Tam’s wikihole adventure yesterday morning, in regards to the world of Sid and Marty Krofft, took me back. Some of my formative childhood experiences were from one of their shows, namely Land of the Lost. Looking at the date on those, I was probably picking up reruns a few years after it originally aired. My sister and I had a stay  home mom, who’s stay at home mom gossip circle were the ladies by the kiddie pool at the local swim club.
There were two shows I’d throw fits over missing if we were dragged to the pool. One was Star Blazers, and the other was Land of the Lost. We were fortunate to be early adopters of VHS technology, which enabled my mother to set the primitive timing device to record my shows, and get me to the pool with minimal complaint. Sadly, I don’t think I kept any of these recordings, but for those of you of a different generation, thanks to the miracle of YouTube and internets, you can find it here:
I had a horrible little boy crush on the Holly character. I can remember being young begging my parents to take me to a place regularly advertised on TV in the Philadelphia area, Crystal Cave, in Kutztown. As a small child, I was convinced if I could get to these caves, I could unlock the secrets that would allow me to control the universe, bring on the Sleetak/Dinosaur revolution, and be with Holly forever. Eventually my parents relented, and we went. I was thrilled with anticipation. When I got there… no friggin pylons. In case you’re not sure what I’m saying here, there were no friggin pylons! What kind of lame-ass place calls themselves Crystal Cave, and no only are there no pylons, there aren’t even any damned crystals. No Sleestaks, and definitely no dinosaurs. The secrets of the universe turned out to be pretty damned lame to me as a young kid.
I’ve been in caverns since, but I’ve never been back to Crystal Cave. Maybe it’s time to go back and give it another chance.
Almost wish I’d grown up in an era when television wasn’t awful.
Thomas The Tank Engine was pretty good, I guess, but mostly because of Ringo Starr on the narration.
Star Blazers was an altered American dub of Senkan Yamato, wasn’t it?
I grew up on Legend of the Galactic Heroes, which in retrospect probably wasn’t for children, what with the zero-gravity axe fights and [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTtKV565lgA]muderous cultists[/url]
When I was 7 or 8, I thought Holly was the hottest thing ever.
Drugs never interested me growing up. Why would I ingest something into my body just to see freaky colours and whacked-out illusions when “H.R. Puffnstuff” was on every Saturday morning?
Did anyone else see this parody of the Krofft brothers?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHqcNj0Pv6c
I apologize in advance for ruining your childhood memories.
I think my parents went overseas as missionaries precisely to avoid/prevent us kids watching TV at that age.
I remember thinking Yogi Bear’s GF Cindy was a cutie – when I was five – I guess I hadn’t yet gotten that body dimorphism thing yet like Chas Bono, but you gotta admit the music was a classic 60’s era Martini Lounge act — way-better than HR Puffinreefer…except maybe for Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.
Hmm, looks like I got spam-filtered.
Summary of attempted post: Thomas The Tank Engine was awesome, but mostly because Ringo Starr was narrating.
Let me go find it.
What a recent rewatch of several childhood favorites taught me is: Childhood Nostalgia is better than the real thing. Keep the memories, they are better than reality because your filters are different as an adult.
There were some surprises. Land of the Lost’s universe is extremely self consistent. Of course they had some heavy hitters from science fiction writing a few episodes; like Larry Niven.
I watched Land Of The Lost when they aired on Saturday mornings in the early ’70’s–back when they pushed such things as Freakies Cereal and Vanilla Crunch which had a big white whale.
Now I have a DVD and my kid’s love them. My 3 year old will ask for it as soon as he gets home from preschool today as he does every day.
My kids also enjoy Sigmund & The Sea Monsters, Puff ‘n Stuff and some of the older Kroft shows too. I guess that’s better than Spongebob.