Sleestak!

When I was a kid, they used to scare the daylights out of me. The 70's were a wierd time, i guess, and I think all the kid shows were trying to be cool by showing really wacked out stuff. It's probably the same thing today when they have rap cartoons or something. Anyway, probably the most freaked of all was the production team of Sid and Marty Kroft, who brought us kids weird stuff like "Dr. Shrinker," "H.R. Puffenstuff," and that show about that really shiney dune buggy that could talk or something. It's kind of hard for me to remember, but I think there was also this rock band knock off of Kiss with make up and all that. There were other weird shows, too, like "Shazam!" and the one where those people with the jetpack drove that big truck thing around the wastelands.

Anyway, I used to watch that stuff. I guess I was about five or six when land of the lost came on. Those dinasaurs really grabbed my attention, and I loved it. But man, those sleestack were spooky. They lived in this lost city place, and would only come out at night. The lost city was all weird and like a bunch of caves, full of pits and traps and ropes and nets and stuff. Those sleestack would stay in there during the day, and come out at night. Now that's all weird enough in itself, but it was a whole lot worse than that. There were all these rock cone like things that they could get into and make bizarre things happen. Inside them were these rock tables, with all these glowing rocks on them. Now this is hard to explain, but the sleestack, especially that old one that talked and was the King of all things spooky, would get those glowing rocks and move them around on that table, and that would mess with all sorts of stuff causing science fiction sounds and lightning and wind and lights a flashing and all that sort of stuff. Or bang them together and they would explode. Now I know that sounds pretty dang silly, but in 1974 it drove me absolutely nuts. I guess people today are pretty jaded and cynical, and it's hard to see how some hippy guys dressed up in bad rubber suits with big feet could scare anybody. I mean they were always real slow, never really caught anybody that was running, and those crossbow bolts always just flopped down on the ground looking pretty stupid. But I have to tell you, sleestack were what I was scared of in the dark at night. I guess it was those nets, or that hissing sound they made. The really weird thing is, any time the subject gets brought up around people about my age (say 22-30) most everyone says "oh yeah, man those things used to scare the hell out of me." One time I was out camping and it was dark, and the fire was dieing down, and someone was staring at those glowing red embers that were left there and said "wow, that looks like those glowing rocks those sleestacks used to have" and everyone said "oh, man, that's it" and everyone was weirded out for a while. Some people say that those flying monkees from the Wizard of Oz were worse, but I ain't buying it.

meecedw@mail.auburn.edu Send me mail if You'd like!.

Also, a lot of people have been asking me if video tapes of the original series are available...apparently they are, keep looking around and you will find them (I don't have any except a couple I taped off of sci-fi channel).

• Here's the Land of the Lostpage (where I stole these pictures from)
• here's the Sid and Marty Krofft page.
• The Beware Sleestak Homepage
• KukuAchoo's 70s Library!

This Krofft Superstars site is owned by D.R.. Want to join the Krofft Superstars?
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