KATHY COLEMAN RETURNS TO LAND OF THE LOST

Kathy & a Stak

KATHY COLEMAN played Holly Marshall in the classic Saturday Morning television show LAND OF THE LOST, a wonderfully bizarre journey into an other dimensional world of dinosaurs, hissing lizard men, and anything else you could image in a classic brought to vivid life with special effects that, although dated today, add to the everlasting cult status... 

Kathy Coleman as Holly

Was it scary working with every child’s worst nightmare: the SLEESTAKS?

No, no, no, no, they were all basketball players… My buddies… I loved ‘em. What you saw was on video; what I saw was these really handsome guys with their wetsuits pulled down to their waists ‘cause they were sweating under the lights and their smiling faces, so there was no fear there whatsoever. They were famous basketball players that, back in the day, thirty some odd years ago, were under million dollar contracts for their basketball careers… Bill Lambeer was one of them.

Chaka

What was a memorable scene with Philip Paley, who played CHAKA?

There was a scene that we did together. It was an episode with, oh my goodness… The woman with the snake’s in her hair… Medusa. That was the name of the episode and there was one scene where she had me trapped in her garden and with her evil ivy branches that closed the gates or what-have-you. Well Phil was trying to find me, as Chaka of course, and he kept coming up behind me and I was supposed to say “Chaka, are you there, Chaka?” And he goes, “Behind you.” It took about thirty five takes for us to get that shot done because Phil and I had been… talk about the giddies… We’d known each other since we were like... Way prior to Land of the Lost…

Kathy Colman

What weren’t some of the more challenging things to do on the show?

If it had a lot to do with chromache… those weren’t that much fun because you’re just working on blue screen. Whoever the director is… They had multiple directors… They’d say “Everybody look up there!” And if you look at any of the stills of us… It’s like, I don’t know if they said, “Look up there at that light”, or, “Look up there at that ladder”, you never know. So looking at our eyes in the still photos, we all seem to be looking at something completely different but… It’s a children’s show on Saturday Mornings, and we weren’t experts.

The Original Trio

But you guys were all fantastic…

Yeah, you know, I think, it’s now going on about thirty-eight years. And for what we had, a kid’s show, I’m really proud to say I was a part of that... It was really a cute little thing that we did… And very intellectual as well. You know, try to keep up with Enik and his terminology. And it’s almost more situated for adults than children, in a weird way.