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Here you go - from TV Cream, no less. I remember seeing it, at some point.
THE LOST ISLANDS (mid '70s?)
KIDDY CASTAWAY serial (see also Children's Island, The New People, and frankly for too many other sub-Lord Of The Flies efforts) With a memorable Gilligan-like theme song which went something like this - "There once was a wealthy man who had a wonderful idea/ To bring children from all places with all kinds of faces/ Together into a sailing ship there were 40 boys and girls/ They sailed their ship around the globe and they called it 'The United World'/ The ship was just three weeks from shore when the hurricane bore down/ The waves were big as mountains, they thought they would surely drown/ They jumped into a lifeboat and got blown away from the wreck/ They didn't count them they hadn't time - five children were left behind [...] David, Mark & Tony, Anna & Su-Yin/ Are left there on the island, who knows what could begin/Adventure lies before them, danger lies behind/ But as they go on searching what new troubles will they find?" The rest of the lyrics were about the children landing on the island and being watched from the undergrowth. The island was run by a strange (possibly supernatural) leader who was knowingly keeping the (mainly Australian) peasants in an artificially mediaeval world. Some crazy glowing seaweed kept the thing always carried around in a kind of sedan chair thing (was that the leader?)
TV CREAM immortality rating - (four eyes)
...SCHOOL HOLIDAY FODDER, SIMILAR IN FORMAT (AND IMMENSE LENGTH) TO THE ADVENTRUES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE - DID IT EVER END?
It sounds to me like the bastards that inflicted Secret Valley (theme tune including memorable lines about "come share my Secret Valley with me" to the tune of "Waltzing Matilda") on me during my childhood had seen this thing.
Hmm. More info on The Lost Islands: from here.
THE LOST ISLANDS
Australia / Ten Network-South Pacific Films - Paramount TV / 26x30m-e / 1975
Creator: Michael Lawrence, Roger Mirams / Producer: Roger Mirams / Directors: Rick Birch, Bill Hughes, Peter Maxwell, Howard Rubie
Adventure series. A group of kids from all over the world (as part of an experiment by a millionaire to create a united nations) are travelling aboard a ship called the United World, following a terrible storm four of the children find themselves marooned on the strange lost islands. Three early episodes were cobbled together to make a theatrical release at the end of 1975.
With:- TONY HUGHES as Tony / JANE VALLIS as Anna / CHRIS BENAUD as Mark / ROBERT EDGINGTON as David / AMANDA MA as Su Ying / RODNEY BELL as Aaron James Quinn / MICHAEL HOWARD as Jason Quinn / MARGARET NELSON as Helen Margaret Quinn / RON HADDRICK as The Q / RON BLANCHARD as Quell / WILLIE FENNELL as Jeremiah Quizzell / FRANK GALLACHER as Quig / AILEEN BRITTON as Widow Martha Quack |
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