EXCLUSIVE! Wesley Eure of TV's "Land of the Lost" Comes Out

AE: Were you disappointed your scene was cut out?
WE: I was furious! [laughs] It was like, "How could you do that?" Put us in the credits or something! Do something silly, you know?

AE: You could always say you were one of the Sleestaks.
WE: That was exactly the original intention. During the credits they were going to have people taking Sleestak heads off and they were going to have the biggest stars in Hollywood, from Mel Gibson to Tom Cruise to whoever they could get. I was going to be one of the Sleestaks. But they had to reshoot the movie, so they spent so much money doing that, I think they ran out of time and money to do it.

The Sleestaks in the original series

I was very disappointed that we're not in it. It was very odd. It was odd being on the red carpet the other night at Grauman's Chinese. To do all that with them was sort of an odd feeling because it was like being at the party but not being part of the party. [laughs] I had to give my photo ID to get my ticket.

AE: Did they fly you out?
WE: No, no. We drove down.

AE: You drove down? Good lord!
WE: We drove in, we go to show my photo ID, then I had to go to the red carpet and tell them who I was, and then at the end of the evening I had to pay my $6 self parking fee. How the mighty have fallen! [laughs]

AE: Did you have a reserved seat at least?
WE: All the seats were reserved so it wasn't special. Everybody's seats were reserved.

AE: All right, I'm so not okay with this.
WE: [laughs] I must say it was an odd feeling. We did the TV Land Awards. They honored Sid and Marty Krofft, and they asked us to come. They called me, "Please, will you come. We know you don't do a lot of appearances." So I said, "Okay, I'll come." And they said, "Thank God, because Kathy is going to be there, and Phillip Paley who played Cha-Ka."

When we get to the red carpet, there's actually two red carpets. One goes in front of all the cameras and the paparazzi and the fans, then there's another red carpet that goes behind the set. They're trying to push me behind the set. And I was going, "Wait a minute! Something's weird here." I was with my friend Deanne Anders, I've known her from Days of Our Lives for years. She said, "Come on, we're doing the red carpet!" So she pulls me to the red carpet, and they go who are you? And I say, "We're from the original Land of the Lost." And they go, "Okay. Who are you?" [laughs]

Wesley and friend Deanne Anders (left) attend the TV Land Awards

We start walking down the red carpet, and they ask one of my friends, "Who was that?" He says, "Wesley Eure." So they announce, "Wesley Eure," and people are applauding and taking photos and thinking, "Who the heck are these people?" They're looking at me strangely.

This red carpet takes you to the green room at Universal Amphitheater, and they're looking at me in the green room like, "Who are you guys?" And we're like, "Wesley Eure." And they go, "Oh, okay. We'll be right back." My friend says, "We're getting kicked out of here." And sure enough, they come back, "I think we'll take you to your seats now." We go, "You're kicking us out, aren't you?" And he goes, "Oh, no!" I said, "You're kicking us out." He said, "We're kicking you out."

So we walk to the Universal Amphitheater, and in the middle and to the right going down to the stage there's all these tables with white tablecloths and flowers and food and everything, and on the left hand side at the top are the seats for the general audience that will fill up the place. And we go to go to our table, and they say, "Oh, you're on the other side." So we go to the other side and they go, "Nooo, you're at the top of the amphitheater."

AE: Oh, you're kidding!
WE: [I'm thinking] there's got to be some mistake, but sure enough, we're up there.