The Intergalactic Department Store Part 3: The Milton Bradley Game

I remember encountering the Milton Bradley board game based on Lost In Space for the first time. It was on our yearly family vacation up north. We were taking a break in a shopping center in Pennsylvania. I didn’t know the game existed, so it was a pleasant surprise. The money I had saved for a souvenir was quickly allotted to its purchase. One thing that irked me was that the Robot wasn’t represented anywhere on the box or inside the game. And where was Doctor Smith? Looking back I would guess that the project was initiated before the final changes to the show had solidified. Licensed companies may have only had the pilot film to go by. The Aurora model kit that followed shortly also lacked Smith and the Robot (added to the larger version of the kit as a decal on the back of the Chariot), who were added just before the show went into production.

The MB itself is just your typical board game, not distinguishable from any of the other games they produced and applied the identity of other shows or characters onto. The value of the piece is the colorful, stunning art on the box and board.

Even more elaborate was the 3D Remco game, which had generic space figures and a dimensional playing surface you built from die-cut lithographed cardboard. I never had that game as a child, so while I find it a nice collectible, it could never have the connection to fond memories that the MB game does.

Galactic Gallery Part 3: Will Robinson and Dr. Zachary Smith

The Intergalactic Department Store Part 2: The Remco Robot

The Remco Lost In Space Robot is indeed special. Not only was it a great toy in its own right, but it guest-starred on several episodes of the show itself. Most Remco TV tie-in products were generic items that bore little resemblance to anything on the show itself. With the Robot the toy company made an effort to replicate the famous cybernetic companion from the series. This little guy was motorized and had a flashing light in his chest. He was proportioned close to the scale of a contemporary G.I. Joe. For us kids lucky enough to have one, he was indeed a treasure.

Imagine the thrill of watching the show with your little robot and catching an episode like The Mechanical Men. In this adventure an army of tiny robots invade the planet the Robinsons are inhabiting. But, yes, they were merely painted samples of the Remco toy! The little plastic plaything put in a couple more cameos in later episodes. In The Space Primevals an alien computer shrinks the Robinson’s robot, an effect accomplished using the Remco toy. And in the Great Vegetable Rebellion a birthday cake for the robot uses a frosting-covered Remco toy as a cake topper!

Galactic Gallery Part 2: War Of The Robots

A Fan For All Seasons?

Ask any Lost In Space fan to name his favorite season of the TV series and chances are that he will answer “the first year… the black and white ones… especially the first few when Dr. Smith was still evil”. Well, that first year of Lost In Space was very special. There’s an atmosphere present that never reappeared, and there was a more dramatic substance to the proceedings. You can count me in when it comes to regarding the first season of the series as the best.

Ask any fan his second favorite season and he will most probably answer “the third season… the show had a new format and got good again”. Yes, a new title sequence and theme tune (a really great one actually) and the introduction of the space pod did indeed liven things up. And there are some great episodes in that third year. Everyone I’ve encountered has a well-deserved affection for “Visit To A Hostile Planet”, wherein the crew of the Jupiter 2 travel back in time to Earth circa 1947. And it was nice to see the spaceship out in space so often, instead of planet-bound.

So, it’s easy to regard the show’s second season as its least promising. The general opinion was that the success of Batman led to a campy, silly approach to mimic that show’s high profile. There may be some truth to this. Lost In Space did become sillier. It wasn’t the only show that seemed to fall prey to this phenomenon. Whether it was the effect of Batman, or a dose of the tongue-in-cheek attitude that was prevalent, I recall The Man From U.N.C.L.E. becoming very silly indeed (it was another show whose monochrome first season is highest regarded). By the time The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. premiered the two shows were more spoof than spy. Batmania was a symptom of a general mood of winking, deadpan parody. It was best when it came off as clever and knowing, but often it dawdled on towards the absurdly miscalculated. Get Smart worked, Captain Nice did not. It’s the difference between a James Bond film and a Matt Helm one.

But after all these years I have to say I noticed the ratio of gems to clunkers is about the same between the second and third seasons of Lost In Space. Add to that my amusement in chatting with fans my age in the UK, where the show was broadcast in black and white during its entire initial run (color broadcasts began in the early 70s). They didn’t notice a great deal of difference between the first two seasons.

Consider the number of top-notch episodes that ran during the show’s “worst season”:

Blast Off Into Space, Wild Adventure, The Prisoners Of Space, The Deadly Games of Gamma Six, Wreck Of The Robot, The Dream Monster, Trip Through The Robot, The Phantom Family, The Mechanical Men, The Astral Traveler, The Galaxy Gift. All of these compare rather well with the bulk of the first season.

Of course, the very worst episodes are easy to spot amongst the second season, the ones which were either (very) silly in concept or suffered from a poor execution (I’m sure if you read the scripts of The Questing Beast or The Golden Man you’d be surprised how they didn’t translate into quality episodes). Most of the clunkers embrace humor and a broad approach beyond what the show could genuinely sustain. But think of the poor episodes the third season churned up: Collision Of The Planets, A Day At The Zoo, Castles In Space, Princess Of Space, Fugitives In Space, The Flaming Planet, and the (rightfully) dreaded Great Vegetable Rebellion.

My point? Simply that the second season shouldn’t be viewed as remarkably unworthy. Yes, there were some less-than-wonderful episodes, but there were some very, very good ones as well.

Galactic Gallery Part 1: John and Maureen Robinson

The Intergalactic Department Store Part 1: The Switch-N-Go Playset

This was , by far, my favorite toy as a child. Playsets were a big institution in the 1960s. Marx produced many. But Mattel was the premier American toy company, producing playthings that were imaginative and classy. The Switch-n-Go Lost In Space playset was no exception. The core of the package was a motorized Chariot that ran on flexible tubular track with pads that attached that triggered action features. A chrome-plated Robot could be attached to run along behind the Chariot. There were stand-up cardboard targets to shoot missiles at, and a colorful alien planetscape that could be stood up for the Chariot to pass through. There were detailed three-inch high plastic figures of the Robinson party that bore perfect likenesses of their TV counterparts. Professor John Robinson could be placed in his jetpack to “fly” above the Chariot. There was a Jupiter 2 as well, although for some reason it was molded in styrofoam. Except for the figures, the accuracy of the pieces was pretty meager. But it enabled kids like me to relive the TV adventures or create new ones. It was a very fun thing to have. One could more easily forgive the inaccuracies back then, as toys rarely set a high standard back then for capturing the right details (ever seen the Remco Star Trek toys?). What this set did was at least recreate in miniature the spirit of the show.

These days the Switch-N-Go playset is a rare treasure that usually commands a tidy sum. I still have the figures and Chariot, but my poor Jupiter 2 was tossed out during a move by my teen-age sister’s lunk-head boyfriend, who mistook it for packing material (hey, it was made out of white Styrofoam for crying out loud, so one can hardly blame him).

Do any other fans recall having this set as a kid?