|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Episode Studies by Clayton Barr enik1138-at-popapostle-dot-com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kevin comes across an old
laser-gun which he uses to seek revenge on the Sleestak. Didja Know? The title of this episode is from the quote made famous by Clint Eastwood as Detective "Dirty Harry" Callahan in the film Sudden Impact. Callahan uses the phrase twice in the film, both times daring a violent criminal not to surrender so he will have an excuse to shoot them. Through the course of this episode, we get allusions to several pop culture characters: Dirty Harry, the Man with No Name and Rambo. All three characters are largely known for solving their problems with their guns. Didja Notice? In both this episode and last, we see that Princess is hanging around the Porter tree-house instead of Christa's cave. Is she becoming more fond of them than of her frequently missing master?At 1:08 in the episode, we see that the Porters have a squirt gun among their possessions. There are several instances of a brief acoustic guitar riff in this episode. These are meant to be reminiscent of the so-called "spaghetti western" films of Sergio Leone from the 1960s and '70s with music frequently composed by the great Ennio Morricone, particularly the three films starring Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. When the Porters discover that Tasha is teething, Kevin gives her a bone to chew on. Do herbivores really gnaw on bones to relieve teething? In fact, later it is even implied that Tasha has eaten the bone! At 3:34 in the episode, Keeg asks Nim, "What of Shung's crystal (unintelligible)?" I think the unintelligible word must be knife or blade, referring to the crystal dagger destroyed by Christa in "The Gladiators". It seems the two Sleestak henchmen (henchstaks?) are searching for a new crystal for Shung when they are sidetracked by Kevin's footprints and scent. Big Guy sure is a handy dinosaur to have around. He has helped the Porters and Tasha out of scrapes in previous episodes and here he seems to go out of his way to frighten off the Sleestak who have captured Kevin. Maybe he was raised by humans and feels a loyalty to them...Dopey anyone? (Of course, LOTL90 seems to take place in a different Land of the Lost than the one seen in LOTL70.) Although less obvious during the actual abduction scene in the teaser, when Kevin reminisces about it at 7:35 in the episode, it appears that there is a small mat under actor Robert Gavin (to protect his rump and legs) as he is dragged through the dirt by the Sleestak. Apparently the Porters have taught Stink knock-knock jokes because when Kevin asks him, "Don't you ever knock?", Stink responds "Who's there?" with his trademark Paku laugh.
When Kevin is ready to lead his raiding party of Stink and Tasha to find the Sleestaks, he says, "All right, boys. It's time," even though Tasha, of course, is female. At several points in the episode, an electric guitar music queue is played that is reminiscent of George Thorogood's song "Bad to the Bone." This song has become almost a must play for any movie introducing a character who has taken on a bad-ass demeanor. I suppose the Land of the Lost budget could not afford to license the actual song, so series composer Kevin Kiner came up with a similar-sounding riff. "Bad to the Bone" was also used in the previous year's blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day as Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator character emerges from a biker bar having just kicked biker ass and taking one biker's leather clothes and, soon thereafter, the bartender's sunglasses; it's possible the sunglasses worn by Kevin and Stink were inspired by the Terminator franchise; in fact, Kevin and Stink later on refer to themselves as the Kevinator and Stinkinator. The second act opens at 11:12 with a cool shot of a pterodactyl soaring from the foreground, above camera, over the lake with Big Guy looking on. 
When Tasha seems to express reluctance at the plan to force a confrontation with the Sleestak, Stink calls her a chicken. As we learned in the LOTL70 episode "Babysitter", the Pakuni use iguana (ekonga) instead to refer to someone as a coward. At 12:20 in the episode, Keeg catches a fly in his claws and eats it. Besides "make my day" (which he uses earlier in the episode), while confronting Nim and Keeg at the Sleestaks' lair, Kevin paraphrases another famous Dirty Harry line when he says, "Feeling lucky, punks?" In Dirty Harry, Callahan asks a couple of violent criminals, once near the beginning and once at the end of the film, if they feel lucky as he dares them to pick up a nearby gun, unsure if his own .44 Magnum six-shooter has already fired all six shots. At one point during the confrontation, Kevin tells the Sleestak to "freeze or you're a handbag," a reference to various lizard-skin handbags made on Earth. At 15:31 in the episode, Kevin asks Scarface, "Lookin' for me? I'm the only one here." This would appear to be a paraphrasing of Robert De Niro's famous line from the 1976 film Taxi Driver, "You talkin' to me? Well, I'm the only one here." De Niro's character in the film also obtains a gun with which he plans to seek revenge against a list of imagined foes. For the second time, we see that Scarface seems to have a glass jaw. First he was knocked out with just two punches from the cyborg in "Future Boy" and, here, he is brought down by one shot of Kevin's laser gun. While he felt pain, Keeg earlier took a blast full on the chest without going down! At 20:20 in the episode, Shung says a sarcastic "Oops!" when he throws Stink to the ground. Seems like an odd word for a Sleestak to use in any situation! It does, however, make a nice setup for Kevin to say the same thing when he chucks the laser gun away as Shung makes a grab for it. At 21:49 in the episode, as Kevin lowers his head sheepishly while being chastised by his father for playing with a firearm like it was a toy, notice that Stink, in his usual mimicking manner, sees Kevin's actions and lowers his head sheepishly as well!
Back to Episode Studies
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
