Saturday Morning Flashback: Land of the Lost: "The Musician"

“The Musician” is Land of the Lost’s highly intriguing, Saturday morning version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Only here, it is Chaka (Philip Paley) -- not primitive man -- who undergoes a sudden, evolutionary leap in intelligence. We learn from a strange humanoid visitor to Altrusia -- a Builder?-- that now”  is Chaka’s “time.” And, when the episode is over, Chaka has learned how to play Holly’s recorder, an act which previously eluded him.

One of the most memorable images from “The Musician” finds Chaka confronting a human, evolved version of himself; one also played by Paley.  The human version of Chaka informs the Pakuni that it is his time to be tested, and he wears a uniform that looks like it came straight out of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).  Is this form Chaka’s destiny? His form in another universe?

What precipitates Chaka’s evolutionary leap is a visit to the strange temple near the Lost City of the Sleestaks, the temple first seen (but not explored…) in the second season episode called “The Test.”   In a certain sense, I suppose, one might claim that Season Two of Land of the Lost boasts a story arc since elements of earlier stories pay off in later ones, and build on one another. 

Inside the temple, the Marshalls and Chaka find the “great granddaddy of all matrix tables” and it materializes a strange red ring, one apparently belonging to “The Builders.”

I love the idea that Land of the Lost -- on a TV budget and in a time slot for children -- attempts to tell a complex story in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey, one that gazes at, explicitly, the idea of intelligence, or genius, and asks (as Will does in the story): “where does it come from?”

I like the idea encoded in “The Musician” (as well as other episodes of the series) that Altrusia is an artificial world created by highly-intelligent, but mysterious beings.  On the temple wall in this episode, for instance, we see a sculpture of human hands.  What role do human beings -- perhaps a future Holly?  -- play in the shaping or maintenance of this world?  It would have been truly fascinating to learn where more about these beings, and their purpose, but a format change in Season Three left the idea unfulfilled.

Still, “The Musician” is likely one of the best episodes of Land of the Lost’s second season since it explores this (abandoned) mythology.  The episode features a Builder (or at least I think it’s a Builder), their strange temple, and the mysterious brain boost for Chaka.

Today, one can only wonder where this storyline might have eventually led if things had been different…

Land of the Lost: "Medusa"

The fifth episode of the third (and final) season of the NBC Saturday morning series highlights the mythological Medusa -- snake-haired Gorgon (sister in myth to Euryale and Stheno) -- as the villain of the week.

And indeed, if you are familiar with this bicentennial-era series, it may sound like a real stretch that the Gorgon Medusa would appear in the "closed" pocket-universe of the Land of the Lost. But 1976 was a year of significant format alterations for this series, as we've seen in the preceding weeks.

Specifically, star Spencer Milligan -- playing Dad, Rick Marshall -- left the program. On screen, Ron Harper (Planet of the Apes) took the lead as Uncle Jack, and behind the scenes, Sam Roeca, a veteran of CBS's animated Valley of the Dinosaurs, came aboard as writer and story editor. Also, writer/producer Jon Kubichan joined up.

"The first thing that Sam and I did was watch all the episodes," Kubichan reported when I interviewed him for Filmfax. "I wanted the series to be more fun, and to do something in every episode that was instructive in terms of science."

Roeca was on the same page in these desires and shared a mutual enthusiasm for mythology with Kubichan. 

Together, the new team sought to present in each third season installment "something from the past, from some literature or children's narrative."

This shift in narrative/imaginative focus resulted in a controversial third season that saw the Marshalls grapple with mythological creatures and beings such as The Flying Dutchman, a unicorn, a fire-breathing dragon, the Yeti...and Medusa.

"Medusa wound her way into the Land of the Lost because that actress is my wife," Kubichan joked with me.

"A writer that I knew came in, Greg Strangis, and came up with his story. He said, 'How'd you like to do a Medusa story?' and I thought it was a good idea. He went home, worked out a story, and I made some changes. He re-wrote a little, and that was that."

One reason that humanoid mythological creations like Medusa appeared on the show so frequently in the third season involved matters of schedule and budget. "It was very difficult to do anything with the dinosaurs," Kubichan informed me. "It took a long time to shoot that stuff, so you can't have it done in a couple of days. It takes weeks..."

In "Medusa," Holly (Kathy Coleman), Will (Wesley Eure) and Cha-Ka (Philip Paley) are busy preparing a sort of emergency canoe on the river that the Marshalls explored in first season's "Downstream." Holly boards the craft, and when a dam down-river breaks, she end ups hurtling away from the others. She is rescued by a mysterious woman named "Meddie" (Marion Thompson), and escorted to Meddie's "Garden of Eternity."

There, in the Garden, Holly sees several very life-like statues, including a statue of one Jefferson Davis Collies, the Civil War soldier that Holly encountered with her Dad and Will in the aforementioned "Downstream."

Now, this is a really splendid and entirely unexpected bit of continuity in the series; a direct reference to a program two years previous. The statue of Collies is even seen with his beloved cannon, Sarah.

After Holly learns that "Meddie" has also turned the land's resident triceratops, Spike, to stone, she begins to suspect that she's in some real trouble. Meddie attempts to entice Holly to stay in the Garden by offering her a new, beautiful dress..

Elsewhere, Uncle Jack, Will and Cha-Ka, attempt to rescue Holly from Meddie -- Medusa -- but most grapple with the Gorgon's sentient mirror (!) and the ambulatory, crushing vines that crawl all over the Garden of Eternity. In the end, Jack defeats Medusa by forcing the monster to gaze upon her own horrifying reflection...

Today, Land of the Lost's dedicated sense of creative imagination and fantasy far outstrips the production's prehistoric special effects, which have not aged gracefully. The series is still incredibly enjoyable (the effects are no worse than Dr. Who's; or Blake's 7, for instance...), but "Medusa" is nonetheless hampered by some poor visualizations. 

For instance, when "Meddie" turns into the Gorgon, it's clear that the snakes in her hair are just rubbery, inanimate, life-less things. And her gray, monstrous face make-up doesn't extend fully down her neck. In other words, you can see clearly where the make-up stops and real flesh color begin.

But again, Land of the Lost remains a really terrific Saturday morning's kid show because it is so endlessly imaginative, and because many episodes tend to concern great concepts, whether from science fiction (like time-loops, for instance) or from mythology. Greg Strangis's fantasy story is actually grounded in reality too, and has two very notable themes.

In a very real way -- and this is probably why this episode was so frightening to children at the time -- the episode concerns our childhood fear of strangers. 

Here, Holly is alone and taken in by an apparently kind adult, but one with secret motives. She tries and tries to get away, but the adult is both demanding and apparently friendly simultaneously, and, well, it's hard for kids to go against the wishes of an adult. Here, the stranger is indeed a monster, and Holly must plot her escape carefully. So the story here, in veiled terms, is -- watch out for strangers.

The other sub-text in "Medusa" surely concerns vanity. "Meddie" is ultimately undone by her narcissistic obsession with her physical beauty. According to the teleplay, it is actually "ugly" to be too concerned with one's self. As Holly notes at the end, the problem with vanity is that you might -- like Medusa -- get "trapped" by it.

As a six-year old kid, Land of the Lost's "Medusa" terrified me to my core, but it wasn't just the Gorgon's appearance and frightening ability to turn people to stone that was so powerful; it was the idea that she was a dishonest, untrustworthy adult who was planning to do monstrous things to an innocent child. 

Yikes...now that's disturbing in a real life way; a way that, well, dinosaurs or Sleestak are not.

Today, it's probably hard to conceive that an innocuous Land of the Lost from the disco decade was ever something that was legitimately "scary." But even today, you can detect how the series always attempted to ambitiously present a lot on a very small budget. 

For instance, "Medusa" features one or two very impressive high angle shots of Medusa's lair. These difficult-to-stage angles get across the atmosphere of danger and dread in a powerful way. A kid's show in a hurry likely wouldn't have found the time to pick out the right angle in moments like these, but Land of the Lost remains powerful (especially to the young-at-heart...) because its stories were conveyed with care both on the page and on the stage.

"Medusa" is a strong entry for the third season, which has been some rough sailing thus far.  It's imaginative and scary, even if certain questions about it persist.  Like, for instance how did Medusa get into the Land of the Lost, and how has she so long eluded the notice of the Marshalls (or the Sleestak, for that matter?)

Land of the Lost: "After-Shock"

An earthquake strikes Altrusia both conceptually and literally in the third season premiere of Land of the Lost (1974 – 1977), titled “After Shock.”   

Behind the scenes, star Spencer Milligan (Rick Marshall) departed from the series, replaced by Ron Harper as Uncle Jack Marshall. And a new team of writers, led by Sam Roeca (Valley of the Dinosaurs) and Jon Kubichan replaced outgoing writers such as Dick Morgan.

In terms of the actual storyline, “After Shock” begins with a quake that sends Rick Marshall -- working inside a pylon -- spiraling home to his home in California, leaving Will (Wesley Eure) and Holly (Kathy Coleman) to contend with a shifted reality in Altrusia. 

High Bluff is buried in rock, taking all of the Marshalls’ equipment with it, and a strange new, two-headed monster (which Holly christens “Lulu”) appears in the lagoon.  Uncle Jack also falls into the Land of the Lost, a fact which conforms to the one-person-in, one-person out balance of the strange land as viewers understand it.. 

Finally, Chaka (Philip Paley) also loses track of the other Pakuni, Ta and Sa, though his explanation for their disappearance doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Chaka claims that the other Paku were separated on the other side of a crack in the land, running far away.  But we know from Land of the Lost history that Altrusia is a small pocket universe that circles around on itself, and so there’s no way for the Paku to have disappeared or left. 

It would have been better if Chaka simply saw Ta and Sa fall into a crack in the Earth, though that explanation may have scared the kiddies, I suppose.

After Will, Holly and Chaka find Uncle Jack by the lagoon, they all go in search of a new home, and must battle the fearful Sleestak for possession of “The Old Temple” near the Lost City.  It isn’t clear if this structure is supposed to be the same old temple that was featured in second season stories such as “The Musician,” though it looks completely different here.

As for Jack, Ron Harper is a capable actor, and he did a great job as Virdon on Planet of the Apes (1974).   The writing here establishes Jack as an engineer, which helps to explain how he is able to build so many interesting and helpful devices in the Land of the Lost, like wheels for the heavy temple door.  

Gazing at “After Shock,” one can debate, certainly, the idea of change as a positive for Land of the Lost and change as a negative factor.  The episode starts out promisingly as Will reminds an upset Holly that “we aren’t alone.  We’re just on our own.”  In some sense, this is the moment the series -- and Rick Marshall -- have been preparing the kids for since the family first fell into the land of the lost.   Everyone has always known that separation was a possibility.

There’s an argument to be made that the arrival of Uncle Jack is thus truly unnecessary, and the series should have continued just with Will, Holly and Chaka living together, in no need of a father figure.  Instead, Uncle Jack’s arrival feels like the idea of change…without real change.  He’s a new Dad, essentially, and so the story line and characters don’t truly move forward in a meaningful way.

Even the idea of losing the cave at High Bluff and moving to the Old Temple is promising, but its potential largely undelivered by future episodes.  The temple set is a really good, really intriguing one, and very different from the old cave.  The set is dotted with all of these large stone doors, ostensibly leading to other unexplored chambers.  But no episode of the series ever explores what chambers or tunnels lay beyond those doors.  That’s a disappointment, because a core aspect of the series has been, in episodes like 

“Downstream” and “Follow that Dinosaur,” an exploration of new territory.  Instead, the Marshalls and Chaka move in during “After Shock” and never really look around their new digs.  Even as a seven year old kid, I wondered why the family didn’t explore its new home. I wanted to know what was behind those doors.

“After Shock” also shows some of streamlining of core, long-standing Land of the Lost concepts.  Now, both Chaka and the Sleestak Leader clearly and understandably speak English, for example. It’s a shift, and again, one with ups and downs.  If one chooses, one can register Chaka’s sudden understanding/learning of English as a side-effect of his experience in “The Musician,” near the end of the second season, when his intelligence was “evolved” by the Builders of the Land of the Lost. 

I used to consider Chaka’s new Tarzan/pigeon-English a continuity error, but after watching several episodes of the second season in which he and the Marshalls waste precious minutes of story time trying to communicate with one another via the Pakuni language, I can’t argue that this streamlining is a dramatic mistake, especially considering the events of “The Musician.”

“After Shock” is a pretty strong episode of Land of the Lost, the beginning of a new era that promises some intriguing story-lines.  The problem isn’t that the new direction is bad, but rather that follow-up episodes don’t necessarily deliver on the potential promised by this installment.  The second episode, for instance -- called “Survival Kit” -- is one of the worst episodes of the entire series and entirely inconsistent with what we know of the Sleestaks, the Land of the Lost, its history, and its inhabitants. 

Land of the Lost: "The Zarn"

The Land of the Lost gets a new resident -- the emotionless and pitiless alien “Zarn” (Marvin Miller) -- in this week’s episode penned by Dick Martin and directed by Bob Lally.

The Zarn is an energy being, mostly invisible, whose presence is accompanied by the unsettling sound of wind chimes. 

What’s even scarier is that the Zarn’s space craft has crashed in the gloomy Mist Marsh, place of fog and gnarled old, dead trees.  And as the Marshalls learn this week, The Zarn can read their very thoughts, though he is repelled by the power of intense emotions.

In “The Zarn,” this stranded alien creates an android in the shape of a human female to observe and study the human Marshalls.  

Because she is created expressly from Rick’s thoughts, Sharon (Brooke Bundy) shares his memories of growing up in Indianapolis.  Holly and Will immediately recognize Sharon is too good to be true, but Marshall is lonely and hungry for adult companionship.  He can’t help but love Sharon.

Rick Marshall’s tunnel vision about Sharon may be a little unrealistic in these circumstances, but this is nonetheless one aspect of Land of the Lost I admire. 

It’s that part of a “kid’s” show that is very grown-up, and features mature plot lines.  Rick’s confession of loneliness is heartfelt and rings true. And yet Holly and Will’s feelings of being shunted aside for the interloper are just as valid.

The alien Zarn himself makes a great addition to this series extensive “creature” list, a new not-quite friend and not-quite foe who -- like the Sleestak -- possesses his own distinctive technology and world view.  

Despite his great knowledge and science, however, the Zarn -- like The Marshalls -- is a prisoner in the Land of the Lost.  

And keeping with the series’ environmental message, the character is something of a loose cannon, one will apply his technology at the expense of Altrusia as we see in the upcoming episode “Gravity Storm.”  The Zarn is out to help himself, in other words, and no one or anything else.

One question raised by the Zarn’s presence here involves the last episode of Season One, “Circle,” which established that balance in Altrusia must constantly be maintained.  So if the Zarn came in, who left?  And how did they escape?  This episode never addresses this contradiction.

Another aspect of this episode that seems dated poorly involves Holly, who is left at the High Bluff Cave to cook dinner for Will and Rick while they explore the Mist Marsh.  Girls can’t go exploring? 

Worse, it is Holly who feels most displaced by the presence of Sharon, another woman.  She’s clearly jealous that someone could jeopardize her standing in the family, and it comes off as catty and kind of demeaning…even though she’s right that Sharon is hiding something.

For a series that stressed Holly’s courage (“Elsewhen”) and dawning independence/maturity (“The Search,”) this re-establishment of 1970s traditional American sex roles feels like a big step back into the prehistoric era.

Land of the Lost: "The Musician"

“The Musician” is Land of the Lost’s highly intriguing, Saturday morning version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Only here, it is Chaka (Philip Paley) -- not primitive man -- who undergoes a sudden, evolutionary leap in intelligence.   We learn from a strange humanoid visitor to Altrusia -- a Builder?-- that now”  is Chaka’s “time.”  And, when the episode is over, Chaka has learned how to play Holly’s recorder, an act which previously eluded him.

One of the most memorable images from “The Musician” finds Chaka confronting a human, evolved version of himself; one also played by Paley.  The human version of Chaka informs the Pakuni that it is his time to be tested, and he wears a uniform that looks like it came straight out of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).  Is this form Chaka’s destiny? His form in another universe?

What precipitates Chaka’s evolutionary leap is a visit to the strange temple near the Lost City of the Sleestaks, the temple first seen (but not explored…) in the second season episode called “The Test.”   In a certain sense, I suppose, one might claim that Season Two of Land of the Lost boasts a story arc since elements of earlier stories pay off in later ones, and build on one another. 

Inside the temple, the Marshalls and Chaka find the “great granddaddy of all matrix tables” and it materializes a strange red ring, one apparently belonging to “The Builders.”

I love the idea that Land of the Lost -- on a TV budget and in a time slot for children -- attempts to tell a complex story in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey, one that gazes at, explicitly, the idea of intelligence, or genius, and asks (as Will does in the story): “where does it come from?”

I like the idea encoded in “The Musician” (as well as other episodes of the series) that Altrusia is an artificial world created by highly-intelligent, but mysterious beings.  On the temple wall in this episode, for instance, we see a sculpture of human hands.  What role do human beings -- perhaps a future Holly?  -- play in the shaping or maintenance of this world?  It would have been truly fascinating to learn where more about these beings, and their purpose, but a format change in Season Three left the idea unfulfilled.

Still, “The Musician” is likely one of the best episodes of Land of the Lost’s second season since it explores this (abandoned) mythology.  The episode features a Builder (or at least I think it’s a Builder), their strange temple, and the mysterious brain boost for Chaka.

Today, one can only wonder where this storyline might have eventually led if things had been different…

Land of the Lost: "The Pylon Express"

This is my son’s all-time favorite episode of Land of the Lost, and I understand why.

In “The Pylon Express,” young Holly (Kathy Coleman) unexpectedly enters a pylon and takes a trip through time and space.  She visits the land of Altrusia in the distant past when the Lost City was a thriving metropolis.  She visits an alternate land of the lost, but one possessing a poisonous atmosphere (shaded in violet).  

Holly also meets aliens and creatures great and small, and even returns briefly to 1970s California, her home…where she catches a frisbee in flight.

Best of all, “The Pylon Express” involves a great mystery.  When Holly is about to follow a strange bouncing life-form out of the pylon, she pauses when she sees a note scrawled in the sand.  It reads, simply: “Holly Don’t.”

The message (rightly) gives her pause, and suddenly she sees her little strange friend explode in the poisonous atmosphere.  At the end of the episode, when Holly thanks Will and Marshall for leaving the warning in the sand (on their separate journey on the pylon express), they inform her that they didn’t write it.

If they didn’t write that note, then who did? 

It’s a unique and interesting puzzle, and part of the reason I love Land of the Lost so much.  This episode harks back in some crucial to the great entry "Elsewhen" from the first season, written by Dorothy Fontana, in which Holly met her future self.  That future-self, named Ronnie/Rani informed the girl that there would come a time when Holly would be alone in the Land of the Lost, without her father and brother. 

And of course, that’s what happens, for a time anyway, in “The Pylon Express.”  Similarly, one wonders if Holly’s future self traveled through time to save Holly here, and wrote that note in the sand herself.  But of course, how did she ever survive through her trial in the first place?

Again, I should just pause here and ask you to consider how many kids’ Saturday morning shows from the 1970s involved temporal incursions, alternate worlds, and open-ended mysteries.  As I've always said,  Land of the Lost succeeded by never insulting the intelligence of its young audience.

In addition to this mystery, Land of the Lost is a great Holly-themed episode.  All alone and confronted by terrifying ideas (the loss of her family, and transportation through time and space), Holly’s constant -- and very adult -- refrain is “what would Daddy do?”  This reliance on lessons learned from a parent shows terrific character and maturity, and I’m glad the series allowed Holly to grow up and show good-decision making skills.  In too many episodes, she is relegated to cleaning up the cave or cooking, and it's great that "The Pylon Express" does right by the character.

“The Pylon Express” is such a fun and imaginative show -- and my son enjoys it so much -- because of Holly’s colorful and extended trip through time and space.  The episode takes her to a snowy mountaintop, to the world of that strange bouncy thing (a robot?) and to a terrifying world where a giant machine seems to be absorbing materials from the atmosphere.  It looks like a malevolent vacuum cleaner crossed with the Martian war machine from the Pal version of War of the Worlds (1953).  

Again, none of these realms are explained, just briefly visited.  It’s very…cool, and represents a vast opening up of the Altrusiverse.

Also, very interestingly, this episode suggests that the pylon express will open again in three years or so (when the three moons align in the night sky), which means that the Marshalls --  if they can survive -- have a guaranteed way home.  Of course, as we know from the events of the third season, this does not occur…

Land of the Lost (1974 - 1977): "Elsewhen"

"Elsewhen" by D.C. Fontana (and directed by Dennis Steinmetz) has always been one of my favorite episodes of the 1970s kid-vid series, Land of the Lost. Even today, more forty years after it first aired, it is poignant, intelligent and endlessly fascinating.

This story finds the Marshalls exploring the Lost City of the Sleestak. The family heads to Enik's cave to open the time doorway there (or to attempt to, anyway...). Rick Marshall's (Spencer Milligan) experimentation at the matrix crystal table seems unsuccessful, or so it appears. He opens up a misty gateway...but to which world? It's unclear.

Meanwhile, Holly (Kathy Coleman) wanders off by herself. After an encounter with the allosaurus Big Alice, she discovers a deep cavern leading hundreds of meters below the stone city. She spies a pylon key ensconced on a cave wall by the entrance, and brings back Will (Wesley Eure) and Rick to investigate this anomaly. The Marshalls quickly find a "black hole" in the cave and wonder if it will lead to a time doorway. The hole appears to be bottomless.

While her brother and father research the black hole further, Holly returns to Enik's cave and is surprised to encounter a beautiful young woman, Ronnie. Ronnie lovingly tells the young girl things about herself and her future; things that Ronnie couldn't possibly know, and Holly is able to use this knowledge to save Will and Rick from the Sleestak, as well as survive a trip into that black hole (and conquer her fear of heights).

In the end, Holly comes to realize that Ronnie is actually an older or "future" version of herself; that she came through the time doorway that Rick Marshall opened. 

"Cherish your father and brother, Holly," Ronnie warns the young girl in closing. "They won't always be there."

That message -- that loved ones die -- is a powerful one that has always resonated with me; since I first saw the show in 1974-1975. It seems like a particularly strong message for a kid's show, but that's one of the things I love about Land of the Lost. Say what you want about it being a "kiddie" program, but it deals with real issues in an intelligent fashion, like the notion that friends, pets, and family don't...live forever.

I had the good fortune to discuss "Elsewhen" with its creator, writer D.C. Fontana, back in 2001. 

"The idea had been on my mind that it would be nice to know things as children that we do as adults," Fontana said. "They [the producers] wanted to do a Holly story because they didn't have too many. And so Holly's adult self came back to give her younger self a warning, which was like 'If I knew then what I know now...'"

I remember commenting to Ms. Fontana that this was all "pretty heavy stuff" for a childrens' show, since it implied Holly would lose both Will and Rick -- that they would die and apparently leave her to fend for herself in the Land of the Lost.

"I have two brothers, and my mother was alive when I wrote that show," Fontana expressed. "But I was exploring the idea of what would happen if you lost those people in your life that you care most about. In many ways, you're out in the world alone, and you have to be prepared for that."

Watching "Elsewhen," all this material comes through so clearly, and I also appreciated the notion of that inexplicable pylon key showing up. It is never explained why it is there, what it is connected to, or what the purpose may be. I've always enjoyed the fact that this mystery is not resolved. 

We are not always privy in life to answers, after all, so why should the Marshalls figure it out? "I can't explain the unexplainable, Holly," Ronnie wisely tells Holly, and that's one of the undercurrents in this episode as well.

"Elsewhen" is a superb episode, and probably one of the ten best episodes of Land of the Lost.

Land of the Lost: Outré Intro

In September of 2014, the Sid and Marty Krofft live-action series Land of the Lost (1974 - 1977) celebrates its fortieth anniversary. 

I still remember tuning in to the first episode of the series and immediately falling in love with both the overall concept -- of a family "falling" into another world -- and the execution, which involved (at the time...) impressive stop-motion dinosaurs like Grumpy (a T-Rex), Big Alice (an allosaur), and Dopey (a brontosaur).

As you may recall, there was no "opening" episode of Land of the Lost featuring the Rick (Spencer Milligan), Holly (Kathy Coleman) and Will Marshall (Wesley Eure) in their "normal" life in California. 

Instead, the inaugural episode, "Cha-Ka" (September 7, 1974), began with the Marshalls already ensconced in their strange new, prehistoric environs.

The series could begin so quickly with the action, in part, because of the splendid Land of the Lost introductory montage, which -- when paired with Linda Laurie's unforgettable theme song -- depicted the opening chapter of the Marshall saga.  

In short, the theme and introductory montage shared with viewers everything they needed to know about how the Marshalls had become stranded in the pocket universe of Altrusia, and what threats they would face there.  

"My song just recreates the experience of watching that fun show," Laurie told me in an interview several years ago. 

As the Kroffts explained the series to Laurie for the first time, inspiration came to her. "I whipped out my guitar and started singing about this hole that leads to a place called the Land of the Lost.  I repeated the word "lost" because you must have an echo if you're tumbling into the middle of the Earth. That's a requirement."

As the Land of the Lost montage commences, pictured below, we get a long-distance view of the Grand Canyon under golden sunlight. 

The sun's rays are visible in frame, which suggests that this place -- home, for the Marshalls, essentially -- is a kind of veritable paradise.  

The image is natural, or pastoral, and suggests peace and light. These qualities will contrast with the dangers of Altrusia, as we see further on.

The next frame finds the Marshalls -- Rick, Will and Holly -- in an inflatable raft, navigating a winding river. 

Significantly, the family is at the center of the action here, and clustered tightly together in their small, confining craft. 

This is an important blocking choice, because the family is at the center of the action in the entirety of the series as well, dependent on one another for survival and companionship. The blocking might have featured them in a line, one after the other, three in a row. 

But to have them positioned as they are (in the image below) more aptly suggests a unit, or a family "together."

Now an earthquake starts in the next frame, and the mountains and rocks around the Marshalls begin to rumble ominously.

All the effects in this sequence, as you may note, are achieved using miniatures. They were created by art director and production designer Herman Zimmerman, a long-time veteran of the Star Trek franchise. 

"I built the opening miniature of the series: the rapids," Mr Zimmerman told me in an interview.

"The show began with a group of young people, their father, and their raft, in Colorado, and I created this large miniature, maybe 25 to 35 feet long. I shot it on videotape with miniature figures and a life raft. And the letters that arose of the mist and announced the title Land of the Lost...I carved those."

In the next sequence of shots, we see the effects of the earthquakes on the mountains, the river, and the imperiled Marshalls.

In the next shot, a mountain actually parts, and the Marshall raft goes through a new opening.

I have always found this image to be one of the most fascinating in the introductory montage, because the opening of the mountain doesn't look random, or like an accident.

Instead, it looks like the mountains are parting at a pre-determined point, and that suggests, to me, anyway, an ancient portal...perhaps one built by extra-terrestrial (Altrusian?) or otherwise non-human hands.

The same feeling is fostered in the next shot, as a giant rock door, essentially, slams down behind the Marshalls.

They are in a new, long-unseen part of the river now, and about to go down a waterfall...

As the small raft careens down the colossal falls, the entire screen turns to white mist.  Out of the mist comes a credit: Sid and Marty Krofft Present...

Now, the mist clears, and we get our series title, which appears to be carved out of the same mountain or rock-type as what we witnessed on the river, at the onset of the quake.

The Marshalls awaken soon, and find themselves in a new place, and a new world.  The roar of the rapids is replaced by the roar of...a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The Marshalls look up in terror, even as the creature -- shot from a menacing low-angle -- gazes down at them hungrily.

Next, we meet our series stars, as the Marshalls come to their senses...and run for their lives.

The T-Rex (Grumpy) pursues...

Finally, the Marshalls unexpectedly find sanctuary: a cave on "High Bluff."  

This cave becomes the ad-hoc "home" of the series, as the Marshalls move in and attempt to establish a new life there.  

As the following images reveal, the humans are safe inside the cave, even from rampaging, hungry dinosaurs. None too pleased about this fact, Grumpy turns away from the cave -- and toward us -- and lets out an earth shattering roar.

Welcome to the land of the lost!

Below, the montage in action: