Could it possibly be that no one has mentioned the Sleestak from LAND OF THE LOST as a leading cause of childhood night terrors? Surely I must have missed that post.
The way they would creep silently around their labyrinthine cave passages stalking their prey was simply chilling. The Sleestak would slowly emerge from the blackness not unlike Michael Myers in HALLOWEEN to claim their prey. Nocturnal hunters, they prowled the darkened forests in packs; large, reptilian, and totally without mercy. They were known to sacrifice their human victims to their God who dwelt deep within a pit in the bowels of the subterranean city (a creature Holly would confront face to face). And don't get me started on their Library of Skulls. Amazingly, these terrifying denizens of darkness were creatures from a Saturday morning T.V. show for kids!
Fast forward to the present, and most folks remember LAND OF THE LOST as just a silly little children's show from the '70s. They've forgotten the dark underside of LAND OF THE LOST: the sinister Mist Marsh, the mysterious Zarn, and, most of all, the brooding horror of the Sleestak.
AUNT JOHN SEZ: What child of the '70s could really forget about those nasty Sleestaks? Kindertrauma surely hasn't, and Unkle Lancifer personally inducted them into the Official Traumatizer Hall of Fame this past year. Speaking of the '70s, be sure to check out Kinderpal Gilligan's super-cool Retrospace!
I grew up with the completely opposite impression about the Sleestaks. I thought they were awesome. Here I am as a young lad in a Sleestak Halloween costume, in a picture that I used as the background to my Twitter page: http://www.twitter.com/gauch0
I really miss those plastic Halloween costumes.
Thanks to Kindertrauma for the free therapy and letting me get that off my chest.Â
Gauch0 – I'm glad you were so comfortable with the Sleestak. What can I say? I was a jittery and weak child.
I was more afraid of Chalka! Dude was scary!
I love this show!
Sleestacks never really bothered me either. I was more worried about the perils of that baby Brontosaurus, Dopey. {I cried like a baby when he got stuck in the tar pit!} However, now that I see them here they may have indeed had some effect on me. Take a look at this:
Same big eyes and I find it to be disturbing! I guess those Sleestacks did affect me as a child!
I'm with you Amanda. Cha-Ka looks like a combination 0f Chewbacca and Clint Howard. Pretty scary! This show is a cheese classic.
@amanda & Mickster: Respectfully, I must disagree with your anti-Cha-Ka sentiments. He made that show for me when I was in kindergarten, so much so that, at the time, I really felt that B.J. & THE BEAR would have been much better served if Mr. McKay had left the Bear at a truckstop and teamed up with Cha-ka.
Just think about that show for a second….
Seriously, that is how my five-year-old mind worked.
My biggest problem was with Holly. There was something about her Chiclet-sized teeth and blonde hair that reminded me, at the time, of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE bad-ass Nellie Olsen. Except, even then, I knew she wasn't as mean or as interesting as Nellie; she just seemed to mess things up all the time and get Marshall & Will into trouble with the bad Sleestaks and the not-so-nice dinosaurs.
Mickster – for YEARS I thought Cha-ka was Clint Howard. Did you know there were two actors who played Cha-ka and one was a girl! My friend's husband went to art school with her. She musta been UGLY! 🙂
John – you're sick! That's why I love you! 🙂
And just to reiterate, I did get weirded out by the Sleestacks, but Cha-ka Howard is freaky! And thanks for clarifying the spelling of his name guys! I won't soon forget.
And for the record – Will was GORGEOUS!
Amanda, you are right! That must have been one ugly chick! Imagine a female Clint Howard…She would need about 150 hours of beauty sleep.
Aunt John, B.J. & the Cha-ka would have been a better show. I'm not crazy about monkeys, with one exception: Roddy McDowall as Galen on the short-lived Planet of the Apes TV show. I had a Galen t-shirt when I was three-years-old.