Dr. Zachary Smith is alive and well and living in Arizona

[Thomas Veil]

This is going to be a rather silly topic, but...

Purely because I was bored out of my skull, I started Googling names of fictional people. For some reason, the first one that popped into my head was Dr. Zachary Smith, Colonel, USAF, saboteur of the Jupiter 2 mission on Lost in Space.

I was amused (to say the least) to find the number of real-life people who share that infamous name. They include, among others, an attorney, a speech and hearing grad student, and a horn player.

There's even a Dr. Zachary Smith who's an expert on environmental policy. (The fictional one was an expert in the field of "environmental control", whatever that is -- I still think this one's gotta be a gag!)

And this has to be some writer's tongue-in-cheek joke: there was a character named Zachary Smith on The Guiding Light.

Makes you wonder how many real-life J. R. Ewings, Carl Kolchaks and Archie Bunkers might be out there.

 

[Chuckles]

That's hilarious! I own the original Lost in Space episodes on DVD. Very entertaining when bored. Smith is such a boob, though. I'd feel bad if I had that name.

 

[Doctor Q]

Based on ages, might any of those Zachary Smiths be named after the Lost in Space character?

 

[Blue Velvet]

Never fear, Smith is here.

I used to love that programme when I was little.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Based on ages, might any of those Zachary Smiths be named after the Lost in Space character?

Yeah, a few of them...but that's one of the things I find puzzling. Why would you give your kid the same name as the character? Depending on what part of the series we're talking about, he was either a would-be assassin or an effeminate, bumbling fool.

 

[3rdpath]

I used to work with his wife...she was quite nice. He, on the other hand, was every bit the diva you'd expect.

Still, he was one of the best TV characters of my childhood.

As a bit of trivia, when I worked with his wife, the man who ran the company, Don Sullivan, had been the star of one of the most hilariously bad teen monster flicks of the fifties-"The Giant Gila Monster". If you want to see a deliciously cring-worthy movie-check it out. The MST3000 version is also wonderful.

 

[Thomas Veil]

He, on the other hand, was every bit the diva you'd expect.

Oh, I believe that. According to some articles I've read, it was Jonathan Harris who suggested to producer Irwin Allen that they make the character "lovable and funny" instead of evil, the way he started out.

Allen, to his discredit, went along with it. I don't know if it was Harris' influence or others' that pushed the plots into outright fantasy and the main characters into the background, but again, from what I've read, he was something of a prima donna.

 

[Nermal]

I used to love that programme when I was little.

I remember being blown away when it finally went into colour!

 

[Dr. Smith]

why this is preposterous!

I will not have it! I was 10-11 when lost in Space was on. I'm sure my parents didn't watch it so even had i been born later it would not have mattered. Dad was a college professor - as were my uncles - so I knew then that someday I would be Dr. Zachary Smith. Fortunately no one under 50 gets it.