Lost In Space Episode - "The Space Primevals"

Well, admittedly, this is minor and perhaps even questionable, but it is thematically in the right vein. We all know the old TV series Lost In Space, a lot of episodes of which you can now get on DVD. Well, if you take a look at Season 3 Volume 1, you will find an episode called "The Space Primevals" (aired in 1966?) which has a bunch of technologically-advanced cavemen living at the base of a volcano on some other planet. They're basically savages but with space-age devices and a supercomputer that tells them what to do. Anyway, all around their encampment they've got these carvings that are basically tikis--they look like they were built quick and dirty (like a lot of stuff on TV) and some of the faces are a little TOO goofy, but these weird carvings appear to be basically tiki-inspired! The episode doesn't revolve around the carvings, which are just "there," but I thought the completists would want to know.....

This is the only(terrible quality)photo I could find out there. Cartoony Tikis.

The set designers had some mad carving skillz :lol:

On 2006-01-06 05:18, Loki wrote:
The set designers had some mad carving skillz :lol:

I'd bet the carver worked for Hanna Barbras' Banana Splits and HR puffin Stuff! Anyone? Anyone?

Sigmond the Sea Monster and the Bugaloos too...

Waitaminnit here, kids. First of all, this is a very good catch, because conceptually, it is as fine an example of midcentury Tiki culture as you can get:

The juxtaposition of the extremes of mid century SPACE AGE and PRIMITIVE ART in one place is what made Tiki so unique to me, as the BOT gushes on page 60:

"...The Jetsons met the Flintstones as middle-class modern primitives parked their shuttle crafts in front of these spaceships from planet Tiki and willingly entered the dimension barrier to another world where for a while they could become members of the Tiki tribe.."

And second, I myself more than anybody appreciates sensitivity about too cartoony Tikis, but in the picture which Unga whipped up so quickly the two sculptures in the back are very close copies of Vanuatu/New Hebrides SLIT DRUMS. The surviving examples of these bear traces of paint, so it is assumed that they were colorful at some time (maybe not THAT colorful). I think we had a post about slit drums somewhere here in "Creating Tiki" a while back..?

What would now be really cool would be finding images where the carvings and Robbie the Robot or people in space suits are in one frame together!

So I say congrats to that find!

"land of the lost" vibe...

I recently watched that episode since I am slowly going through the entire 3 seasons. Yes, I am a "Lost in Space" nut! I can't help it. This was the shit I grew up on. I absolutely LOVE that episode. Bigbro is right in every respect. Another cool picture that I found was on a cover of Amazing Stories (I think), which has a bunch of Moai in space suits!! I have this but am unable to post it a the moment. It actually looks like VERY early Shag art. Anyway, I think we need a Forbidden Planet 2 Revenge of the Moai film. Do you think we could talk Peter Jackson into it?

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

Not that different from the Slit Drums in front of the Samoan Seas apartments in San Pedro:

Or the ones at Disney World in Florida:

They look cartoony - but they're probably more authentic than we think. Wonder where the set designer for "Lost In Space" got some New Hebrides slit drums?

On a slightly related note, when my mom waitressed at the coffee shop in the Art-Deco May Co. department store on Wilshire, back in the 1960s, the cast of "Lost In Space" were her regular customers. They would take a break from shooting the show and have lunch together, (all of them but the robot). I think she still has a signed cast photo they gave her.

Sabu

I was Lost In Babe

WOW! Thanks for the pictures Sabu. That first one REALLY looks like the one in the Lost in Space episode. Unga Bunga thanks for that cool link. Marta Kristen was soooo hot! That entire site is incredibly packed with tons of Irwin Allen collectibles and pictures. Very cool!

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

On 2006-01-06 05:18, Loki wrote:
The set designers had some mad carving skillz :lol:

We have to give, uh, props to their mad carving skillz. Their mad, uh.....prop-carving skills.

Irwin Allen was notoriously cheap and used Lost in Space costumes and props in his other productions (i.e. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea). I wouldn't be surprised to see those slit drums, or just the tops of them, turn up somewhere else. For that matter, they may have been scavenged from some other production. A glance down his list of credits might render a suspect: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000740/

Bob May (the guy in the LIS robot suit) was one of the guests at a sci-fi convention I shot last year for it's promoters: http://www.starbase21ok.com/trek__expo__2005.htm

Some of the perks were signatures and the freedom to create photo ops for my own blog, http://thelope.blogspot.com/2005_07_05_thelope_archive.html

I subsequently had pic requests from a guy who works conventions with May; I'll ask if he knows anything about the set design for that episode...slim chance, since an actor would not really have been involved, but they seemed to be a tight group so I'll ask anyway.

I thought it'd be cool to shoot the robot replica with Tricia Helfer (a cylon in the current Battlestar Galactica) partially because its a robot group shot but mostly because it was fun to pose her in front of pretty much anything.

By the way, the guy that designed the LIS robot, Robert Kinoshita, also designed Robby for Forbidden Planet. Here's more info on that, which also mentions set design: http://www.b9robotbuildersclub.com/pub/home/kinoshita.html I'd love to have the pleasure of meeting and photographing him someday.

http://www.thelope.blogspot.com

Hey wow, I thought I was posting something minor and possibly questionable, but maybe it was more legit than I thought!

What's neat is that the writer of that episode probably wasn't consciously trying to exemplify tiki culture in teh script, but appears to have exemplified it anyway...

Hey, here's the other Robby from Forbidden Planet. This was taken at a cast reunion and screening of the film in downtown's Los Angeles theater (a 1931 movie palace). They had most of the major stars including Richard Anderson (3rd from left) and Anne Francis (2nd from right) there along with one of the soundtrack composers, Bebe Barron (first on left). (Leslie Nielson was busy on a project.) George Takai, who is sitting on the far right, (Mr. Sulu from Star Trek) interviewed the cast.

And who might that pink-haired space girl be escorting Mr. Takai on stage?

And now back to more discussion of space age tikis....

Vintagegirl, your exploits are enviable!
Someone really needs to take a pic of Robby holding a tiki mug with a long straw leading to the area into which he dumped the liquor in Forbidden Planet for analysis (remember, it can manufacture booze)...might be easier for the LIS robot to hold a mug, and repros of it do show up at sci-fi cons...does anyone recall if it has a "mouth?"

http://www.thelope.blogspot.com

[ Edited by: tikijackalope 2006-01-09 05:44 ]

WOW!! Vintagegirl, that picture of you and Mr. Sulu rocks!! Congratulations!! Did you happen to get a picture of you with Robbie? If so I would please like an 8" x 10". Thanks for posting these.

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

Jeff, in viewing that episode, did you ever see the slit drums and anyone of the space crew together in one frame?

I can't remember. I will watch this episode again tonight and report back to headquarters tomorrow. My cousin is the King of Pluto.

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

OK, just got done watching The Space Primevals again and yes, there are a few decent shots of John Robinson near one of the slit drum tikis. There are a few others as well but the BEST frame I found is one where the Robot is next to one of the tikis and he is made up to look like one of the natives, complete with war paint and feathers. Totally hilarious. I definetly saw more of the cartoony tikis on my second viewing. Too bad that there was none of the female Robinson's included in this episode. The only time you see them is when they are calling from the ship. That would have really topped it off. Anyway, this is one of the better episodes of ANY television show with a high factor of primitive meets high tech outer space campiness. Such a joy to watch. Hope this helps.

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

On 2006-01-09 07:52, Jeff Central wrote:
WOW!! Vintagegirl, that picture of you and Mr. Sulu rocks!! Congratulations!! Did you happen to get a picture of you with Robbie? If so I would please like an 8" x 10". Thanks for posting these.

Sorry Jeff, by the time I got backstage again after the film, they had already taken Robby apart and were packing him away. I would have loved such having such a photo too. :( I think I also have a photo with Richard Anderson though. (I used to watch him on The Six Million Dollar Man as a kid as Oscar.) George Takai has become a fan of the classic film series known as the Last Remaining Seats here in Los Angeles which Forbidden Planet was a part of, so he seems to show up to something nearly every year now.

On 2006-01-09 20:06, Jeff Central wrote:
OK, just got done watching The Space Primevals again and yes, there are a few decent shots of John Robinson near one of the slit drum tikis. There are a few others as well but the BEST frame I found is one where the Robot is next to one of the tikis and he is made up to look like one of the natives, complete with war paint and feathers. Hope this helps.

That's goood...verry gooood!
Now, are there any media tech geeks out there that know the best quality way to get a still print from a DVD?

Somehow, just knowing there really is at least one woman out there with pink hair and a silver mini-skirt helps make up for that personal helicopter I was supposed to have by 1970.

On 2006-01-09 23:08, bigbrotiki wrote:
Now, are there any media tech geeks out there that know the best quality way to get a still print from a DVD?

alot of pc DVD players have a screen capture function, like a button or a CTRL+ command. i've done that and you get a fairly decent resolution image. you can adjust the screencapture in photoshop as desired.