Do I need to re-learn how to speak Pakuni?

Yes, I used to watch the classic Sid and Marty Krofft TV shows from back in the 1970’s. HR Pufnstuf, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, The Bugaloos, Lidsville, all of those. Heck, I even had a 7-year-old boycrush on Joy the Bugaloo. And trust me, when I was able to interview several stars from the Sid and Marty Krofft universe for a toy magazine – including Billie Hayes (Witchiepoo) and Caroline Ellis (i.e., Joy) … yeah. Achievement unlocked.

H.R. Pufnstuf, Witchiepoo, Joy the Bugaloo, and me

So all that being said … news out of Hollywood is that Netflix is working on a reboot of Land of the Lost.

I’m telling you, Land of the Lost will not die.

For those unfamiliar … or for those who still have a hard time figuring out what psychotropic medicine the Kroffts were ingesting when they created their Saturday morning TV shows … Land of the Lost was a children’s sci-fi series where a family goes on a camping expedition, river-rafts down a ravine, and suddenly ends up in an interdimensional portal with no way to escape. They’re trapped in a world of dinosaurs and lizard-warriors and sentient cro-magnon beings. Yeah, it was children’s fare … but it had some serious sci-fi writers and talent working on the series, and even ran for a good solid three seasons (which was two seasons more than most Krofft productions lasted).

Okay, you get a flashback video. Because there’s no way I could describe an episode of Land of the Lost without at least showing you the opening credits.

Oh my God. Green-screen special effects. Miniatures that actually LOOKED miniature. Stop-motion animation. This show stretched every penny of their budget AND THEN SOME.

But the show developed an incredible mythos for a Saturday morning production. The family were caught in the middle of a cultural war between the Pakuni (the primitive, hairy ape-like race) and the Sleestaks (the lizard-people with the bug-eyes). And through all this, the show’s protagonists – the Marshall family, father Rick, and kids Will and Holly – tried to find a way back home. Well, Marshall did find a way back home at the start of Season 3 (because the actor playing Rick Marshall left the series, and an “Uncle Jack” suddenly replaced him).

The show had everything you could want in a Saturday morning live-action TV series. And surprisingly, the show received a reboot in 1991. Complete with a brand new family, a brand new batch of Sleestaks, and a brand new sidekick in the feral girl Christa. Again, plenty of stop-motion animation and plenty of cheezy hand-puppetry … but come on, this is Saturday morning, what are you expecting, a Game of Thrones budget?

Here’s an episode from the 1991 series; this show lasted two seasons and gave us 26 episodes.

So after a reboot, why not let us have a full-length big-budget feature movie? And that’s what happened in 2009. We get Will Ferrell doing his best Will Ferrell imitation, and this time we get a full-budget movie with computer-generated dinosaurs and a really … um … bonkers plotline. The fact that I once paid full price to see this film in a movie theater means I wasted the cost of a full-price ticket.

So … honestly … what could Netflix do with this? I mean … some of the original cast from the 1970’s show is still alive – Will (Wesley Eure) and Holly (Kathy Coleman) and Cha-Ka (Philip Paley), along with the cast of the 1991 reboot. Find a way to tie them all into the same program, add some new characters, dust off those old rubber Sleestak outfits, and you’ve got something.

But then again, I have absolutely no idea what Netflix can do with this show. Do they go full 1970’s-era kitsch? Do they plunge headfirst into the expansive mythos of the original program? Do they turn it into one of those “We’ll set up a mystery in episode one, and if we get six seasons, maybe we’ll explain everything in the final episode, but none of the fans’ theories online will match up to what we’ve created” programs?

Yeah, I don’t know. As I’ve said before, the track record for Krofft reboots is spotty at best. The Banana Splits horror film. The Electra Woman and Dyna Girl reboot that showed Electra Woman as an oversexed boozehound. The failed Bugaloos movie that would have brought the musical group to a music festival – I mean, it had a great title, The Bugaloos at Bonaroo – with things like these, you can see why my hopes for a decent reboot of Land of the Lost are middling at best.

But let’s see what Netflix can create.

You never know. I’ve been fooled before with reboots.

Let’s hope I’m fooled in a good way this time.