Not much is known about writer Barney Slater. He was born on January 21, 1923, in Gastonia, North Carolina, and became a movie and television writer, becoming the screen writer for the 1952 motion picture, "It Grows on Trees," the last screen appearance of actress Irene Dunn. He wrote for a string of TV shows including "Lassie," "The Rifleman," "The Donna Reed Show," Gilligan's Island, "Time Tunnel," and "Mission Impossible." He wrote twenty-one episodes of "Lost in Space." Barney Slater died November 29, 1978 in Los Angeles, California.