The Adventures of Eduardo Bueno: Lost In Space... in Brazil...

Growing up in Brazil, I liked to watch a very special TV show in the 60's called Lost in Space. The picture here is in color but I always watched it in black and white. We did not have a color TV until the mid 70's. I mean, the TV had a color, I think it was brown, but being a bit colorblind I can't really tell. Color TV did not arrive to Brazil until the beginning of the 70's because a military president of Brazil who was of German descent, Ernesto Geisel, brought it to Brazil when I was in junior high. He chose The PAL European color system insted of the NTS American system (of course just to tell the US his military regime did not care about any pressure from the Empire). It took a while to get a color TV because they were very expensive. I would walk to the Parque São Jorge State High School and would watch color TV through the windows of the stores along Avenida Celso Garcia, in São Paulo.

But going back to Lost in Space, I would not miss one episode. I imagined myself as Will Robinson of course in those incredible adventures in the planets they landed when they were able to go from one to another. But there were times they stayed a long time in one planet. I think they would run out of money for the stage and stuff but I would not think like that... I would concentrate on the weird and sometimes fun aliens they would find. I did not understand how Dr. Zachary Smith could be such a jerk. He would do stupid things and then would cry like a baby to get help. One day he was all silver, very powerful, and controlled an army of robots like the one they had, but in miniature.

But oh, how I wanted a robot like that, spitting deadly rays from the hook hands they made for him!!! Today I had a replica of that robot in my cubicle at work. Although I travel a lot, when I come back, I find my robot waiting for me in the office. My miniature robot says the basic:

"Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!"

"That does not compute!"

"Warning! Warning!"

OK... you may think that this is not my hand and that I got this picture in the internet somewhere, but here goes the whole pictures so you can see that I am indeed holding my robot in my cubicle. In fact I have a lot of toys on the shelf of my cubicle. People see it and it is difficult for them to think that I will ever get over my childhood... hehe.

This picture shows their traveling uniform. I sure would like to have one of those uniforms just like Will´s to travel in space. I don´t care that it looks like a silver pajama. One day my wife will come to the bedroom and see me wearing a pajama like that and will then understand that I have arrived to my mid age crisis... hehe. Her mom warned her but she would not listen...

But it was in that outfit that they would enter that "freezer" (cryogenic chamber) and travel very far in the flying saucer. The next picture is a scene of the show when they were about to take off. Don´t we all want to do that sometimes? The advantage of the cryogenic chamber is that we would not get old. It starts right there. Then there is the fact that you don´t have to pay bills anymore, and who knows what other things people would like to get if they could visit the stars.

There were some unforgettable episodes, like when they go back to Earth in the 50´s and Dr. Smith says he is from "Cachoeirinho do Sul" (I wonder who invented that translation to Portuguese... it was great!). I remember when they found an android woman who ended up crying and the space merchant was convinced to not disassemble her. He would hit his mouth with the palm of his hand, fix up his mustache and hit the shoes together before marching to his space transporter. The machines of the interstellar market were incredible. They were boxes with some cheap graphics but very convincent for people my age at the time. Lost in Space kept me in the air. There was a chocolate factory (Dizziolli) that made a promotion in which you could win a flying saucer just like Jupiter 2. I never bought any of those chocolates but I would go Mr. Alfredo´s grocery store and would look at them, take them in my hands, and "play" right there.

One day I invented a comic book that I used to make them myself, with 3 sheets of typewriter paper. I would fold them in the middle and sew them in the sewing machine that my mother had, thus making the magazine. I would put crosswords that I would create on my own, and a page for coloring, code words, and stories. I will put the whole magazine here later, but here goes some pages that I made with the story of Lost in Space the way I was able to draw back then of course.

You will see below page 1 of the story of Lost in Space in my actual hand made comic book. The way write the names is silly... hehe.. I am Eduardo Robin (I could not write Robinson because it would take too much space). Pay attention to the monster that ends this story written around 1966 then think of the monster Dr. Smith turned into in the 1996 version of the series in the big screen. I think is freaky that I got that close to what they envision the big problem of the Lost In Space movie would be. Here goes:

Click the image to see it closer.
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Here is how Dr. Smith ends up in the featured movie of 1996:

When my son turned one year old in 1986 the cake was in the form of Jupiter 2, the flying saucer of the Robinson family. I made a replica of the the thing, with the window and you could see the computers inside. The flying saucer was the box for the frozen cake my mother-in-law made. The pieces were wrapped in aluminum foil which made the party look very out of this world. I think that´s when I close the chapter of the flying saucer that was missing when I was little. Here is a picture of us on Danny's first birthday... Look closely at the Jupiter 2 on the alien planet table and the planets that were hanging from the ceiling. I still love the show. It is on its third season on Netflix in 2021. Thank you Netflix! It is simply fantastic!