Sleestaks are the new hotness
May 8, 2007 6:48 PM   Subscribe

Sleestaks are the new hotness. Sleestaks are large green humanoids with both reptilian and insectoid features; they have scaly skin with frills around the neck, bulbous unblinking eyes, pincer-like hands, stubby tails, and a single blunt horn on top of the head. There were only three Sleestak costumes available for Land of the Lost, which sometimes required creative editing to create the illusion that they were that numerous. Sleestaks have inspired psychedelic stoner/doom rockers, artwork, artwork and more artwork.
posted by grateful (55 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
And it was the inspriation for a song She's A Sleestak by the somewhat awesome Nerf Herder way back in 2000.
posted by inigo2 at 6:59 PM on May 8, 2007


And inspired political photomanipulators.
posted by BrotherCaine at 7:00 PM on May 8, 2007


Bill Laimbeer was a Sleestak? I never knew that. That's pretty cool.
posted by eyeballkid at 7:01 PM on May 8, 2007 [1 favorite]


It's also the name of the bar-league softball team from my hometown.
posted by exlotuseater at 7:13 PM on May 8, 2007


ps I LOVED Land of the Lost when I was a kid.
posted by exlotuseater at 7:13 PM on May 8, 2007


...sometimes required creative editing...

Fortunately not a skill in short supply on the set of Land of the Lost.

That show was on on Sunday morning in my area. I used to wish I could get lost in a land of dangerous dinosaurs to save me from having to go to church.
posted by DU at 7:14 PM on May 8, 2007


Sleestaks are also featured in some of the better webcomics.
posted by wendell at 7:16 PM on May 8, 2007


wasn't enoch (the talking sleestak) kind of a dick?
posted by cazoo at 7:19 PM on May 8, 2007


Marshall, Will and Holly
On a routine expedition . . .


I'm another child of the seventies who loved that series very much at the time even though I can barely remember it now.

Ten years ago, a coworker of mine, a handsome Puerto Rican homosexual, claimed that he had fucked one of the cast members of "Land of the Lost" at a sex club.

I don't remember if he mentioned any Sleestak costumes being involved.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:19 PM on May 8, 2007


Sleestaks! (shudder) Scared the living crap out of me when I was a kid. My siblings, both older, delighted in making that hissing noise when I wasn't expecting it.

Then again, I also found jawas extremely creepy. The glowing eyes freaked me right out.
posted by tomboko at 7:24 PM on May 8, 2007 [1 favorite]


All I can say-- as a kid I loved -- each week -- watching that cheesy raft slide down those "rapids."
posted by RubberHen at 7:35 PM on May 8, 2007


In order to judge the Sleestaks, I think we have to figure out if they could win a fight against either the Troglodytes or Lizardmen from D&D. I can't begin to respect fictional monsters until I can rate them against other fantasy creatures.

Fortunately, I am not as big a nerd as these Land of the Lost fanatics.
posted by Midnight Creeper at 7:36 PM on May 8, 2007


It's Sid & Marty Krofft week! Woo hoo! Everybody siiiiiiinnnnggggg!
posted by miss lynnster at 7:38 PM on May 8, 2007 [1 favorite]


Well, j's_p, Bruce the Sleestak in the Goats comic is gay.
As Seinfeld would say, "not that there's anything wrong with that."
posted by wendell at 7:41 PM on May 8, 2007


Okay, I really wanted to prove it wasn't the same William Laimbeer, but apparently it was. Dang, that's pretty cool.
posted by yhbc at 7:49 PM on May 8, 2007


Don't forget Chaka...Khan.
posted by butternut at 8:11 PM on May 8, 2007


I loved this show. Somehow that incredibly detailed and serious discussion on the Land of the Lost creatures and characters on Wikipedia is simultaneously both best of the web and downright worrying.
posted by maxwelton at 8:43 PM on May 8, 2007


Please stop using the word "gay" as a pejorative. Now. That "rectal prolapse" unfunny comment makes you a hopeless homophobe moron.
posted by longsleeves at 8:51 PM on May 8, 2007


Here it comes. LOLSLEESTAKZ!
posted by miss lynnster at 9:04 PM on May 8, 2007


It was the crystals that fascinated me. Shiny.
posted by rifflesby at 9:05 PM on May 8, 2007


A new kid showed up one school year, and everybody started calling him Sleestak. He looked about thirty at age fifteen, a slow-talking hood from some part of Chicago. In class the other kids would make that "Chhwweeoo" Sleestak noise. He did look remarkably like one, with a reclining, corrugated forehead.
posted by atchafalaya at 10:19 PM on May 8, 2007


longsleeves - ... rectal prolapse...

How about priapism* on quetiapine and recreational amphetamine?

*
posted by porpoise at 10:19 PM on May 8, 2007


Crystals, pylons, yessssssss.
posted by darkstar at 10:39 PM on May 8, 2007


Run away, run away.... or just walk slowly away. They won't catch you.
posted by three blind mice at 10:52 PM on May 8, 2007


It's Sid & Marty Krofft week! Woo hoo! Everybody siiiiiiinnnnggggg!

I was just thinking "SOMEONE couldn't leave the S&M Krofft thread alone with googling." ;)
posted by smallerdemon at 11:21 PM on May 8, 2007


I was watching a marathon of "Land of the Lost" last week and on the back wall of the cave with the magic-table-of-crystals-thingie I saw cortex taped to hundreds of hand-drawn turkeys.
posted by Dizzy at 11:40 PM on May 8, 2007


Man oh man, the sleestaks used to scare the crap out of me too. I'd run up and turn the TV off when the hissing started. Too creepy!

Watching Lost the other day where yet another random person is summoned to the island, I realized that Lost is nothing more than a takeoff of Land of the Lost. Creepy tropical environment? Check. Strange rules about who can come and go? Check. Freaky monsters? Check. Ensemble cast of varying quality? Check. Expect to see a crystal table show up on The Island soon.
posted by Nelson at 1:25 AM on May 9, 2007


Sounds like a BEM to me.
posted by furtive at 4:40 AM on May 9, 2007


What was that Sleestak god, anyway?
posted by malaprohibita at 6:56 AM on May 9, 2007


I don't think he has a name, malaprohibita. At least, it's not in the remarkably thorough Wikipedia article. Maybe his name is too terrible to speak, a Secret Man was Not Meant to Know.
posted by Nelson at 7:27 AM on May 9, 2007


I still think Clint Howard looks more like Chaka than the actor who actually wore the suit!

And the crystals...I'm sure they're to blame for my continued obsession with glow bracelets and el-wire, and also for the weeks of tears shed back when my mother gave my LiteBrite™ to Goodwill.
posted by squasha at 9:05 AM on May 9, 2007


This is for you, squasha.
Lite Brite, makin' things with liiiiiiiiight!
posted by miss lynnster at 9:14 AM on May 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


bahahahaha!!!

miss lynnster, wouldja believe I was at that url, making a sunny "good morning" message to leave for the spouse while you were posting it here???

"Like mind hive", indeed.

posted by squasha at 9:20 AM on May 9, 2007


I remember vividly (as a kid) the moment I saw Will and Holly's dad look through binoculars and see, way off in the distance, the back of his own head. It was the first time I'd ever encountered that particular SF cliche.

Something changed in my brain at that moment.

Also, Sleestaks are teh scary creepiness.
posted by straight at 10:19 AM on May 9, 2007


For kids LOTL was a pretty rich and complicated story. The acting and effects were awful but in there was some pretty cool and complicated stuff in there.

Sleestaks only moved slow when it was cold. It seemed to always be cold. Also. They were sensitive to bright lights? Which was weird because if they were reptiles, and cold blooded, how cold they be nocturnal? This thought plagued me as a kid.

wasn't enoch (the talking sleestak) kind of a dick?

You shut your pie hole you! If you were the last sentient individual of your species you might be a "big picture" type guy. He was worried about the time stream not the fact that Holly missed eating candy or Will missed his Mustang convertible.
posted by tkchrist at 10:44 AM on May 9, 2007 [2 favorites]


The acting and effects were awful but in there was some pretty cool and complicated stuff in there.

Pick an "in there" to mentally delete.
posted by tkchrist at 10:47 AM on May 9, 2007


Watching Lost the other day where yet another random person is summoned to the island, I realized that Lost is nothing more than a takeoff of Land of the Lost. Creepy tropical environment? Check. Strange rules about who can come and go? Check. Freaky monsters? Check. Ensemble cast of varying quality? Check. Expect to see a crystal table show up on The Island soon.

Strangely, both remarkably derivative of Gilligan's Island...
posted by darkstar at 11:00 AM on May 9, 2007


Except Gilligan's Island was more anthology. The story lines suffered from amnesia from one episode to the next. Like Star Trek.

TLOL took some trouble to connect things. Even when they created absurd paradox they tried to deal with it. I got to say, as goofy as TLOL was, that is crediting the audience with more brains than Gilligan's Island or ST-TOS.
posted by tkchrist at 11:26 AM on May 9, 2007


I would give ANYTHING to see Mrs. Howell take down that black smoke monster.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:31 AM on May 9, 2007


I would give ANYTHING to see Mrs. Howell take down that black smoke monster.

PERVERT!!
posted by tkchrist at 11:48 AM on May 9, 2007


He asked for it, though.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:49 AM on May 9, 2007


I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the fact that The Sleestaks were played by very tall African-American young men. This is important to the symbolic relationship of this strangly incomplete American Nuclear family (mother missing and never mentioned)

The family moves to this strange "jungle" (obviously the gentrification of the inner cities) they find themselves surrounded by strange hostile native that they don't understand and who don't understand them. They have one "good tame monkey" who helps them.

the whole show is a fairly transparent metaphor for the confustion of white american upon being confronted with the begining of black culture finally breaking out and making it's way accross the nation.
posted by Megafly at 12:10 PM on May 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


Can I have a hit of that?
posted by Dizzy at 12:20 PM on May 9, 2007 [2 favorites]


"You maniac Sleestaks! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"  /scene
posted by miss lynnster at 1:02 PM on May 9, 2007


obviously . . . fairly transparent

I think it is a so-obvious-as-to-be-retarded metaphor for the producers providing roles and jobs to African-American performers.

Obvious to me, at least.
posted by jason's_planet at 1:26 PM on May 9, 2007


Aaaand few people realize that Gilligan's Island was actually Communist propaganda.

It's really obvious when you think about it.

*puff*
posted by darkstar at 8:19 PM on May 9, 2007


The guy plays most games indoors.
Duh.
posted by Dizzy at 8:33 PM on May 9, 2007


I have an image of a clawed, two-fingered fist, raised in reptilian solidarity. At least they could identify, specifically, the man that was keeping them down.

Seriously, Megafly, that was one of the weirdest posts I've seen in awhile. I mean, I'm fond of conspiracies and all, but, damn.
posted by FormlessOne at 12:59 PM on May 10, 2007


pardon me if it's been mentioned. no time to preview. but wasn't there a "remake/update" in the late '90's early '00's of land of the lost?
posted by andywolf at 12:05 AM on May 11, 2007


scratch that. just saw the intro on youtube. man, if the music for the original isn't the best t.v. show music ever i don't know what is.
posted by andywolf at 12:14 AM on May 11, 2007


Well, Will Ferrell is working on an upcoming movie for it now. In all seriousness.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:03 AM on May 11, 2007


sweet, merciful...


ugh
posted by darkstar at 10:40 AM on May 11, 2007


land of the lost
posted by vronsky at 9:24 PM on May 17, 2007


WOW, vronsky. Just. WOW.

"Will" is as awful of an actor today as he was back then. He has that Kirk Cameron big-eyed earnest enthusiasm that I find so icky. Oh, and he REALLY needs to take the word "awesome" out of his vocabulary. It's just not right.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:04 AM on May 18, 2007


Ain't it the truth misslynnster. But I will defend him using the word "awesome". As a child of the eighties, it is our right.. no, our sacred duty, to keep that word alive in all its... awesomeness!
posted by vronsky at 2:18 PM on May 18, 2007


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