Following
the amazing success of Land of the Lost (1974 – 1977), Sid
and Marty Krofft created another Saturday morning live-action series: The
Lost Saucer (1975).
This
series aired on ABC Saturday mornings for a season (and then as an element in
the Krofft
Supershow) and was part Doctor
Who (1963 – 1989), part Star Trek (1966 – 1969), and part Lost in
Space (1965 – 1968), with some comedic shtick thrown in for good
measure.
The
Lost Saucer is
the story of normal 1970's kids Jerry (Jarrod Johnson) and his babysitter, Alice
(Alice Playten).
One
night, they are visited by a flying saucer, and whisked away on an adventure. Aboard
the highly-advanced craft are two androids, Fi (Ruth Buzzi) and Fum (Jim
Nabors). These friendly androids hail from the planet ZR-3 in the year 2369,
and reveal that their ship not only travels through space, but across time as
well.
Alice
and Jerry also meet Fi and Fum’s other ship-mate, “The Dorse” (Larry Larsen), a
“bio-genetically engineered” creature
with the head of a horse and the body of a shaggy dog.
On
their first interplanetary journey, Fi and Fum experience difficulties. The time vortex is accidentally opened, and
the “Year-o-meter” is broken, sending
the ship to some distant, far off time.
Alice
and Jerry just want to return home, but instead, they are forced to reckon with
one cosmic and temporal adventure after another.
You
can see the genre antecedents or inspirations immediately in this format.
We have the lost travelers trying to get home,
similar to some extent, to the crew of the Jupiter 2.
We have advanced time travelers stealing away
“companions” and then having difficulty returning them to the right epoch. And the saucer’s main control column and control room lay-out, even,
in some sense, seems to resemble the TARDIS.
And
from Star
Trek, The Lost Saucer takes a sense of social commentary. Even though
this is a silly, slapstick Saturday morning series, each episode tries to
convey some imaginative and culturally relevant point. The stories, for all
their goofiness -- like the notorious Chickephant episodes -- ape the Gulliver’s
Travels aspect of Trek; that each new culture is
actually a commentary on our own.
The
series pilot, “894X2RY713, I Love You,” is a case in point.
In
this story, the saucer is hurled into the distant future.
While
Fi and Fum attempt to repair the saucer, Alice and Jerry go out to explore a
fabulous metropolis and find that all the human inhabitants are covered in
masks and thick suits, and go by numbers, not names.
Indeed,
the Earth kids are promptly arrested by police for being in public with no
numbers, and held for trial. Their judge
is a giant, movable computer with no face, and no mercy either.
Jerry
and Alice attempt to explain that where they come from, people have names, not
numbers. Their captors reply that without a number, the “government” can’t “keep
track” of people.
The
fear expressed here, clearly (in the immediate post-Watergate, post-Vietnam
Era) is of the State becoming a dehumanizing influence, one that fails to acknowledge
the individuality and humanity of its citizens.
After
Fi and Fum rescue Alice and Jerry (using “air-jets”),
Fum reflects that it is truly awful “when
numbers become more important than people.”
That may sound like an on-the-nose “lesson,” but it goes by quickly, and
the episode’s visuals convey the story effectively. The sets and costumes are inventive, and it
is fascinating to imagine a world in which you can’t show your face, or identify
someone by name.
Everyone must be the
same and treated the same, or the State intervenes. It’s heady stuff for a
Saturday morning series. It's relevant to today's context too, strangely enough. We live in a world of death by drones, government surveillance, and so on, so the idea of the State controlling many aspects of life still resonates.
Of
course, there’s also the “shticky” aspect of the series. Fi and Fum are comic characters
through-and-through. They say things
like “watch your tape deck” instead
of “watch your mouth,” and are
generally clowns. They bumble their way through the adventure, and yet are also
depicted as happy, positive figures in the drama. They make mistakes, but they’re
good-hearted. The Lost Saucer arises
from a time when heroes and other characters didn’t all have to be broken,
broody and angsty. They could just be…goofy.
In
terminology and technology, The Lost Saucer has certainly aged a
great deal in forty years. Fi and Fum spew paper print-outs for example, and
discuss the aforementioned tape decks. But the production values, at least for
this episode, are pretty good given the time and the limited budget.
This
episode features a clutch of alien costumes, the judge robot, bubble cars, a
future city miniature, and other nice touches.
One chase uses rear-projection, and so on.
The
Lost Saucer is
not officially available in any format at present, though you can find this and several other episodes available on YouTube. I'll be reviewing the episodes that are posted there, in the coming weeks, to glean a further sense of the series for readers here.
So loved this show. Great memories.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this show as a kid. Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi were so affable, I could overlook some of the annoying schtick. I was less happy that the show was not renewed and essentially replaced with Far-Out Space Nuts the following season. I didn't need to see the Gilligan and Skipper routine played out again, although the stories did have some social insights that raised it above typical Saturday morning nonsense.
ReplyDeleteI can hardly remember any specific episodes of this show (unlike Land of the Lost, some of whose episodes I've never forgotten), but used to watch this show regularly when I was a kid. That said, The Lost Saucer was the first time I was introduced to the concept that UFOs (remember, that phenom was big at the time) were not only from outer space, but the future.
ReplyDeleteLost Saucer was another sci-fi Saturday morning '70s series that I enjoyed as a boy. This pilot episode seemed to have been influenced by Woody Allen's Sleeper(1973) plot and this episode even re-used the white vehicle prop.
ReplyDeleteSGB
Funny, this was the only episode of this show I remember with any clarity. I think there was another one where everyone was obese, and the kids were subjected to force-feeding. Crazy stuff.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how you feel about it but it looks like, with the exception of three episodes, the entire series has been uploaded to TV-Vault.
ReplyDeleteI remember this show as well, though I didn't really enjoy it as I thought the humor was pretty juvenile. It was definitely meant for a younger audience than I was at the time.
ReplyDeleteAround 1978 or 1979, Starlog published it's first Special Effects book which covered the miniature effects for many of the Krofft shows including The Lost Saucer. That book showcased how turnaround time for many of the miniature environments was incredibly short. As a result, many of the same buildings would pop up again and again, slightly redressed so as to not appear obviously reused. Also, ready-made items like coffee cups and bowls were used to create all sorts of futuristic buildings.
Mike Minor was responsible for many of these miniature environments, going back to Land Of The Lost. Minor became the production illustrator for Star Trek:Phase II. He helped design the revamped bridge and the vertical engine room for Phase II which was then modified for the first Trek movie. Thanks to those articles in Starlog's Special Effects magazine, Minor has remained a hero of mine though he sadly passed away in the 1980's.
I used to want to be that little kid. As an adult I wonder whatever became of Jerrod Johnson?
ReplyDelete