Don't You Turn Your Back or You'll Become a Snack!

"Now we've crossed the line, fallen through time... LIVIN' IN THE LAND OF THE LOST!"

I've been meaning to make this Flashback Friday post for sometime now but knew it was going to take a bit longer to research than I've felt up to doing, but now I have 10 days straight to take easy at home and with family, so why not?

Anyways... trying to fall asleep one night, I came across TBS showing the end of the terribad Will Ferrell Land of the Lost movie that came out not too long ago (too bad it was so bad though - Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel was in it). And it got me wondering about the Land of the Lost show that I grew up watching Saturday mornings on ABC.

And no, no. Not this version:

That's an image from the original 1974 Land of the Lost with the Marshall family - that was 10 years before I was born.

THIS is the version of the show I grew up with:

Yep, that's the intro to the 1991 remake with the Porter family and the attractive jungle girl Christa.

One theory I've read on the purpose of Christa was that she was there for all the dad's who got up on Saturday mornings with their kids to oogle

According to Wiki, "because of the success in syndication of the cult 1974 series Land of the Lost, Sid and Marty Krofft created a remake. The new Land of the Lost saw advanced special effects and a lighter, less survivalist-oriented tone ... The series ran for 26 episodes spread over two seasons, with each season consisting of thirteen episodes. It featured the Porter family—father Tom, son Kevin and daughter Annie—trapped in a parallel universe after their Jeep Cherokee (referred to as a "truck" in the series) fell through a time portal while exploring the back country. They soon meet another human, a beautiful "jungle girl" named Christa who came from 1960s San Francisco. Christa became trapped in the Land of the Lost when she was very young and grew up alone. (An earlier concept would have featured an adult Holly Marshall as the "mystery girl" along with Cha-Ka but due to casting the characters were revisualized as Christa and Stink)."

And here's a few fun facts that kind of ties the 2 series together:
"Some fans speculate that Christa is actually Holly Marshall. That the Marshall family sailed away to find their way out of the Land of the Lost, and that Holly was left behind in the storm that took their raft out into the sea ...

 

Is Christa really a grown-up Holly? Hard to tell...

Scarface, Grumpy... he's an angry
T-Rex, so it's possible!

Some fans speculate that Scarface is actually Grumpy of the original series. In that series they often encouraged Grumpy to leave their cave by pushing a large sharpened log called the "flyswatter" out of the cave entrance and into Grumpy's open mouth. Some believe that one encounter with the "flyswatter" scarred Grumpy's eye. The Potter family, being new to the Land of the Lost, named the T-Rex for his facial feature, rather than his grumpy attitude ...

If this were true, it would make Christa and Scarface the only two characters that existed in both TV series.."

That kinda makes sense actually and is an interesting way to explain it for the older generation that grew up watching the original 1974 and got stuck watching the 1991 version with their kids on Saturday mornings.

Sadly, the show only lasted for 2 seasons with a total of 26 episodes spanning a year and a half (from September 1991 to December 1992), being replayed for awhile before being run in syndication later on Nickelodeon. I always wondered how they were going to get home, back to their normal time period.

To be honest, I wasn't big on this show until after my childhood best friend started watching it and was telling me about it. While I'm sure I've seen all the episodes, I didn't watch it religiously... but boy did that theme song get stuck in my head at times - LIVING IN THE LAND OF THE LOST!

Did you grow up watching Land of the Lost?