Bottom of the Irwin Allen barrel. Silly nonsense. What was a distinguished actor like Kurt Kaznar doing there? In Bart Andrews 1980 book "Worst TV Shows Ever", "Giants" is named. Kaznar did the pilot as a lark, never expecting it to sell. When it went to series, I guess he was stuck.

I enjoyed it, even if it was over the top at times. The one thing that infuriated me about it was that practically any time there was a hint of danger, the women were sent out of the way. Accidents and sheer incompetence often got the women in trouble anyway, but the men always tried very hard to keep them away from it.

Dr Who - Land Of The Giants Similarities.
The Dr Who story Planet Of The Giants is very similar.

Did the Production team have something about boxers? as they cast Sugar Ray Robinson as Biff in Giants & All That Jazz, & Jerry Quarry as Bron in A Place Called Earth.

I see that Sci-Fi channel has currently picked up rerunning this show in the mornings after the Voyage re-runs.

I saw the pilot episode on SCI-FI...not too bad.
Even though I found myself asking the same question over & over...why are these people running away from huge projected images?
(Sorry, it was too obvious)

This is actually a pretty fun show once you swallow the goofy and absurd premise. The guy who plays that inspector Kolbik is really good. The one real flaw is they never really explain why the giants hate the "little people" so much.

••••• envy.

The giants kept bleating about the "superior technology" of the little people as though it were magic. Some of the giants had pretty advanced technology themselves. They kept thinking that the little people were there to take over the world, completely ignoring the illogic of invading a world where even an infant could accidently squish you out of existance.

In one episode I saw a few days ago on Sci-Fi network one of the main characters get hit in the side of the head with a rock almost comparable to the size of a football, going fast. there's no way in hell he would have survived this ...

Probably an ancestor of that Enterprise security guard in "The Return of the Archons"

Anyone wishing to buy episodes of this series (2 episodes per tape) can do at;

www.goodguysvideo.com

I started watching my homemade tapes of this again, just for fun. Watched "Ghost Town" last night, where a giant has spent most of his life creating a miniature Earth town after having found the remains of an Earth ship that had crashed years before. Cute episode. However...

How is it that Barry, who was running so fast that he only touched the force field briefly, remained unconcious until the next day, while Fitzhugh, and later Fitz and Steve, were hit for a prolonged period and were only shaken up for a few minutes?

How could that elderly giant possibly have found and retrieved Barry and not noticed the dead man lying just a foot or so away? I know that he has a one-track mind, but come on!

And again, when he is telling the group about the force field, used to keep small animals away from his town, he says that it can be dangerous. Why didn't anyone mention the dead man? That might have actually shaken his mind off its one track.

Making that stew must have been a royal pain, what with cutting meat and vegetables into miniscule chunks.

In keeping with his one-track mind, Gramps is far more concerned with damage to his town than with the fact that his "innocent" granddaughter tried to burn a living man to death.

I had always had the impression that Granddaughter had a tarantula or something in that jar, but looking at it again, it just seems to be some hairy black lump. So what was it supposed to be?

Wouldn't you think that someone could have come up with a name for Granddaughter? He really sounded silly addressing her that way.

anyone has land of giants wild journey, the lost ones and the j. harris episode?
on tape, dvd or beta?

Bob dowdell was in one episode to

The episode "The Creed" dealt with Barry getting acute appendicitis.

I don't know if the man who played the janitor was also the voice of Fred Flintstone, but it sure sounded a lot like him.

At the hospital, Steve and Mark opened up a bottle to see what the chemical inside was. It turned out to be ammonia. (Not sure why that would be needed in surgery; anyone know?) Hearing people coming, they hid in the box of surgical throw aways, leaving the bottle open. Dr. Bulles complained to the janitor that the smell of the ammonia was permeating the hospital. If it was that strong, Steve and Mark should have been strangling in that box.

A very nice reaction shot occurred when Dr. Bulles presented them with the tiny medical kit that had been retrieved from an earlier shipwreck.
Steve was absolutely delighted to have proper instruments for the surgical procedure...until he remembered that he was the one who would have to do it.

Dr. Bulles was supposed to be overseeing the operation, but Steve and Betty stood with their backs to him, obscuring his view of Barry.

Interesting that both worlds apparently produced an Hippocrates.

I don't know if the man who played the janitor was also the voice of Fred Flintstone, but it sure sounded a lot like him. - D.K. Henderson

If you're refering to the late Henry Cordon, D.K., it was indeed Fred Flintstone. (Scroll down to the "Notable TV Guest Appearance" list. It's the 23^rd one listed.) Good catch!

I've rented the full series set this week, and thanks to the extras with interviews I learned a few things;
The ship was named 'Spindrift' thanks to Kurt Kaszner! Early in the series the cast agreed to Kurt's suggestion that the ship should have a name, and after some suggestions he came up with the name. They kept using it until the writers finally put it in a script.
Deanna Lund is actually a natural blonde, but when she went in for the part of Valerie she still had the red dye job she'd used in the Frank Sinatra movie, 'Tony Rome'. Irwin Allen liked her as a redhead so much he ordered her to keep it.
Don Matheson would notice that Heather Young, who played Betty, would sometimes not have a line in a group scene, so he would give her some of his generic lines to speak. And nobody noticed! Because...
Director Sobey Martin was frequently falling asleep in the director's chair! And yet, he'd call out, 'Cut! Print it!' and it would actually be a decent scene.
There were two Chippers. One was very good with direction, the other kept looking for the little weiner an actor would have on them to make the dog do the shot as required. And apparantly it frequently sniffed everyone except the person with the weiner!
The original pilot had music lifted from 'Lost In Space'. The original theme music was terrible-- unhummable to say the least, so the first season theme was a vast improvement, in my opinion. One cool part in the unairred pilot, though, was when Fitzhugh and Barry back up into the cat in the forest. The dramatic fight/action music that was a signature rift of 'Lost In Space' was played here, and was very effective.
Despite what some others have said above about this show, the pilot for this series is one of my top three, alongside Trek's 'The Cage', and the one for 'The Time Tunnel'.

Another thing I found out from the presentation reel produced by Irwin Allen for the network pitch, was that Fitzhugh's original name was going to be...Dinglehopper. Yeah. Dinglehopper! What a bad, bad, bad idea that nearly was! I don't even like saying the name 'Dinglehopper', so I can guess that the cast would have been the same.
Also, Steve Burton was Tim Burton, and Valerie Scott wasn't going to be a famous socialite, but rather a scientist.

As I've watched numerous episodes it surprises me how little in the way of clothing most of the cast was allowed to wear. Fitzhugh is understandable, as he was an embezzler and trying to get away; Steve and Dan, wore their uniforms, which I suppose would have had to be worn the next day for a return trip to L.A.; Mark wore a different shirt and a windbreaker in the second season so he was travelling light, while Betty wore a couple different things later on. But for Valerie, and especially Barry, who was travelling to London to live with relatives, because he was an orphan, had surprisngly little in the way of luggage and clothing. Many episodes have the passengers wearing the same thing again and again and again. It's almost as if Irwin Allen didn't want his cast to look like the passengers of the S.S. Minnow, who had in inordinate amount of clothing for a 3-hour tour. This was a continental flight, though, and more clothing should have been obvious.

I also like the way Fitzhugh and Barry didn't become a rehashed Doctor Smith/Will Robinson focal point. They have a repoire, and that's all. Everyone got to interact with everyone else, and nobody, not even leads like Steve and Dan took over the show.
Most episodes involved the cast being captured, or exploring, and the writers did a good job of mixing things up. Unlike Next Gen, where everything happened to Riker, Data, Worf, LeForge and Troi over and over and over, any combination of crew and / or passengers of the Spindrift could have an adventure.

If you have the "American Life" channel on your cable system (I don't think it's available on Dish or DirecTV), Thursday is "Irwin Allen Night" (my words, not theirs). Lost In Space, Time Tunnel, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and Land Of The Giants all run in a block (with some replays) from 8 p.m. through 2 a.m. ET. More here.

Veoh.com has this as one of the offerings on their TV Shows line-up (I assume it's authorized as they have commercials) & I decided to watch the pilot.

Haven't seen the show since I was a kid, but I'm pleasantly surprised. (Okay, the captain & the girl getting caught in the trap was boneheaded, & some of the FX is bad, but meh.) I'm most amazed that the show was in color. The only times I ever I saw it was on my parents' B&W TV.

As for nits how flimsy was Fitzhugh's chair to fall over like it did? Shouldn't the chair's be bolted to the deck?

Mark cuts a hose, then runs & lights a match which he tosses to ignite the gas.
Had to laugh at that as I've had matches go out if I move too fast to light something just a few inches away.

The giant scientist sticks his arm in the pipe to grab them, a later shot shows the scientist looking down the pipe, then next we see the scientist with his arm still in the pipe.

There are several nits that occur throughout the series. (I've been watching eps of this off and on on American Life Network.)

For one thing, it's amazing the Giants can hear the Little People so clearly. As small as the crew of the Sprindrift are, the Giants should not be able to them without some sort of amplification. By the same token, the Giants should blow out the eardrums of the Little People if they're too close to them.

The Little People are incredibly strong. I've seen eps where they throw their makeshift hatchets (razor blades attached to a matchstick) into the faces of Giants. That's like one of us throwing a paper airplane to the eighth floor (more or less) of a skycraper from the ground. And how often do the Little People throw a safety pin on a thread to the top of table to climb up? That'd be at least a four story throw. And let's not get into how quickly they climb up the ropes.

What for us would be a few feet should be miles to the Little People. Yet they cross those distances in the same amount of time as the Giants.

Speaking of the hatchets. They're made of razor blades and matchsticks. Yet, I've seen the Little People use them to hack through strings (ropes to the Sprindrift crew) in a couple of chops. Sorry, but I don't see it happening. A razor blade and matchstick would be too flimsy to do it.

I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of. But those are the ones that come immediately to mind. I'm not even going to get into the impossibilities in the sizes. Either the existence of the Giants is impossible or the existence of the Little People is.

Still, I've gotta say, I used to love this show as a kid. I loved watching the Little People interact with the various Giant props. Like the giant telephone. The set designers generally did a really good job matching the scales of these props.

Ghost Town
Barry, Fitzhugh & Valerie are running from a giant, Chipper gives away their location and Fitzhugh holds Valerie to keep her from running away.
Why? Your location has been blown, you should all be running.

At the end of the pilot Steve lost his jacket, but here in the second episode he's wearing one.

Why does Don jump over the flames when the overhead shot shows he could have gone around.

For some reason, Am Life started the cycle anew on their Thursday night sci-fi fest last night, even though Time Tunnel was the only show that had to start its rotation over.
I saw a bit of the Giants pilot; IIRC, the music was recycled from Lost In Space. Maybe some of the control room of the "Spindrift" as well was a recycled Space set.
In my opinion, ABC caved into Irwin Allen's desire to go with Giants instead of a fifth season of Voyage (which is what ABC wanted) is that they felt they owed Allen. Specifically, when ABC did an end run around Mr. Allen and cancelled Time Tunnel, after renewing it for a second year.

Sadly Veoh no longer carries this. I was hoping to catch a few more eps.

The first season can be watched online at hulu.com

Thanks!

The Space Pod from "Lost in Space" appeared in an episode of "Land Of The Giants".

Many props were re-used for various episodes of Star Trek, but Irwin Allen was The King of Re-Used Props, as far as I'm concerned. The Space Pod looked about 99 % the same as in Lost In Space, with the possible exception of any lettering on it that might have identified it as the Jupiter 2's shuttle.
And anytime he needed blinking control panels, those units from the the Time Tunnel were clearly recognizable-- not that that's a bad thing, since creating new props would have been expensive.

I had a bigger problem with his re-use of whole scenes in different episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which became evident as I watched one show after another on DVD.

I was reading reading the book version of this & found myself wondering about the economics of ships like the Spindrift.

In the far distant year of 1983 (I wonder what it will be like?) ships like Spindrift are the equivalent of airplanes, right? So how come they're not as big as airplanes?

While it's possible the Spindrift is the future equilavent of a Leer jet & charges a higher ticket price then an ordinary plane, but Barry doesn't seem like that type of well-heeled passenger.

While it's possible the Spindrift is the future equilavent of a Leer jet...
I believe it's spelled "Lear" jet. I think a "Leer" jet is what the "Mile High Club" flies in.

Pretty much the only time the Spindrift gets moved is when some giant picks it up (IIRC Manhunt & Shell Game) & the first time it was put back where he found it (not sure about the second time). You'd think more giants would have found it given they knew the general area to search.

Also isn't it amazing that they were always close enough to encounter someone for that week's story? It's like they were in the woody version of Grand Central Station.

The civilization of the giants was an odd mix of free America & Soviet style police state, whichever served that week's story best.

Just how many ship's got transported to the giant's world? Seems like, at least, half a dozen*, but if multiple ships had disappeared, then shouldn't it have been mentioned in the pilot episode?

* Other Ship's Tote Board
Ghost Town - IIRC mention was made of a crashed Earth ship
The Creed - the Doctor had a medical book from Earth
The Weird World - they meet another man from Earth
The Golden Cage - Mark meets a girl from Earth owned by some scientists
The Lost Ones - they encounter a group of teens from another ship
On A Clear Night You Can See Earth - IIRC this episode had a laboratory built by some people from Earth.

You'd think the events of Genius At Work would have made Kobick even more paranoid. He encounters Fitzhugh & Burton as people his size. You'd think he'd wonder how many "normal" people are really little people in disguise after that?

When being shown scenes of Earth, Steve & Dan recognize New York from a simple screen shot of people walking down a street with, as far as I can tell, no landmarks visible.

A device that can transport them back to Earth & Steve's brilliant idea is to go back 2 years & prevent the flight from taking off.
Guess the device is also an Idiot Ball.

Me - In the far distant year of 1983 (I wonder what it will be like?) ships like Spindrift are the equivalent of airplanes, right? So how come they're not as big as airplanes?

While it's possible the Spindrift is the future equilavent of a Leer jet & charges a higher ticket price then an ordinary plane, but Barry doesn't seem like that type of well-heeled passenger.

The episode Wild Journey actually deals with this, sort of. Apparently the flight was to be on the Shamrock & have 45 passengers, but it was tampered with, only four of the passengers still wanting to get to London & the smaller ship Spindrift had just been repaired.

So, had the ludicrous time travel plot not taken place, the pilot episode would have had a larger ship, with 45 passengers... and everyone would have died in the crash on the giant's planet. ;-)

This is the only Irwin Allen show I've never seen.

They have it on Hulu.com if you want to watch it online.

http://www.hulu.com/land-of-the-giants

A Place Called Earth:
Season 2, Episode 12 on the original transmission order, Season 2, Episode 8 on the DVD order.
A very good episode involving villainous time travellers from the future.
Very good how these evil time travellers got beaten by our regular characters with a little help from someone from that future.

Deadly Pawn:
Season 2, Episode 4 on the original transmission order, season 2 episode 9 on the DVD order.
A giant by the name of Kronig captured the little people and forced them to play chess with him. The little people ultimately decided that Barry was their best player and since he was a boy it was to the indignation of Kronig.
What a fascinating chess game this was with the little people eventually getting away thanks to an unexpected ally.

Coincidentally I have been watching on DVD, Doctor Who: Enlightenment which began with a chess game.
While a chess game was explicitly shown in Deadly Pawn, the chess game in the Doctor Who story was placed there as a symbolism of the battle between the Black and White Guardians.

Did they explain how the giants could have a game like chess? Or was it just accepted as a given? The reason I ask is that, although our two worlds could evolve to look quite similar, it stretches the imagination that they could both come up with the same exact game, with the same board, pieces and rules, independently.

Considering all the similarities between the Giants' world and Earth, I think Chess being exactly alike is hardly a deal-breaker.

Also it was revealed in some episode that the Pied Piper of Hamlin was actually a long-lived alien who visited both worlds, so maybe the similarities could be from some other alien bringing ideas/games/concepts/etc., from one world to the other?

That's very possible. The crew of the Spindrift are themselves responsible for a few such incidents, like introducing jazz in the giant's world. I was just wondering if the existence of chess in both worlds had actually been explained in this way too.

Another thing about that episode. At one point, some of the Earthlings manage to get back to the Spindrift to use the ship's computer to help Barry's game. A chess playing program is a bizarre thing to have available on a spaceship navigation computer.

Deadly Pawn:
Chess was presented as a given.

Comeback:
Season 2, Episode 11 on the original transmission order, season 2, episode 13 on the DVD order.
Most of the little people helped out, albeit ultimately reluctantly, a washed up actor played by John Carradine in his comeback.
After the major studios turned the actor away before he could present his movie idea he ended up in a run down studio run by a very greedy producer.
However here the little people were placed in danger as the producer over the objection of the actor shot scenes for real.
I can appreciate that money needs to be saved wherever possible to the producer definitely went too far in his approach.
Unfortunately no comeback was achieved for the actor as altogether the efforts were made to defeat the producer which ultimately saw him at the mercy of a big gorilla.
Nice idea of presenting the little people as movie stars in the giant world.

Home Sweet Home:
Season 2, Episode 14 on the original transmission order, season 2, episode 15 on the DVD order.
The little people discovered the space pod left behind by the time travellers from the earlier episode A Place Called Earth.
By accident Steve and Fitzhugh were on the space pod when it went back in time to a small New England town where they got arrested by the residents for witchcraft.
Absolutely enjoyable episode of Steve and Fitzhugh trying to get out of the situation they were in the past whilst Mark is helping them in the present by communications to them with the help of the pod’s manual that was taken out by Dan just before it took off.
Also enjoyable are the two giants who were after the little people here.

Our Man O'Reilly:
Season 2, Episode 15 on the original transmission order, season 2, episode 16 on the DVD order.
O'Reilly is played by Alan Hale Jr (Skipper in Gilligan's Island) and he thinks the little people are leprechauns.
Hale made for a fun character with the exploits he goes through here with the little people.

The Deadly Dart:
Season 2, Episode 20 on the original transmission order, Season 2, Episode 22 on the DVD order.
In this episode it is mentioned that Inspector Kobick (Kevin Hagen) had been replaced and moved on. However contemporary viewers may have been confused that the next episode that was aired Doomsday featured Kobick his last appearance in the series.
Kobick's replacement is Lt Grayson played by John Dehner, a face that I am familiar with but not his name.
Here Grayson investigates the murder of SID officials by the said deadly dart and Mark has been framed for it.
Providing a hindrance to Grayson is Bertha Fry (Madlyn Rhue) a reporter who has been spreading accusations of the dangers of the little people. Incidentally there is a swimsuit model called Kelly Fry, a very beautiful young woman.
Interesting on the revelation of who the real killer is and how Grayson and Fry became unlikely allies to the little people because of this revelation.

A Small War:
Season 2, Episode 22 on the original transmission order, penultimate episode on the DVD order.
The war was indeed small both mostly in size and all in length as the little people battle it out against a giant boy and his toys.
The giant boy Alek was indeed eager in this war against the little people whom he believed to be toys of a rival boy. This eagerness was not really to my liking.

On my previous post:
Kelly Fry is my wife.
Whilst it was a small war it was also a small way to pass the time enjoyably.

I discovered this TV theme by John Williams by accident. It's notable because it totally sounds like music from a Land of the Giants episode (which Williams made both themes for), but the animated opening credits look like a variation of the first season of LOTG.

https://youtu.be/ahboQf90bLA

Here's the presentation video I mentioned waaay back in 2007.

https://youtu.be/XFp7shryBvY

The giants were portrayed much larger in this promo than they were in the actual show.

I came across this movie on TV yesterday and was surprised to see Kurt Kaszner in it, mainly because it's from 1954 and he looks virtually the same 14 years later in Land of the Giants. The trailer is below, and you can see and hear him after the 1:20 mark. He was born in 1913, which makes him 41 in the movie and 55 in the series.

https://youtu.be/BnMnbZtIj1I

I bet you didn't realize that Irwin Allen predicted SpaceX?
Land of the Giants has a crew and a small number of passengers in a suborbital ship that's not connected to NASA.
I always found it odd that a mere 5 passengers were traveling between Los Angeles and London in a a type of spaceship, instead of an airliner, but with today's present-day civilian passengers on SpaceX spaceships, the similarities are there.

For a split second there, I read "SpaceX" as "Space Sex"

The Million Mile High Club.

I'm sure Mark and Valerie planned that encounter on their return trip home!