Okay, show of hands from Generation Xers and people from the generation of the 70s that watched this show. Who among you is willing to admit that the Sleestacks scared the living crap out of you?
*raises hand proudly*
*also raises hand proudly*
shareYes, they were scary just like Grumpy!
share"Yes, they were scary just like Grumpy! "
Oh God I hated that too. At the end of the beginning credits, when Grumpy chases Marshall, Will & Holly into the cave, then pauses as the music ends, then turns to the camera, roars, and opens his mouth and appears to 'eat' you.
I about died looking back on it, because some shots of Grumpy were stop-motion photography, but some of the headshots were a badly operated hand puppet. The previously described scene was a puppet.
But back to the sleestacks....I know what did it for me. It wasn't just their appearance. It was that bloody sound they made. Sid & Marty Krofft themselves said to this day they had no idea that the Sleestacks would be such a big hit at scaring the crap out of kids. But I'm glad I'm not alone.
Anyone else willing to come forward and admit it? :)
Yes! I agree -- the sound added to their scariness. A lot of the sound effects on LOTL gave me the huzz.
share*looks around and raises hand slowly*
You gonna do somethin'? Or are you just gonna stand there and bleed?
Me too! They were terrifying--especially scary (but also weirdly mesmerizing) was that eerie room they went into to move around those little marbles. What was up with that place?
There IS a good way to break up with someone, and it does not involve a post-it note.
They were scary Saturday morning goons!
share[deleted]
Heh... actually, I seem to recall finding them a little erotic. Maybe it was cuz they looked so alien or perhaps a little on the reptiloid side as well. I thought they were pretty cool.
As an aside, now that I think of it. I used to not care for the show but I remember now there were a number of instances where it could be considered rather surreal. Like one time where there was something to do with time or an alternate dimension and they see what looks like themselves trapped in this wall or something. Or I remember something about a rift opening up and they could get home and they looked through it and I think they saw the backs of their heads... but then there was something about the wind building up to 1/2 mile a second. Didn't seem too fast to me at first until I figured out just how fast that was for an hour. Yipe!
Xaomeow, I've had some weird beings catch my fancy in my day, but I must say that erotic and sleestacks would never have occurred to me as words that went together! Still, I can kinda see where you might get that. Probably has something to do with all that heavy breathing they do.
Quit being so humble. You're not that important.
heh, well if i remember right they seemed all mystic and mysterious and also bore a rather strong resemblance to being a kind of reptile (and, well, I just happen to find lizardmen sexy) ;)
shareThey were way too slow! Really clumsy at shooting arrows, too- no velocity. If they had a little more "get up and go" they could have been truly menacing.
shareSleestaks were definately scary. But then, I was only five or six years old at the time I watched that show. I just got the DVD set, and let me tell you, its like going back in time through a time machine. I can't believe how much I have missed this show over the years. If I had never seen it as a kid, I can tell that I would absolutely hate it today. Anyhow, awesome show, and the Sleestaks rule as villans.
shareSSSSSSS
I didn't ming the hissing so much as the way they moved. Maybe I'm mis-remebering, it has been damn near 30 years, but didn't they kinda have a little snake-like movement to them.
Like the alien in Signs. When I saw him at the end holding the kid, I was thing OH MY! THE ALIENS ARE SLEESTACKs!!!!!!!!
That freaked me right out man!
*I'll be raising my hand too*
Scary as a kid and I would have bad dreams about them waiting behind the basement door of my house. As an adult I think that while the Marshall's were very resourceful in some respects they should have gone Rambo on the Sleestack. Snares, trip ropes, and things of that sort.
shareI just googled erotic sleestack and got 437 results, mostly PG-13 and above, primarily R and above. Sleestack appears to be the name of a poster on many of these websites. Hmmmmm.
shareDid you guys know that the sleestacks actually turned out to be professional basketball players. most notably Bill Laimbeer from the detroit pistons when they were the "bad boys", the other two didnt play much from what i know.......and yes they were scary
shareWhat was scary was those freaky Pylons and Skylons. Their appearance, like that of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, meant that bad things were about to happen...
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Oh gosh, yes, me too - am SOOO.. glad I am not the only one who thinks Sleestaks were the creepiest. And yep, that horrible ssszzzz thing they did, and the way they just crept up on you in the dark. urgh. <shudder> I was 8 I think, and I'm buying the dvd tomorrow! The best (or worst?) part is I was trying to explain to my friend abt the horror of the sleestaks and she was looking at me in the "you're a freak, you know that don't you?" kind of way cos she never saw it at all (she's younger, obviously).
Not sure if anyone remembered that in one A-team episode, cos you know how Hannibal's jobs include being the swamp monster etc on movie lots, and he had a SLEESTAK costume!! It freaked me out totally, man.
You're right. In between heroic gigs, Col. Smith would play the "Aquqmaniac" in a low-budget series of movies. It was a tall "snake-man" type of thing where he would rip open a flap in its gut he could expose his face to smoke a cigar, but in one episode the creature was in the form of an actual Sleestak costume.
shareI too was scared witless. I was 5-7 yrs old when this show was out and had continuous nightmares about the sleestacks.