It Cool News. I seems former Battlestar Galactica star Richard Hatch (Apollo) has put together a trailer of sorts in an attempt to raise interest in a BG movie. AICN's Glen Oliver has an informant who has seen it and Glen describes what he's heard here. Describing one scene, he says:
Galactica ground forces entering a Cylon base in search of a missing Starbuck. The base is populated by Cylons, and a second kind of being which is described as looking like a cross between the Sleestacks from TV’s Land of the Lost and Lou Gossett’s Drac alien from Enemy Mine.
That kind of sounds like the aliens known as the Ovions from BG's pilot episode to me.
And this just in: the website for BG creator Glen A. Larson's alleged production of a film (not Hatch's) is now up and running! Not much there yet and no mention of whether a trip to Altrusia will be involved in his version. Rumors say that the script follows the other lost battlestar, Pegasus, as her crew at long last finds the trail of the Galactica and its rag-tag fleet and follows it to..?
