First broadcast in 1943, Land of the Lost was a radio fantasy adventure, starring two children, Isabell and Billy, who one morning while out fishing catch an old boot with a mysterious voice — and a faint red glow — coming from inside. The voice and glow turn out to belong to talking fish Red Lantern, who in gratitude for being freed offers to take them on a trip to his undersea home, the magical Land of the Lost. With a bit of magic seaweed (which allows them to breathe underwater), the two children embark on a fantastic adventure to the place where lost objects go (and come to life once they get there), sea creatures talk, and all manner of other magic can occasionally be found running around.
The program, created by Isabell Manning Hewson, was broadcast weekly from October 9, 1943 to July 3, 1948 on the Mutual Broadcasting System. It received a book adaptation in 1945 (courtesy of Whittlesey House Publishing); a nine-issue comics run comprising of adaptations of various episodes; and three Animated Adaptations as part of the Noveltoons series — Land of the Lost in 1948 (an adaptation of the episode "Knives Of The Square Table"), Land of the Lost Jewels in 1950 (an adaptation of the episode "Gulliver Grasshopper"), and finally Land of the Lost Watches (which does not appear to be an adaptation of any episode, but rather an original story set in the Land) in 1951.
Sadly, the series is not very well-preserved — only 35-odd episodes (a few of which are duplicates) are known to have survived to the present day, out of an unknown but likely over-100 number of total broadcast episodes.
This radio serial provides examples of the following:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Some of the names in the series, both places and characters, are like this — "Rushbottom Row" or "Stovepipe Square" for instance. Characters that have them usually mix it with a Species Surname (see below).
- A Dog Named "Cat": A recurring character by the name of Kid Squid is actually an octopus.
- Ageless Birthday Episode: Red Lantern gets one in "The Hall of Lost Lamps".
- Animate Inanimate Object:
- Lost objects that reach the titular Land come to life, with some also increasing in size to be more comparable to humans — in the broadcast's surviving episodes, everything from clocks ("The Dock of Lost Clocks") to playing cards ("The Big Game Preserve") to fans ("The Fan-Tom of Fan-Tasy Hall"), to hats ("Ten-Gallon Pete") to bottles ("The Bottle Brigade") has been seen walking around down in the Land. A few
Missing Episodes are also known to include such things as pens (broadcast lost, but seen in an issue of the comics), weapons and armor (ditto), gloves (a radio episode of name unknown) and cooking implements ("Stovepipe Square"). - The magic seaweed curtain that protects the entrance to the Land of the Lost is also one of these — heck, it even sings in one episode (with that episode being titled, appropriately enough, "The Magic Curtain").
- Lost objects that reach the titular Land come to life, with some also increasing in size to be more comparable to humans — in the broadcast's surviving episodes, everything from clocks ("The Dock of Lost Clocks") to playing cards ("The Big Game Preserve") to fans ("The Fan-Tom of Fan-Tasy Hall"), to hats ("Ten-Gallon Pete") to bottles ("The Bottle Brigade") has been seen walking around down in the Land. A few
- Band Land: Harmony Hollow, home of the lost musical instruments. Isabell and Billy visit it in "The Marriage of the Fife and Drum".
- Bedsheet Ghost: The Fan-Tom of Fan-Tasy Hall was described as looking like one. It's really Count Sandalwood underneath that sheet.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: Red Lantern, true to his name, emits a red glow as an indicator of his magical nature.
- Dance Party Ending:
Yes, in a series made in the 1940s. "The Fan-Tom of Fan-Tasy Hall" ends with a celebratory fandango. - Dance Sensation: "The Slipcover Stomp", which the lost chairs in Rushbottom Row (seen in the episode of the same name) like to get down to.
- Deus Exit Machina: Red Lantern has a tendency to be called away by some duty (everything from digging up statistics in the “hall of wrecks and records” to helping prepare defenses against summer storms), letting Isabell and Billy explore the Land Of The Lost- and, usually, run into trouble- on their own.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Names like these are somewhat common in the Land, although lost objects seem more likely to have them than sea creatures.
- Election Day Episode: “Kid Squid Runs For Sealectman”- the eponymous event happens, and Hilarity Ensues.
- Feghoot: The entire episode of “Mike Pike Tries To Be A Flying Fish” was just a setup to the highest point on Bird Rock being named “Pike’s Peak”
. - Find Out Next Time: Most episodes end with a little teaser about the plot of whatever episode is airing next week. Notably, these teasers often mention episodes that have otherwise not survived to the present day (or at least of which no surviving copy has yet been found), such as a journey to "Stovepipe Square" (home of lost cooking implements) and a nebulous Christmas Episode.
- Fishing for Sole: The series' inciting incident is Isabell and Billy catching a boot that Red Lantern, the guiding light of the Land of the Lost, is trapped in. How exactly he got stuck in it is never explained.
- Flintstone Theming: A lot of things in the Land of the Lost are water- and sea-themed puns — there's "Shellaphone Booths" and "Taxi Crabs", for instance. The homes of different kinds of lost objects also may or may not have their own separate theming.
- Funny Animal: The non-object inhabitants of the titular Land are various anthropomorphic fish and other sea creatures. Occasionally, other underwater kingdoms with similar citizens (er, "sea-tizens") will be mentioned.
- Ghostly Chill: Parodied in "The Fan-Tom of Fan-Tasy Hall", in which the apparition accompanied by a cold gust of air... is a spectral hand fan.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Red Lantern and the other fish-folk will use sea-themed phrases and expressions, and if it's a "visit a place where lost [type of object] goes" episode you’re guaranteed to hear at least three object-themed idioms as well.
- Hurricane of Puns: Pretty much every single episode is like this, with the various "let's explore the land of lost [type of object]" episodes being perhaps the worst offenders.
- Invisibility: King Find-All, the monarch of the titular Land, is invisible. A serum that temporarily renders the drinker invisible also appears in "The Disappearing Desert" and returns in "The Undersea Pirates".
- In Which a Trope Is Described: A good portion of episodes have titles like this: “Kid Squid Runs For Sealectman”, “Mike Pike Tries To Be A Flying Fish”, “Red Lantern Is Saved By Ruby Cordial”... the list goes on.
- Living Toys: They make their home in Toyland, with the Toyland Marines occasionally showing up in other episodes as well. Notable ones include toy soldier Sergeant Pines (actually captain of the Toyland Marines — "Sergeant" is just part of his name) and Henrietta the doll (who used to belong to Isabell before being lost).
- Location Title: A decent amount of lost object-focused episodes tend to be named after where they take place in- “The Hall Of Lost Lamps”, “Rushbottom Row”, “The Lockup Of Lost Keys”, “The Big Game Preserve”, “The Port Of Sports”, “The Dock Of Lost Clocks”, etc. etc. The series’ title as a whole is also one.
- Love Triangle: The "A and B love each other, but C is also in love with A and thus hates B" version is done twice, in "The Fan-Tom of Fan-Tasy Hall" and "The Marriage of the Fife and Drum". Both times, "C" (the fittingly titled Count Sandalwood in "Fan" and the unfittingly initialed Basil Bassoon in "Fife and Drum") ends up resorting to dirty trickery to try to get "B" out of the way. "The Port of Sports" also has a much more complicated one that actually involves four characters.
- Meaningful Name: If a name in the series isn't punny, rhyming, or self-indicative, it's usually one of these — take booming drum Peter DeBoom from "The Marriage of the Fife and Drum" for instance.
- Musical Episode: "Marriage of the Fife and Drum" is an interesting example — although every episode has two or three songs in it (see Song Parody below), "Fife and Drum" contains a vastly larger volume of musical numbers, and is set in the Land of the Lost's resident Band Land.
- Mysterious Middle Initial: We never find out what the "T" in Aloicious T. Accordion's name stands for, although the answer is probably "the".
- Narrating the Obvious: Enforced, as this is a radio series — we have no way to know what's happening if the characters don't describe it for us. Still doesn’t explain why the comic book adaptation does it, though.
- Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: The "Hall of Lost Lamps" episode involves Red Lantern having one of these, with the surprise party taking place in the titular Hall.
- Panacea: Ruby cordial is a magical healing potion that cures Red Lantern in “Red Lantern Is Saved By Ruby Cordial”.
- Popularity Polynomial: Spoofed in "Ten-Gallon Pete", where the entrance to the Hattery (home of all the lost hats) is right next to the Mill of Fashion — apparently, as the mill wheel keeps turning round, the same old styles keep becoming popular again.
- Punny Name: Fitting with the series' general Hurricane of Puns nature, a good number of characters have these. Probably the most groan-worthy one has to be what the Clipper calls himself: "JULIUS SCISSORS!".
- Rhyming Names:
- Ralph Royster Oyster has a variant where it’s the middle name that rhymes with the last. There's also Lucy DeLacy from "The Magic Curtain".
- Some of the location names in the titular Land also rhyme — take "The Port of Sports" (where lost sporting equipment goes) or "The Dock of Lost Clocks", for instance.
- Running Gag: Well, more like a running pun, and contained to a single episode, but "Marriage of the Fife and Drum" gets pretty much as much mileage out of the fact that "fife" rhymes with "wife" as it is linguistically possible to get.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The titular Fan-Tom in "The Fan-Tom of Fan-Tasy Hall" turns out to be one, orchestrated by Count Sandalwood in an attempt to prevent Chantilly from becoming romantically involved with Lord Ivory.
- Shave And A Haircut: Nearly every single musical number ends with an instance. Occasionally characters will also knock on doors to the rhythm as well.
- Sick Episode: “Red Lantern Has Fin-Fluenza” and its follow-up “Red Lantern Is Saved By Ruby Cordial”. No points for guessing who gets sick.
- Song Parody: All of the songs in this broadcast, with the exception of the often-omitted Title Theme Tune, are parodies, with notable examples being the Bottle Brigade's marching music (a.k.a. "Pop Goes the Weasel") as well as the "Spoon Song" ("Who wants coffee, who wants tea, EI-EI-O") from "Knives of the Square Table".
- Soup Is Medicine: Red Lantern, when ill, asks for “Amber Jelly” (with jelly being the undersea equivalent of soup), a rare recipe his grandmother apparently used to make for him when he was young. Unusually for this trope, the jelly itself doesn’t cure him, although the hunt for the amber required to make it does lead Isabell and Billy to a proper remedy.
- Species Surname: Pretty common in the Land, both among sea life (Ralph Royster Oyster, Zeke Sponge) and lost objects (Aramintha Arrow, Mr. Bumbershoot, Aloicious T. Accordion). Notably, the lost objects seem more likely to have their first name alliterate with their last.
- Suddenly Suitable Suitor: Spoofed in "Rushbottom Row", in which the "common kitchen chair" who Sherry that Malcom Mahogany is in love with (much to the consternation of his aristocratic mother) turns out to have been made by a fine craftsman after all.
- Super-Sargasso Sea: The titular Land is one, with the added stipulation that lost objects come to life after arriving (see Animate Inanimate Object above). Bonus points for being literally under the sea.
- Title Theme Tune: The series' later years saw its once-instrumental opening theme being given lyrics as a likely result of Executive Meddling:Land of the Lost
A kingdom fair as a dream
It lies under the sea
Mysteriously
Shining with ripples that glimmer and gleam - Water Is Air: Despite being at the bottom of the sea, the titular Land is basically treated like, well, land, especially where the lost objects are concerned — pens can write without their ink just dissipating in the water, musical instruments can play just fine, clocks that should be rusted to a stop by the saltwater can keep on ticking, and playing cards and stock certificates can exist without getting soggy. The three worst examples are perhaps the fans of Fan-Tasy Hall, who explicitly blow air; Umbrella Land, where it rains, and the gas lamps and candles in the Hall of Lost Lamps, who can still burn.
- Wedding Episode: “The Marriage Of The Fife And Drum”
- Villain Song: Occasionally the Villain of the Week will get one. Notable examples are Two-Faced Tom's in "The Dock of Lost Clocks" and the Skeleton Key's in "The Lockup of Lost Keys".
