OH HELLS YEAH
(Note: she and I are of an age, so I don't feel creepy about posting this photo)
Posted on 05/14/2008 7:19:58 PM PDT by B-Chan
I've been watching Lost In Space reruns over at hulu.com recently, and it's been quite an enjoyable time. In fact, in many ways I enjoy the show now more than I did as a child, which was a lot. A a child, I loved watching the original Star Trek, of course — and I still do — but I have to admit that in my early childhood I found a great deal of it to be baffling and or slightly scary. Lost In Space, however, was my favorite — the show I'd fight my little brother to see. It was never scary. It was exciting, yes, and suspenseful, but it far more suited the mental and emotional level of the slightly neurotic seven-year-old me than did the more cerebral Trek. I mean, what child of the moon landing era wouldn't love to see a kid his own age having noisy, brightly-colored interplanetary adventures on distant worlds? What kid nurtured on Hogan's Heroes and Gomer Pyle USMC era wouldn't cackle at the hilarious antics of a batty, pompous, and totally unpredictable fussbudget and his rapier-witted robot straight man?
The show itself is packed with entertainment. (For those unfamiliar with Lost In Space, the story centers on the family Robinson, a clan of astronauts who set out on a colonization mission to the star Alpha Centauri on October 16, 1997. Soon after their launch, however, their onboard robot "Robot B-9" is sabotaged by a stowaway saboteur, resulting in damage to the spacecraft, leaving the Robinson family hopelessly "lost in space".) In just one episode, the Space Family Robinson might find themselves facing the imminent destruction of their planet, while at the same time foiling the machinations of space croppers, bulb-headed aliens, and/or living statues, while at the same time dealing with the egotism-driven mishaps created by their hilariously prissy stowaway.
The actors in Lost In Space stand out as well. The series' headline star, the late Guy Williams ("Professor John Robinson"), was a fine actor, and his on-screen relationships with TV wife Dr. Maureen Robinson (June Lockhart, the mom from Lassie) and kids Judy (Marta Kristen), Penny (Angela Cartwright of The Sound Of Music fame) and Will Robinson (the ubiquitous Bill Mumy) were warm and believable. (Williams' son maintains a touching memorial to his father that is well worth a look.) Mark Goddard, as Major Don West (the Jupiter 2's pilot) is cocky and fun, especially when playing foil to the instantly memorable stowaway/saboteur Dr. Zachary Smith, portrayed with great brio by the show's regular "special guest star", the late Jonathan Harris. And of course everyone loves the warm-hearted, wry Robot (Bob May, voiced by Dick Tufield).
As production went on, the series' focus began to change from more-or-less serious sci-fi to a sort of space farce. During the first season, the episodes centered on the heroic and self-sacrificing John Robinson character, but as the show went on it began to shift from straight-up action/adventure to a sort of Laurel-and-Hardy-In-Outer-Space comedy centered on the trio of Will, Dr. Smith, and the Robot. More than anything else, folks who remember the show recall with pleasure the many zinger-laden exchanges of repartée between the arch and self-aggrandizing Dr. Smith and the unflappable and dry-humored Robot. Even as Harris, Mumy, Tufield and May moved into the center spotlight, however, the rest of the cast continued to play the Robinsons and Major West absolutely straight, making the witty interplay between Will, Dr. Smith and the Robot all the funnier by contrast.
The special effects were truly special. Sure, the planetary surface sets and occasional monsters were cheap and unconvincing, and the "aliens" usually nothing more than character actors wearing whatever B-movie props the show's producer (the late Irwin Allen) found out on the Fox backlot, but when taken together, the show's visual effects were actually fairly sophisticated for a mid-'60s TV show.
And there was an upside to the cheesy effects. The series' low-budget SFX approach actually resulted in some of the most memorable sci-fi bad guys ever; at one point or another our heroes were variously menaced by space Vikings, space miners, and even "Chavo", the silver-skinned Space Mexican. (That episode must have been a hoot for series star Guy "John Robinson" Williams, who had famously played Zorro in a successful prior series.) The reliance on backlot props also facilitated some of the show's truly wacko episides, like the one where the Robot dons a crown and ermine robe from God-knows-which grade-Z Fox knights-in-armor epic and proceeds to rule over a race of tiny toy duplicates of himself. (He also recites the preamble to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in that episode. Now that's value for one's entertainment dollar!)
There were other attractions. The Space Family Robinson lived in a split-level flying saucer (the Jupiter 2), drove a cool, jeep-like vehicle (the Space Chariot), and actually did stuff, like escaping exploding planets and whatnot, instead of talking the viewer to death. They also loved one another and stayed together no matter what, which at the time seemed more fantastic to me than the split-level flying saucer. All this, combined with fast-paced direction, lots of things blowing up, and "eerie" outer-space SFX (usually created by flashing lights of one sort or another) make for a solid hour of TV fun.
(As an aside, I must admit that as I grew older Lost In Space took on an added dimension of enjoyment for me, in the form of a monstrous crush on Angela Cartwright. Through my now-middle-aged eyes she appears in the show as a talented and cute child actress, but in 1973, the seven-year-old me regarded her as a mysterious and disturbingly attractive older woman.)
Lost In Space was, at its heart, a silly kids' show — a futuristic fairy tale designed to appeal to the romanticism and love of adventure that we kids of the Space Age grew up with. And there's nothing wrong with that. Sure, we all love Star Trek and so forth, but in this world of serious TV science fiction (e.g. Battlestar Galactica) it's fun to occasionally step away from the realistic dialog and densely-plotted storylines and enjoy an hour of good dumb fun.
As I watch Lost In Space today, the word that comes most readily to my mind is "charm". The show was charming — the bright colors, the earnest young actors, the goofy plots, and all. It was pure family entertainment in the best sense: traditional without being hackneyed, warm without being overly corny, thrilling without being frightening, and imaginative without being self-consciously weird (as so many shows of the late '60s were.) Sure, as science fiction it was a joke — I mean, come on, a vegetable rebellion? — but Irwin Allen thankfully saw no need to try and capture the high-brow skiffy audience with the show; he just wanted to entertain kids and make a buck doing it.
Mission accomplished, Mr. Allen.
OH HELLS YEAH
(Note: she and I are of an age, so I don't feel creepy about posting this photo)
Miss Cartwright is still with us, of course. She is a professional photographer and mother of two today. Her website is packed with interesting memorabilia of her career as an actress and model, along with samples of her current pursuits.
When you have already received your initial solicitation letter from the AARP and probably collected your first unsolicited discount at the drug store from a modern-day teenybopper as a reward for looking as if you are on the way down the hill, rather than still walking up it, you are allowed an occasional thought of your long past adolescence.
I’m not in AARP country yet! (Angela Cartwright is some 13 years older than me.) Still, your point is well taken.
I agree that the best part of the show was the interaction between the robot and Dr. Smith. But my main recollection of Lost in Space is waiting week after week for them to finally get off that planet. It seems they blew the budget on the first episode.
Kids. They don't apprciate the classics.
The “mockery of panic” run in circles quote originated in WWII...
Billy Mumy did return to Earth. In the episode called "Return from Outer Space", a Christmas show in which Will Robinson is transferred through an alien teleporter back to a small town on Earth at Christmastime to get some critically needed Carbon tetrachloride. That was a few years before the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve television broadcast from around The Moon, but I remember that episode touched our hearts in much the same way.
Don’t forget Jeri Ryan. Hubba, hubba.
Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright, June Lockhart, and Mark Goddard all had cameo parts in the Lost in Space movie. I still think that Billy Mumy should have played the adult Will Robinson in the movie.
And “Friends” missed a huge laugh line by not having Joey comment that he could have played Don West.
The only reason I didn’t miss an episode is because I was forever hoping the robot would pinch Dr. Smith’s head off........
“Met all but Visitor and Jackson, but I’m trying.”
Those two smart enough to get restraining orders? LOL! ;)
For some reason I remembered the carbon tetrachloride and not the Christmas part. I also remember that they did eventually move the spaceship to another planet right before they got cancelled. IIRC it was a very dark planet where you couldn’t see anything. Both shows were budget minimizers.
I was at work yesterday, remebering this thread, and slapped my forehead for not thinking of 7 of 9. What was I thinking?
Also, Pamela Hensley and most definetly Erin Gray, of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century.
Pamela Hensley
Erin Gray
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