Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Here’s how I spent Memorial Day. That’s right, the holiday where we honor those who gave their lives for this great country of ours. This is how I honored that sacrifice.
I watched the Land of the Lost marathon on Sci-Fi Channel. Okay, so I took a brief break to go see Star Trek (which satisfied my lust for Leonard McCoy). And I watched all of it too, from early morning to early morning. That is how important this holiday is to me.
I was 8 when this show premiered on Saturday mornings. I thought it was super dyn-o-mite! It launched a true love of science fiction that would give me completely unrealistic expectations for my early teen years. I even had Star Wars sheets on my twin bed and dreamed I’d either marry Will Marshall or Han Solo. (Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing back then. By the way, I was into Parker Stevenson, not that namby, pamby Sean Cassidy.)
Fast forward to this past Monday. I was a bit stunned to see the show again for the first time in 34 years. Horrified actually. And it wasn’t necessarily the really crappy special effects, the claymation and sometimes puppet dinosaurs or the zippers on Chaka’s costume. No, what really bothered me was the writing.
Did you know that famous writers like Ben Bova wrote those episodes? Maybe standards were different back then. There was very little plot. The 3 characters moved between 3 or 4 sets for two solid years. But in spite of the strange idea that the Land had a pumping, human-like heart or the fact they killed off Rick Marshall at the beginning of the second series (and this is a kids’ Saturday morning show!) and miraculously his brother Jack showed up to help take care of the children, there were a few little issues I had with the series:
1) They wore the same clothes all that time – which I can understand since they lost their clothes when their raft plummeted 1,000 feet and landed, on the ground, still in their raft with no broken bones. Holly always had the same red and white checked shirt, the men in khaki pants and shirts. They even slept in them. The question is, when did they wash, dry and press them? I’m not a prehistoric expert, but after two years of running away from sleestaks, dinosaurs and getting trapped in tar pits you’d think there’d be a stain or wrinkle at some point. There’s one episode where Will is wearing a denim shirt. The next episode shows him back in the original khaki shirt (wearing a gold chain and unbuttoned to his lowest rib, I might add). Did they think we wouldn’t notice? Of course, Bewitched tried that when they switched Darrens and that didn’t work either. Did they think we were BLIND?
2) The Marshall Family’s hair never grew. The men never had beards or mustaches. Ever. Sure, they had knives, but you can’t get a close shave from a camping knife. And those things were dull too. It took minutes to cut through a sleestak net. And you knew they didn’t have that hairless disease because if he was shirtless, Rick could’ve doubled as Chaka and Will had eyebrows that would’ve made Leonid Breshnev envious.
3) In one scene, Rick Marshall falls into a pit. How do they depict that? With an action figure rolling through the air. The doll had jointed arms and legs. My kids actually asked me it if was a metaphor for Rick feeling things were spinning out of control in his life. People, I canNOT make this shit up.
4) Virtually every episode ended with the following conversation:
Will: But Dad! How did you escape the Sleestaks?
Rick: It’s a long story, Will. Let’s go back to the cave.
or
Rick: But Will! How did you know the crystals would work?
Will: It’s a long story, Dad. Let’s go back to the cave.
You might think I’m exaggerating, but it was my kids who pointed this out to me. Sure, it’s a good device to keep the story moving…but once or twice…not 29 out of 31 episodes.
5) And this is the worst offender in my book – Rick never lost his temper with the kids. He turned every situation into a learning experience and psych exam. Always even-keeled, he always encouraged them and supported them and rescued them. AND THEY DID THEIR CHORES EVERY DAMNED TIME.
This, I cannot forgive. Were the writers single and childless??? Because I’d be FREAKING OUT if I went back in time, was hunted by dinosaurs and had to eat nothing but carrots and wore the same clothes!!! Can you imagine being stranded with just your two kids? Just say Prehistoric PMS once and you get the idea. Grumpy the T-Rex would’ve run for his life when he heard me sobbing about not having any chocolate or wine or screaming because I didn’t have any chocolate or wine. I’m not sure I could’ve rallied and made beds out of sticks and pots out of dirt and cake out of plant roots. Hell, I probably would’ve eaten brontasaurus raw. (My eight-year old, who has this annoying habit of reading over my shoulder, just told me I couldn’t kill a brontasaurus. I just gave him a look that told him I could.)
My childhood no longer seems so groovy cool. Sigh.
Let’s just hope the bastards don’t ruin The Banana Splits or H.R. Puffenstuff for me too.
The Assassin