So I wake up this morning and flick the Bravia on to watch some TV as we eat breakfast. Browsing the HD channels, I rest on Sci-fi to find they are playing Land of the Lost. Not just one episode, but a whole marathon of episodes. Nothing but Land of the Lost, all day!
My wife and I immediately reconnect with the show. Being the same age, we experienced many things at the same time as one another; although we didn't know each other as children. So, with that, I'm thinking this show was much more popular than I remember. I thought it was one of those forgotten or unknown cult shows that very few remember, like the Tomorrow People or You Can't Do That On Television. Land of the Lost, or LOTL, ran from 1974-1976. A bit too early for us to consciously remember it in first run broadcast. Thus, that means we definitely watched LOTL in reruns. Without doing the research, I'm going to assume I saw the reruns via one of the independent channels out of Los Angeles; I'm thinking KCOP or KTLA played the show on Saturdays--late Saturday mornings after the current shows had ended. Shows like Smurfs and Spider-man and His Amazing Friends. I'm guessing I was about 9 or 10 at the time, better stored in my memory. That would put the time around 1980-1981. I may have some earlier memories of the show, dating back into the 1970s, but only vague ones like a whisper of a ghost.
What I do remember from the show, along with the Sleestaks, Chaka, and the cheesy video effects, was the character Holly. Boy do I remember Holly. I can honestly say I had the biggest crush on her when I was little. This crush was different than the crushes I had on Anne Lockhart and Heather Thomas. This was a girl that was the same age as me thus making the crush a bit more personal. In my mind, she wasn't much different than the girls in my own grade school class. I couldn't tell you what she had that Sissy P———, Jamie S——— or Elizabeth F——— didn't have. Maybe it was her blond hair in braided pigtails (a hold out of Cindy Brady) or her smile with those puffy chipmunk cheeks. I'm sure it wasn't the fashion sense of a red plaid shirt and those burgundy pants. I guess it was unexplainable. My wife gives me a strange look when I tell her this story. Oh well...
So, I tell my daughter, who is now going on 10 years old, that I watched this show all the time when I was her age. I tell her about the scary Sleestaks and the dinosaurs. We begin to watch it for a while and I ask her how she likes it so far. She looks at me and says "it's pretty good but the dinosaurs look really fake." I had to laugh and agree. She also reminds me there is a movie coming out and I have to remind her that this show came first and the movie is a big Hollywood revival movie. Yes, the original show didn't have the special effects we take for granted today. Yet it still had magic. It's timeless. I would be lying if I didn't say the show had an impact on how I turned out or how it had an impact on my youth. I wonder if the movie will do the same for kids today. Most likely not. And unlike some shows that I enjoyed as a child, I'm still enjoying this one as I watch it again. Perhaps, it's because of the memories it's igniting from my youth.
Denver Comic Con
