The main lesson for us in the sleestak story is that the peaceful intelligent sleestak wasn't an evolved sleestak descendant from the future, as Marshall, Will, and Holly assumed...

He was -- gasp! -- from further back in the past. He actually was the ancient ancestor of the savage primitive Sleestaks who were so scary!

And it all had something to do with the origin of the crystal console.

Sleestaks were nocturnal. They lived in the dark in caves in the Lost City. They were like giant lizard zombies. Compared to the dinosaurs, they were pretty darn advanced, even if they were chronically bad shots with their tiny crossbows. They were the enemy in all 43 episodes of The Land of the Lost, and to watch them chasing the heroes was like being stuck in a nightmare:

Sleestaks moved very

VERY

V-E-R-Y

S---L---O---W---L---Y

And yet Marshall, Will and Holly ran from them at top speed, and we, at home on the floor in front of the TV on Saturday morning, were curled up into little balls in fear that the Sleestaks would GET THEM.

OR US.

It's all about building suspense. There was no violence, there was no gore, and yet the tension held us as well as Hitchcock movies held our parents.


Then again, it was the '70's. We were little kids.


Go to www.yesterdayland.com. It's a great site.

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