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Originally launched in 1969, H.R. Pufnstuf lasted for only a single season–but it left its imprint on the minds of millions of youngsters in an era when "Saturday morning TV shows" were a genre unto themselves. Sure, there were plenty of cartoons to choose from back then: Scooby-Doo, Hong Kong Phooey, The Harlem Globetrotters, Star Trek, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. But no matter their charms, they all looked alike–that same stiff, can’t-afford-facial-expressions animation in the generic Hanna-Barbera mold. No, if you wanted something really wild, something far-out, you’d groove to the mind-blowing worlds of H.R. Pufnstuf (which was always being repeated) or one its later relatives: The Bugaloos, in which a group of English pop singers with wings flew around foiling the nefarious plans of Benita Bizarre (Martha Raye); Lidsville, about a boy who got stuck in a community of giant talking hats under the control of the really mean magician Hoo Doo (Charles Nelson Reilly); Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, wherein a cast-off sea monster was adopted by a couple of boys; and, most memorable of all, Land of the Lost, in which semi-nuclear family Marshall, Will, and Holly found themselves in a prehistoric parallel dimension populated by dinosaurs and nasty Sleestaks.

All of these shows were live-action, not cartoons, and they all shared a bizarre sensibility of wild visuals and high imagination. If you were any kind of Saturday morning TV show fan, you knew all these shows also had something else in common: the flashing logo of Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions. Krofft was a name that meant something to a kid–it promised a world unlike any to be found on the other TV shows. In retrospect, people today are struck by the Krofft shows’ psychedelic scenery, the head-trip dialogue, and the stoner connotations of names like "Pufnstuf" and "Lidsville." Surely, most people assume with a grin, Sid and Marty had to have been doing drugs.

"Well…I don’t want to kill the illusion," says a hesitant Marty Krofft from his Krofft Productions office in Sherman Oaks, Calif. "But I don’t remember being drugged while we were doing this. I should have been drugged, though–I probably would have spent less money."

Marty’s often recognized as the "business brother" to Sid’s role as the "creative brother," so it’s no wonder that the bottom line comes to his mind more readily than evil mushrooms. The Kroffts often spent much of their income on producing their shows, especially with H.R. Pufnstuf–a show that made their name, but also left them nearly broke after one season when they spent twice as much on each episode as they were allotted.

"Money was never the goal," says Krofft. "The goal was to do right by what we were doing, and we put everything into it. We always went into production looking at the old Busby Berkeley stuff, all the big musicals, stuff that had a lot of production involved with it. So I think it’s a miracle we didn’t go bankrupt doing these shows. They [the networks] never gave us enough money to do them."

Fortunately, the brothers had a steady income from a network of puppet shows they created for amusement parks, which helped subsidize the television productions. Before becoming TV producers, the Kroffts were actually world-famous puppeteers–fifth generation masters of the artform. While Sid had been trained since childhood to carry on the family tradition, performing at such venues as Follies Bergere and The Ed Sullivan Show, Marty joined him years later after teaching himself the ropes. In 1968, big-time cartoon company Hanna-Barbera (home of The Flintstones and The Jetsons) asked the Kroffts to design some costumes for a new live action show it was developing, The Banana Splits. Soon after that success, NBC gave the brothers their big break to come up with a show of their own. The only stumbling block: they’d never produced a TV show before.

"We got the show, and I sent my secretary over to one of the big book stores to buy a book on how to produce a TV show," says Krofft. "We were learning on the job. But I brought the first episode to NBC in New York on 35mm and it was an immediate flip-out. They all loved it. It had two levels: you always talk to the adults, and never talk down to the kids. That first show, we were off and running. Seventeen episodes, which is all I got, ran five years on two networks, every Saturday. And they were like 8 and 10 ratings. Today that would be like the top 20 in prime time."

For the next 10 or 12 years, the Krofft brothers owned the minds of young viewers with a succession of live action shows, including science fiction fare like Far Out Space Nuts (Bob "Gilligan" Denver and Chuck McCann get lost in outer space after accidentally confusing the "launch" and "lunch" buttons of a NASA rocket) and The Lost Saucer (robots Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi accidentally time warp out with some human stowaways and must try to return them to Earth). Their Saturday morning TV empire reached an apex of sorts with The Krofft Supershow, which ran 90 minutes with the serialized adventures of ElectraWoman and Dynagirl, Dr. Shrinker, Wonderbug, Bigfoot and Wildboy, and Magic Mongo. It was almost more entertainment than a kid could absorb, all of it highlighted with "high tech" special effects and catchy rock theme songs.

Some of these shows barely lasted a season, yet they remain in the memories of many twenty- and thirtysomethings as icons of childhood. For Jeff Reid, a 35-year-old home health care technician, a chance rediscovery of The Bugaloos when it was being rebroadcast on the Family Channel a few years ago inspired him to create his own tribute web site to all things Bugaloo. One of his strongest memories from the show is the episode "where I.Q. was tied face down on an operating table, and the villains were going to cut off his wings. It was almost more chilling than my 7-year-old mind could handle!" So why did he teach himself HTML in order to memorialize such childhood horror? Beyond his adolescent crush on pixie-cute Joy (played by Caroline Ellis), there is the unique and still unduplicated flavor of Krofft shows.

"Not only are they different from the shows today, they were different from the shows back then!" says Reid. "The Kroffts were coming from a place that was entirely unique–their background in puppetry. Puppets on television were usually in the Howdy Doody or Kukla, Fran and Ollie mold, where the puppets and the host would sort of stand there and trade quips. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another show that mixed live actors and puppets in quite that way."

Likewise, for 32-year-old web producer/writer George Balen, Land of the Lost (the longest-lived Krofft show, with 43 episodes) became more than just a memory–his www.landofthelost.com is one of the better Krofft tribute pages, becoming a touchstone for fellow fans.

"I think Krofft shows remain a cult favorite for the same reason old toys remain in huge demand by thirtysomethings: they are an E-ticket back to your childhood," says Balen. "All those adult freedoms and responsibilities we wished for as kids all seem to vanish when you throw in a Krofft videotape and watch all your old pals on the screen romp around for 22 minutes. You forget about the overdue bills, the car payment, and the meeting you have tomorrow at work. For those 22 minutes, you are six years old again, inhaling Honeycomb cereal and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your Saturday. No bills, no responsibilities, no worries in the world–that is what watching Krofft shows does for me."

The Krofft time warp is a common theme for now-grown fans who devote uncommon attention to keeping the shows alive. Lawrence Latouf, a 28-year-old software engineer, was so haunted by Hoo Doo’s evil chortle ("In the mid-’80s–when Krofft shows were all but extinct–it was Hoo Doo’s laugh that kept driving me to remember those old shows.") he wrote the Krofft FAQ, which is available online at his web site, www.krofft.net. Even more importantly, he’s introduced his own kids to Krofft shows.

"My children love Sigmund and Pufnstuf, and it’s great to sit and watch it with them," says Latouf. "As an adult, I think that a lot of them are pretty silly, but better than most of the live action stuff for kids today. Live action shows for kids today are less magical. They’ve turned into half-hour toy commercials, and it appears that little if no effort is put into the actual show."

Next: Fall of an Empire!

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