The image of MTM that always did it for me was when she came sliding out of the closet on the walnuts.
I hate to blow the fantasy of Lost In Space with these pictures because when we watched the show the sets looked SO REAL and SO BELIEVABLE that it's hard to comprehend that these were just studio sets, they weren't actually in space. Hollywood magic.
it doesn't matter to me because I still enjoy the heck out of the shows today! Plus, Jonathan told me many behind the scene happenings years ago. actually it made watching the shows more fun...His favorite performance was "Cave Of The Wizards"...cool. eh?
It does look that wall is part of the Seinfeld set. You're right though, I don't remember ever seeing it in the show.
I believe this is a temporary wall on wheels just to conceal the hallway from audience view. They sometimes pull curtains in front of unused sets for this reason, just to force the audience to focus their attention on one set at a time. And in some cases, the reason is so they can have a "surprise reveal" of an unexpected guest star. Sitcoms often have "swing" sets which are off to the side or even placed up against the audience, generally temporary sets like an Elevator car or an automobile interior, or some quickie office scene. In many cases, they use these sets on a "pre-shoot" day without an audience, shoot the material, then play it back on the actual show day just to get the audience's reaction. This is very typical when stunts, explosions, or some kind of messy action is required where there wouldn't be time to clean it (and the actors) up afterwards. I must be strange, because I thought the show was hokey and unbelievable when I was 10. I was a fan and never missed an episode, but I was usually rolling my eyes and thinking, "what the hell is this s#!+?" Even in 1965, you could see the wrinkles in the backgrounds and the seams in the alien costumes. A friend of mine and I have a running gag about the rarely-seen third level of the Jupiter II spaceship, the engine room, which inexplicably appeared in a couple of episodes and was never referred to again. Irwin Allen's shows were not exactly highly-regarded for their sense of logic and continuity.
Oh no, you aren't strange at all. Even as a kid I also realized that the show set a new standard for cheesy. I asked someone recently if the show was supposed to be taken seriously and I want to say they said the first year they tried to do a semi serious show but after that they just went for the... nonsense.
I've often said that the first three or four B&W episodes of Lost in Space were actually pretty straight and serious, with very little of the snappy remarks from Dr. Smith or the Robot. In fact, Smith was quite a treacherous, evil guy (an enemy agent working for China, as I recall). A few episodes in, it all started turning into parody and just went to hell. Reportedly, Guy Williams was really upset about it, because he had been given the impression that he was going to be the star of the show, and that it was going to be a straight family drama. He was not happy when Lost in Space gradually turned into a campy, over-the-top family show featuring the kid and Dr. Smith.
I remember seeing a 'serious' episode in my youth that featured a 'Space Court' where Guy Williams was accused of causing some catastrophe because he lost a spanner on a space walk. Anyone else recall this ?
I can definitely see that happening with Guy Williams. He had that "star" charisma " or whatever it is in the Zorro series, and now he had to be fighting off rubber aliens and as you mention, just being the straight man for Billy and Dr. Smith.
Yeah, I always thought it was funny that Ed's place was way nicer that Ralph's but there WAS that one episode where Ed mentioned that he bought everything on credit and he had reached his credit limit, or similar.
