Category: Culture

YES! YES! YES! Land of the Lost on DVD!!!

lotl_logoOne of the all-time GREAT Saturday morning shows is The Land of the Lost, which aired back in the mid-1970s. For me, as for countless other boys and girls of my generation, Land of the Lost was the EPITOME of cool.

And deservedly so! Just look at what the show had going for it:

1. First and foremost, it had DINOSAURS! Lots of them! You can’t get cooler than that!

2. It had a likable family living in a world filled with groovy science fiction concepts.

3. It had A-list science fiction authors (like Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Norman Spinrad, Ben Bova, David Gerrold, and D. C. Fontanta) doing the scripts.

4. It had the semi-insectoid, semi-reptilian Sleestak, the barbaric descendants of the Land of the Lost’s original builders.

5. It had the short, ape-like Pakuni

6. It had guest stars from the past of our world (like Jefferson Davis Collie III–a loney Confederate veteran convinced that “The South will rise again”) and from the future of our world (like Beauregard Jackson of Ft. Worth, Texas–an astronaut plucked from flying a hypersonic glider over Ecuador) and the main cast themselves as guest stars from their own futures or alternate universes–as well as other guest stars too bizarre to classify.

7. It had spray-painted chickens, giant carrots, turnips, and strawberries, glowing power crystals, lost cities, abandoned temples, circular rivers leading nowhere, peril-infested swamps, earthquakes, talking skulls, and everything else that makes for coolness.

What a show!

pakuni01It’s probably the most intelligent show ever to appear on Saturday morning. It wasn’t dumbed down and didn’t patronize the children in the audience. How many Saturday morning shows that expect kids to understand–and succeed in communicating to them–that the series is set in a parallel universe so small that you can stand on the top of a hill and see the back of your head with binoculars because its space-time is curved. Not only that, but it is an *artificial* universe built by a once noble race that has now fallen into barbarity. It is a universe still being run by an automated control system that the characters must interact with. It is a universe connected to any point in our world’s history–and countless other worlds–via time doorways.

Some favorite lines following a dinosaur attack:

BEAUREGARD JACKSON: Hey, I sure am happy to see you kids. . . . Where am I? And, uh, what in the heck was that?

WILL MARSHALL: Aw, that’s only a coelophysis. It’s omnivorous.

JACKSON: Don’t much care where it goes to church. It sure has got bad manners.

The series also had an evolving storyline, in which the characters progressively learned more and more about their new universe and how it worked, with concepts building over time, enabling the stories to to grow more complex, with the characters getting ever closer to figuring out how to return home to Earth. This was not a series where everything gets reset to just the way it was at the beginning of the episode.

The characters also are more realistic than on most childrens’ series. The kids do not function as grownups in miniature. They make mistakes and do juvenile things, and the series underscores the need for them to hang together and obey their father in order for the family to survive. Even though the family members may squabble, the genuinely love and depend on each other. The kids also grow and mature over time.

Sleestak2You may be of the impression that Star Trek’s Klingon was the first TV sci-fi language to be developed to the point that people could actually speak it, but you’d be wrong. The Land of the Lost’s ape-like Pakuni spoke a language that had hundreds of words and its own grammar and phonology–designed by a professional linguist (as with Klingon).

The show also had all the delicious scare-factor one could want. The Sleestaks in particular provided the satisfying chills every young boy was longing for as a way of testing his courage. I can’t tell you how many nights I lay awake, convinced by the shadows in my bedroom that there was a Sleestak standing in my closet door–yet I wouldn’t have missed Land of the Lost for anything!

Now, at last, Land of the Lost comes to DVD. The first season (of three seasons) came out yesterday in an affordable edition that contains the foundational episodes of the series, which set up the key concepts that come into play later. Watching them now, the child-like aspects of the series are more noticeble to me than they were when I was nine, but it’s still AMAZING how different, more mature, and more sophisticated the series is than ANYTHING else ever made for Saturday morning TV.

I must admit that I am a huge fan of Land of the Lost. In fact, I pre-ordered the DVDs, so they arrived early, and I’ve just taken the DVD bonus materials quiz on the show and scored 100% (on 13 questions with four options each), so I’m very proud of myself.

For those who saw the series when it was first on, it will be an unbelievable nostalgia fest, and for those who missed out on it the first time, you’ll WISH you’d seen it as kids back in the 1970s. It’ll also provide an unending delight for your own children.

BUY IT!!! BUY IT NOW!!!

YES! YES! YES! Land of the Lost on DVD!!!

lotl_logoOne of the all-time GREAT Saturday morning shows is The Land of the Lost, which aired back in the mid-1970s. For me, as for countless other boys and girls of my generation, Land of the Lost was the EPITOME of cool.

And deservedly so! Just look at what the show had going for it:

1. First and foremost, it had DINOSAURS! Lots of them! You can’t get cooler than that!

2. It had a likable family living in a world filled with groovy science fiction concepts.

3. It had A-list science fiction authors (like Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Norman Spinrad, Ben Bova, David Gerrold, and D. C. Fontanta) doing the scripts.

4. It had the semi-insectoid, semi-reptilian Sleestak, the barbaric descendants of the Land of the Lost’s original builders.

5. It had the short, ape-like Pakuni

6. It had guest stars from the past of our world (like Jefferson Davis Collie III–a loney Confederate veteran convinced that “The South will rise again”) and from the future of our world (like Beauregard Jackson of Ft. Worth, Texas–an astronaut plucked from flying a hypersonic glider over Ecuador) and the main cast themselves as guest stars from their own futures or alternate universes–as well as other guest stars too bizarre to classify.

7. It had spray-painted chickens, giant carrots, turnips, and strawberries, glowing power crystals, lost cities, abandoned temples, circular rivers leading nowhere, peril-infested swamps, earthquakes, talking skulls, and everything else that makes for coolness.

What a show!

pakuni01It’s probably the most intelligent show ever to appear on Saturday morning. It wasn’t dumbed down and didn’t patronize the children in the audience. How many Saturday morning shows that expect kids to understand–and succeed in communicating to them–that the series is set in a parallel universe so small that you can stand on the top of a hill and see the back of your head with binoculars because its space-time is curved. Not only that, but it is an *artificial* universe built by a once noble race that has now fallen into barbarity. It is a universe still being run by an automated control system that the characters must interact with. It is a universe connected to any point in our world’s history–and countless other worlds–via time doorways.

Some favorite lines following a dinosaur attack:

BEAUREGARD JACKSON: Hey, I sure am happy to see you kids. . . . Where am I? And, uh, what in the heck was that?

WILL MARSHALL: Aw, that’s only a coelophysis. It’s omnivorous.

JACKSON: Don’t much care where it goes to church. It sure has got bad manners.

The series also had an evolving storyline, in which the characters progressively learned more and more about their new universe and how it worked, with concepts building over time, enabling the stories to to grow more complex, with the characters getting ever closer to figuring out how to return home to Earth. This was not a series where everything gets reset to just the way it was at the beginning of the episode.

The characters also are more realistic than on most childrens’ series. The kids do not function as grownups in miniature. They make mistakes and do juvenile things, and the series underscores the need for them to hang together and obey their father in order for the family to survive. Even though the family members may squabble, the genuinely love and depend on each other. The kids also grow and mature over time.

Sleestak2You may be of the impression that Star Trek’s Klingon was the first TV sci-fi language to be developed to the point that people could actually speak it, but you’d be wrong. The Land of the Lost’s ape-like Pakuni spoke a language that had hundreds of words and its own grammar and phonology–designed by a professional linguist (as with Klingon).

The show also had all the delicious scare-factor one could want. The Sleestaks in particular provided the satisfying chills every young boy was longing for as a way of testing his courage. I can’t tell you how many nights I lay awake, convinced by the shadows in my bedroom that there was a Sleestak standing in my closet door–yet I wouldn’t have missed Land of the Lost for anything!

Now, at last, Land of the Lost comes to DVD. The first season (of three seasons) came out yesterday in an affordable edition that contains the foundational episodes of the series, which set up the key concepts that come into play later. Watching them now, the child-like aspects of the series are more noticeble to me than they were when I was nine, but it’s still AMAZING how different, more mature, and more sophisticated the series is than ANYTHING else ever made for Saturday morning TV.

I must admit that I am a huge fan of Land of the Lost. In fact, I pre-ordered the DVDs, so they arrived early, and I’ve just taken the DVD bonus materials quiz on the show and scored 100% (on 13 questions with four options each), so I’m very proud of myself.

For those who saw the series when it was first on, it will be an unbelievable nostalgia fest, and for those who missed out on it the first time, you’ll WISH you’d seen it as kids back in the 1970s. It’ll also provide an unending delight for your own children.

BUY IT!!! BUY IT NOW!!!

Privacy Expert Exposes MTV

In an ironic move, privacy expert Lauren Weinstein has exposed MTV’s private plans to do a fraudulent debate show whose purpose is to humiliate its guests.

Weinstein, who was invited on the show, did some checking before accepting. Here is what he found:

Not really a debate at all, the show is actually a program for Comedy Central (yes, an MTV/Viacom network) called “Crossballs” — and its sole purpose is the embarrassment and humiliation of the expert guests who are brought on expecting a legitimate discussion program.

Crossballs is a rigged “reality” show, where real guests, who have been kept in the dark about the show’s real format, are paired off against actors (playing the debate opponents) for the amusement of the live audience. The stories I read from persons recently on the show included descriptions of crude, sexually-oriented verbal attacks (and worse, like being handed various sexual “apparatus”) and concerns that their reputations would be ruined once the shows aired [source].

While we can all agree that this is a shameful abuse of the talk-show format, what I want to know is: How is this any different (except in degree) from regular news shows?

I’ve done enough TV interviews to know that guests are regularly set up by news organizations for purposes of humiliating them and ridiculing their points of view.

(WARNING: I found the Weinstein story through another site that only linked the relevant page, which I have linked, but I wouldn’t go poking around on the site unless you want to see lots of disturbing Iraq prisoner abuse photos elsewhere on it.)

Archbishop of Canterbury on The Simpsons?

A new report indicates that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the highest churchman in the Anglican communion, has been invited to appear on animated TV show The Simpsons.

This is less surprising than one might think since the Anglican communion’s recent history resembles episodes of The Simpsons. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist. But I suspect many Anglicans would say the same thing.)

In other Simpsons news, plans are in the works for a Simpsons movie.

Also, the fourth season of The Simpsons is finally out on DVD.

Archbishop of Canterbury on The Simpsons?

A new report indicates that Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the highest churchman in the Anglican communion, has been invited to appear on animated TV show The Simpsons.

This is less surprising than one might think since the Anglican communion’s recent history resembles episodes of The Simpsons. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist. But I suspect many Anglicans would say the same thing.)

In other Simpsons news, plans are in the works for a Simpsons movie.

Also, the fourth season of The Simpsons is finally out on DVD.

I . . . Have Returned

Just got back from Illinois
Lock the front door, oh boy
Got to set down, take a rest
On the portch.
Imagination sets in
Purty soon I’m singin’
Doo-doo-doo, lookin’ out my back door.

Or so says the song by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Actually, I was listening to this song on the Chronicle, Vol. 1 by Creedence Clearwater Revival when I was travelling through Illinois on my way back from the vacation I just took (finally, after ages and ages of not taking one).

This song perplexes me a little because it’s got a really toe-tapping tune, but if you read between the lines of the lyrics, it’s basically a ’60s-’70s drug song (“There’s a giant doing cartwheels, A statue wearing high heels. Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn. Dinosaur Victrola listening to Buck Owens. Tambourines and elephants are playing in the band. Won’t you take a ride on the flying spoon?”).

I like the tune, and I don’t mind the psychedelic imagery, but don’t at all like the drug subtext of the song.

The way the song is written, the drug subtext is only required if you read between the lines. If you read the lines themselves, it isn’t there. In fact, all the bizarre things that the singer sees are explicitly attributed to the imagination of a road-weary traveller, not to drugs. This, no doubt, is a “plausible deniability” lyric included in the song to give kids listening to the song a defense to present to their parents (and also to keep CCR from getting in trouble for corrupting the youth–further than they already were, that is).

My solution is to enjoy the song by refusing to accept its subtext. In other words, to take it at face value and focus on the lyrics instead of what they would have meant in the socio-cultural context in which they were written. Yes, I know that the song was originally about drugs, but I don’t have to accept that just because it’s what the songwriter intended. I can take the song in whatever sense I want in the privacy of my own mind–especially when he’s put a harmless interpretation into the lyrics themselves.

It’s kind of like that episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where Joel points out to the ‘Bots that you don’t have to accept the ending of the movie that the filmmakers give you. You can write your own ending, if you don’t like theirs.

I guess just about every conscientious Christian has to do something like this when appreciating items of popular culture that contain elements not in accord with the faith. Whether it’s a song, a movie, a TV show, a novel, or what have you, virtually everything has something bad in it. And that’s how it’s always been. It was the same in the Middle Ages, too. (In fact, when he was dying, Chaucer apologized for having included so much non-pious material in The Canterbury Tales). But that’s what we have to do, whether we’re dealing with art or simply with other people: “Test everything, and hold fast to what is good,” in the words of St. Paul.

So that’s how I handle “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”

I was tickled to realize that, like the traveller in the song, I had “just got back from Illinois” (at least, I passed through Illinois). What was even more surprising to me, though, was something that happened with a different song on the CD: “Down on the Corner,” which is about a group of poor kids who have their own band. At one point in the song the lyrics say: “Poorboy twangs the rythm out on his kalamazoo.” I have no idea what this means. I suppose it was just John Fogerty being playful and needed a rhyme for
“kazoo” (which he uses in the next line of the song).

As it happens, I was listening to this song on my trip, looked up, and realized what town I was in at the moment: Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Weird, man. Weird.

Michael Moore Accused of Breaking Two of Ten Commandments

Enfant terrible Michael Moore, producer of the films Bowling for Columbine and the new Bush-bash Farenheight 9-11, has recently been accused of breaking two of the Ten Commandments, specifically the ones involving theft and lying.

Ray Bradbury, author of the classic dystopian sci-fi novel Farenheight 451, is hopping mad that Moore sideswiped his novel’s title and is assuing him of ripping it off. (NOTE: Bradbury is so mad the he us a . . . uh . . . colorful phrase to describe Moore.)

Regarding Moore’s receipt of standing ovations and the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) award at the Cannes film festival in the enfant terrible nation of France, Bradbury states:

“I have won prizes in different places and they are mostly meaningless. The people there hate us, which is why they gave him the d’Or. It’s a meaningless prize.”

Meanwhile, Conservative commentator Fred Barnes is accusing Moore of breaking the commandment against lying. In his book Stupid White Men, Moore recounted a phone call that showed Barnes acting like . . . well . . . . a stupid (and hypocritical) white man who didn’t know what The Iliad and The Odyssey are. Barnes flatly denies that the phone call ever took place and said Moore made it up. He writes:

The only problem is none of this is true. It never happened. Moore is a liar. He made it up. It’s a fabrication on two levels. One, I’ve never met Moore or even talked to him on the phone. And, two, I read both “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” in my first year at the University of Virginia.

Makes one wonder what other things in Moore’s work may be made up.

Speaking of Lurch . . .

addams_familyI don’t know if anybody out there gets the cable network TVLand (a spinoff of Nick at Night). I suspect that I am one of about six people who do get it.

Well, if you’re one of the lucky six, this weekend they’re having an Addams Family marathon. That show is SO cool.

As a boy I loved it, though I could seldom catch it in syndication. I infinitely preferred it to The Munsters, which struck me as a gaudy, less creative knockoff of The Addams Family. In the years since, I’ve decided that I *do* like The Munsters, but The Addams Family still has a kind of sophistication and subtlety that the Munsters didn’t.

The Munsters were all established types of monsters: Hermann was a Frankenstein monster, Lily and Granpa were vampires, and Eddie was a werewolf. Then there was Cousin Marilyn, the drop-dead gorgeous ugly duckling of the family.

The Addamses, by contrast, defy categorization. Morticia is vaguely Vampira-like, but she isn’t a vampire. Lurch is vaguely Frankenstein monster-ish, but he isn’t a Frankenstein monster. Gomez and the children aren’t monstrous in appearance at all, and Uncle Fester, Cousin Itt, and Thing defy classification. The only Addams that approximates an established stereotype is Grandmama, who is a hag.

The humor on The Addams Family also is more subtle than that on The Munsters. The writers didn’t go for as many predictable jokes. Thus, for example, in one episode this weekend Morticia offered a visitor to the house a dish of brazed giraffe whereas Lily Munster might have offered a wolfsbane casserole or something. Brazed giraffe is odd and exotic without being predictable and invoking a cliche.

That seems to be the main difference between the two oddball families (both of whom got their serieses in the same year: 1964). The Munsters are a fun romp through established monster motifs (mostly derivative of the 1930s and ’40s Universal monster movies), while The Addams Family is a quirky, understated, never-quite-predictable look at a family from The Twilight Zone.

One thing both shows have going for them is wicked cool main title sequences. The Munsters’ theme has those hard-driving (for 1964) electric guitars and saxophones, while The Addams Family has the lively harpsichord and finger snapping.

Both families also are functional, despite their oddballness. The family members care about each other, the mother and father in each are in love, and everbody has a kind of quirky zest for life. Gomez Addams (played by John Astin, father of Sean Astin or “Samwise Gamgee” from The Lord of the Rings movies) in particular seems to be thoroughly enjoying life with a passion that sometimes borders on mania.

When I was a boy, one of my favorite aunts (who reminds me of a non-spooky, Texas-accented version of Morticia, if that makes any sense) once compared my sense of humor to that of Charles Addams, the cartoonist on whose work the series is based. Maybe that’s why I like the show so much.

Now if they’d just put it out on DVD. It only ran two seasons, so it wouldn’t take much work to put the whole thing out. Just two, one-season volumes. Since TVLand has started releasing DVD sets of the shows it broadcasts, maybe it’ll put this one out. If so, I’ll get my copies pronto!

Michael Eisner Enters The Tower Of Terror

The last few weeks we here in California have been bombarded by ads for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s California Adventure theme park.

Don’t know if you’re seeing these ads in the rest of the country, but they’re all over the place here.

Now, as this photo essay, it’s Disney head Michael Eisner’s turn in the Tower of Terror, the ultra-expensive ride he has been backing to bring bucks into Disney’s latest lackluster theme park.

Apparently, the California Adventure is a cost-cut, trimmed-down version of what was originally envisioned to be a much larger park, but the reaction of the public has been “ho-hum.” That’s my reaction, too. The concept of “California” just doesn’t send me, and it hasn’t been paired conceptually with the concept of “Adventure” since the 1890s.

In any event, the photo essay–taken this past Memorial Day–shows very few people seem to have the park resonating for them, either.

Terror time for Michael Eisner.