Sleestack & Land of the Lost

Land of the Lost is awesome, but the best characters from the TV show and Movie, by far, are the Sleestack! The tall, lizard-like, hissing creatures from the center of the Earth were not just a bit scary as a kid, but they were exciting every time they came on screen.

Land of the Lost was a TV series that ran from 1974-1976 produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. In the summer of 2009, Will Ferrell stars as Rick Marshall in a movie adaptation directed by Brad Silberling, co-staring Anna Friel as Holly and Danny R. McBride as Will Stanton.

The story is of father Dr. Rick Marshall, his son Will and daughter Holly, who, while rafting, find a portal into another world inhabited by dinosaurs (like "Grumpy" the T-Rex and "Dopey" the Brontosaurus), cavemen (like "Chaka" the Pakuni), and the sleestack (humanoid/lizard creatures). The Marshalls take up residence in a cave while trying to survive and get back home.

On the TV series, after a couple of seasons, Rick gets caught in a time portal leaving his kids behind. However, their Uncle Jack stumbles into the same portal the family found before and joins the kids. The family almost makes it home several times, but alas, they never do.

The Sleestack live underground in The Lost City and are more advanced than the land-dwelling Pakuni as they have made crossbows (though have horrible aim and style) and some have scientific know-how and can speak English. Scared of the light due to their giant bug eyes and living underground, the Sleestack want to sacrifice humans to their smoke pit-dwelling god (or use as a pig substitute for a newly hatched Sleestack breakfast). Interestingly, the Marshalls are not the first humans the Sleestack have met. Other humans have been to the Land of the Lost but never made it home. Sleestack are also the barbaric ancestors to the Altrusian race from the past (Enik is a yellowish colored time-traveling Sleestack-looking Altursian from the past also stuck in the Land of the Lost).

The special effects are campy but that is part of the charm of the show. It is, after all, a mid-70's Sid & Marty Krofft production!