I liked it, but I liked anything with spaceships and I was regularly wearing towel-as-cape at the time. I can only remember crossbows, ridiculous chromakeying, and that moustache.

Huh. I have absolutely no recollection of this, and I was in my prime glued-to-the-teevee stage at the time it aired. “Cordwainer Bird” is pretty cool, as shamefaced pseudonyms go.

No way, Gavin. Not going to click the links on the right. The trailer was bad enough.

I heart Canadians.

Smiling Mort, Cordwainer Bird has a long and storied history as the name Harlan Ellison would put on a project after he pulled hees own name off of eet.

H.E. wrote about hees adventures trying to get “Starlost” made, een the piece entitled “Somehow, I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas, Toto”.

And Cordwainer Bird heemself makes an appearance later een H.E.’s fiction as a shadowy figure who ees the bane of the literary underworld een the short story “New York Review of Bird”.

But I have never seen the show meowself, so muchas gracías for that, eh?

so.

There’s a “Novel of the Starlost,” Phoenix Without Ashes, by Ellison and Edward Bryant. Out of print, but floating around the Internet somewhere, I suppose.

Bubba (& others): Wanna see space ships & ridiculous chromakeying (or whatever the currenrt digital version is)? And seriously amateur acting? well, just try: http://hiddenfrontier.org (Too lazy to make real link.)

This thing had the feel of an over-budgeted Saturday morning live action show along the lines of Land of the Lost or Jason of Star Command, although it was probably syndicated. I actually remember two episodes (which is probably all I saw): One where our plucky kids from Grovers Corners (or whatever the hell their backward little dome was called) encounter an all-male society dripping with ennui and barbaric splendor, which uses artificial wombs (apparently based on the design of the then-popular home snow cone maker) to reproduce. And another in which Walter Koenig crashes into the side of the Ark, and they get a bit shirty with him when he filches parts to repair his own ship.

I had, however, forgotten the mustache.

In addition to “Phoenix Without Ashes,” which contains both Ed Bryant’s novelization and Harlan’s original script for the pilot, there is also “The Starcrossed,” a hilarious fictionalization of Harlan’s battle with the suits to get his story made, written by Ben Bova. I got my copy autographed last weekend at the Robert A. Heinlein Centennial Celebration by Bova, and now must have Harlan sign it as “Cordwainer Bird” to make it perfect.

NO FUCKIN WAY. Keir Dullea AND Douglas Trumbull were involved with this???1?? No way. Denial, denial denial.

Jason of Star Command

That was a kiddie show with better production values. The Starlost was more adult-oriented.

Why is it that hairstyles always look ridiculous in retrospect?

Maybe because we always look somewhat ridiculous, and the styles of the past, with their odd familiarity, force us to confront this reality?

Mmmm-mmmm. 1975, and Mile High Comics opened its second location, in Fort Collins. Ed Bryant came and spoke, and autographed my copy of the novelization of the book. He also had a story coming up in the second Dangerous Visions collection. Before too much longer, I was managing the store, and a friend and I were making a (never to be finished) take-off on the show called “The Starloused.” Another year after that, I was looking for work again, Chuck Rozanski was on his way to realizing his goal of being a millionaire by the time he was 21, and Kier Dullea was to accept a permanent position on the masthead of “The Poor Man.”

Ha, ha. I kid 1975.