TVSquad

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• Land of the Lost, the new Will Ferrell movie, opened in theaters this weekend. I'm kind of undecided about whether or not I want to see it, but Cinematical's interview with director Brad Silberling is pretty interesting.
• The Summer of '91: Truth or Dare, Boyz n the Hood, Thelma & Louise, and Point Break. It was a good time. Relive it with Cinematical.
• Although I'm not so sure about John Krasinski's beard in this film, I do like the idea of he and Maya Rudolph playing a couple. Plus, Away We Go is directed by Sam Mendes, who helmed American Beauty. I'm so there.
• In honor of this weekend's release of The Hangover, Cinematical Seven looks at Wicked Hangovers on Film.
• Wow. This is probably the greatest wedding invitation in the history of the world. Cinematical gets away with posting this by calling it a "short film," so I'm totally going to link to it too. The video is four minutes long, but it's amazing.

SciFiWire has a list of 10 Saturday morning TV series that inspired movies and the list seems to be, to say the least, a bit skewed. To begin, the title is misleading. Most of the examples they use rose to fame as something else before they were even shown on television. And once shown, they weren't necessarily on Saturday mornings.

Popeye started as a comic strip and then cartoon shorts shown at theaters. The Addams Family started as a comic strip in The New Yorker then a somewhat unique sitcom.

I have to get something off my chest, and I'm not talking about my man boobs. It has to do with Will Ferrell. See, I like Will as an actor. He had some fine roles on Saturday Night Live and has proven himself a qualified movie actor. Some of his roles have even revolved around television show remakes. Unfortunately, those remakes tend to, um, not make fans of the original shows very happy.

Okay, they don't make me very happy. Sure, his redo of Bewitched was okay, but it really didn't have the "magic" and quirkiness of the old series. Now, he's remaking the classic Saturday morning show Land of the Lost. From the most recent trailer, it seems that Ferrell is going to go the action comedy route (heavy on the comedy) to draw in the audiences. For fans of the old Sid & Marty Kroftt series, this is not good news.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• It's super commercial night! There may be some sort of game on in between, but this is the day of sweet new ads. A few have popped up online already: check out the trailers for the Transformers sequel and Star Trek.
• ...And here are the trailers for Land of the Lost, starring Will Ferrell and Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel, Year One, Up, and more.
• "So you're just gonna make SPITE NOISE until the movie ends, huh? Just because I had the ignorance to ask you to stop talking during a movie. And you, the parents, condoning it. Brilliant." --Cinematical's Scott Weinberg did not have a good experience watching The Uninvited.
• I love Jennifer Garner and think she should be in movies all the time (that is, if she doesn't want to make me really happy by returning to television), so it makes me sad that she's doing movies like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It... doesn't look good.
• So I'm trying to find someone who would be interested in watching my baby for about 12 hours or so, so I can go to an AMC theater and watch all five Best Picture Oscar nominees. Any takers?

Last time on "Saturday Morning" we reviewed the busy 1974-75 schedule of CBS. In this installment we take a look at the lineups for ABC and NBC.

When looking at the respective schedules you can see a few patterns that were prevalent in Saturday morning programming of the 1970s. As mentioned last time, one of these themes was the increasing amount of live-action shows on the air. Six new live-action programs came out during this year, with three premiering on ABC and NBC combined. Another pattern was the use of prehistoric locations for shows. Each network had at least one show that took place during the time of the dinosaurs. The third pattern was the continuing decrease in quality of the Saturday morning animated fare. Nothing much could be done on that front since the networks were asking for more of this material faster than the studios could produce it and for less money than they needed.

Still and all, 1974 was a good time for Saturday morning programming as it produced a number of programs viewers remember even today. Two such programs are featured in this installment. Now, if the Way-Back Machine is ready, step on in and let's journey back 34 years in the past.

It continues to look as if the movie industry has totally run out of ideas for new concepts to bring the $10 a ticket crowd into the theaters. Dipping its foot into the television pool once again, it was announced that Universal has cut a deal to promote Sid & Marty Kroftt's Sigmund and the Sea Monsters to the big screen. This will be the second Kroftt movie for Universal (another property, H.R. Pufnstuf, is with Sony). The first, Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell, has completed filming and is set for release in June of 2009.

For those uninitiated to the golden age of Saturday morning programming, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters premiered on the NBC schedule during the 1973-74 season. It featured a friendly sea monster (played by Billy Barty) who was befriended by two human boys (one of them being Family Affair's Johnny Whitaker). The typical sitcomy plot usually involved Sigmund getting into some sort of trouble that alerted his sea monster brothers and mother (who lived in a nearby sea cave), and his human friends making sure he wasn't found out. It became the first Sid & Marty Kroftt production up to that time to be renewed for a second season.

It looks like the Krofft brothers Sid and Marty will soon be on MySpace. The 70's icons will soon be putting their programming on MySpaceTV.

This will include their classic shows such as H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos and Land of the Lost and will be exclusively shown on the social-networking platform. V.P. of Marketing at MySpace Josh Brooks sees the collaboration as an example of how the site will mine pop-culture nostalgia to build audiences.

The license includes full episodes as well as condensed three to five minute versions (called "Kwikies") and pre-taped messages from the Kroffts themselves. The Krofft branded channel can be found at myspace.com/Krofft.

I remember watching the Krofft shows as a kiddie. Why are condensed versions of the shows necessary for this channel? Are they really that bad when watched at normal length as an adult? Perhaps nobody has time to watch a full episode anymore. Shows like Electra Woman and Dyna Girl can only be appreciated when watched at full length.

We already have Land of the Lost coming to the big screen next year starring Will Ferrell. Now two more Sid and Marty Krofft creations might be on the way.

Apparently, the shows Sigmund and the Sea Monsters and H.R. Pufnstuf will be getting the big screen treatment as well. Knowing Hollywood, the CGI gurus are probably already working on new character designs that are hip and cool (although thankfully they didn't change the Sleestaks very much). Part of the appeal of the original 70's programs were the actors in the silly costumes, but I guess one must adapt to the times.

The original shows were very psychedelic and a product of the time. There are rumors that the Kroffts created them under the influence. I just have two questions: First, will the lead child actor in Sigmund and the Sea Monsters sing a solo at the end like Johnny Whitaker? Second, would I be able to appreciate the movies more if I watched them while stoned?

Universal Pictures has just signed Brad Silberling to direct the big screen version of the '70s cult hit Land of the Lost. Silberling joins Will Ferrell on the project which is set to start shooting in March.

The original Saturday morning series told the story of explorer Rick Marshall who, while on a "routine expedition" with his children (for some reason) Will and Holly, fell through a fault in the Earth and ended up in a prehistoric world filled with dinosaurs, cavemen and evil lizard creatures known as sleestaks. Here's a little known fact, the "good" sleestak, Enik was played by NBA pro Bill Laimbeer.