The
last episode of Sid and Marty Krofft’s The Lost Saucer (1975) available
currently for viewing on YouTube is “Return to the Valley of the Chickaphants”
by John Greene and Arthur Phillip. It is a sequel to another episode --
currently unavailable -- titled “Valley of the Chickaphants.”
What
is a chickaphant? Well, it’s a giant chicken-elephant hybrid, of course. Or
more accurately, it is an animal with the legs of a chicken and the head of an
elephant.
In
this episode, the lost saucer’s “year-o-meter” breaks down again, and the
spaceship lands in a jungle that looks very familiar to the passengers. It
turns out they have all been here before. In fact, they last visited this
locale 700 years ago, and are blamed by the current caveman populace for the
down-fall of their society.
The
cavemen capture Fi (Ruth Buzzi) and make her sweep their cave with a broom,
which necessitates a rescue attempt by Fum (Jim Nabors).
Meanwhile,
a baby chickaphant boards the saucer after hatching, and its mother comes
looking for her wayward clucker.
In
a funny way, “Return to the Valley of the Chickaphants” anticipates the
plot-line of The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2 (1997) since it features a baby
monster captured by protagonists, and its mother’s quest to get it back. As you
may guess, however, the productions aren’t exactly comparable.
There’s
not much else to note about this episode, except that it probably isn’t the
series’ finest hour. Despite this fact,
I’d very much like to see a full, official release of the series, so I can
continue blogging it here on Saturdays.
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