bermudas

THE BERMUDA SHORTS MYSTERY

The infamous Bermuda shorts made their first appearance in the first-season episode "There Were Giants in the Earth" (episode 4, original air date: 6 October 1965). They would remain a feature of Lost in Space throughout its duration. While B9 robot builders have no inherent interest in the Bermuda shorts, I found it very peculiar that the Bermuda shorts of the first season were so obviously dissimilar to the regular first-season legs.
Now look at these screen grabs of the robot wearing his Bermuda shorts.

Notice anything odd?

First, the top bellow of the rubber legs is drawn up over the waist plate. Second, the vertical crotch cleavage that is so emblematic of the first-season legs is absent. In this respect, the first-season Bermuda shorts foretell the second-season regular legs. As for the missing waist plate, I cannot imagine what the prop men and producers were thinking. Did they really think that no one would notice? Well, if they did, they were right. As a youth watching Lost in Space on a daily basis, I never noticed this garish and glaring inconsistency. Now, I cannot imagine how I never noticed it before.

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