Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Far Out Space Nuts: "Birds of a Feather" (October 30, 1975)

In “Birds of a Feather,” alien bird men -- the Vultrons -- require a lower species as slaves. They want two of the dumbest "lowest species” they have ever seen to guard their ruler, Falco’s, sovereign egg, which is due to hatch.

The Bird men settle quickly on Junior (Bob Denver) and Barney (Chuck McCann) as their choice for slaves, and take them back to their mountain kingdom.  There, Junior and Barney must sit on the giant incubating egg, and they end up playing tic-tac-toe on its shell.  They are also told to guard the eggs with their lives.

Two bird-man insurrectionists, including Eaglon, however, plan to mislay the egg in the communal incubator, so that Falco has no rightful heir, and they can rule the kingdom in his place.

Junior and Barney outwit them, however, and watch in joy as their egg ward is born safely. After donning bird wings, they fly home to their lander, and with Honk (Patty Mahoney) launch into space to the next adventure.

This week on Sid and Marty Krofft’s Far Out Space Nuts (1975), Junior and Barney are again captured by malevolent aliens who, by crazy circumstances, need them for some important job.  In this case, they are to witness “the birth of royalty,” and care for a bird-man’s giant egg.

Naturally, things go awry, though in this case the space nuts are actually underestimated. By playing tic-tac-toe on the egg’s shell, Junior and Barney have marked it for later recovery, foiling the plan of the insurrectionists.

The bird man costumes used in this week's installment are pretty cheap-jack and terrible, and some questions of believability also crop up. For instance, where and how do Junior and Barney end up with bird wings to escape their life of slavery?

Since the Bird Men actually have biological wings, why would they have spare bird wings stored in their headquarters for easy access? Perhaps so their slaves can fly?   

But of course, if the slaves can fly, they can get away; they can fly the coop, so-to-speak, and leave the mountain.

Also, most episodes of Far Out Space Nuts so far do a great job of keeping Honk in the loop. Sometimes, the diminutive creature even comes to the rescue, since the alien is undoubtedly the smarted individual in the trio of “space nuts.”  

Here, however, he witnesses the kidnapping of Junior and Barney, but doesn’t do anything to attempt to find, follow, or rescue them. He just shows up at the end of the episode, relieved to see them.

Next week: "Dangerous Game."