Krofft shouldn’t be an individual however an period. Though Sid Krofft’s life ended on April 10, 2026 (his youthful brother Marty having died some two and a half years earlier than him), and although his sensible profession as a puppeteer started not on Saturday morning TV however the Vaudeville stage, for any little one of the Seventies that phrase Krofft is a time-portal again to a shag carpet, inches away from the blurry colour RCA with a bowlful of King Vitaman in hand, watching The Bugaloos or Sigmund and the Sea Monsters—or, extra probably, the Citizen Kane of trippy child reveals, H.R. Pufnstuf.
His delivery identify was Cyrus Yolas. If he was keen to alter it, you may count on him to select one thing extra standard (supposedly his agent selected the identify and Sid added the additional f). However there was nothing standard about Sid Krofft.
He was nonetheless in his early teenagers when he began performing for Ringling Bros. Circus. At 28 he was opening for Judy Garland on the Las Vegas Flamingo (considered one of his Pufnstuf creations, Judy the Frog, was an affectionate if odd tribute to her).
His stints with Judy (and later Liberace, Sinatra, and Cyd Charisse) had been undoubtedly not for youths. He crafted horny marionettes that might do Rockettes-style kick traces, smoke cigarettes, and striptease. However they already confirmed the inventiveness—to not point out the outright wackadoo—that may later encourage the denizens of Lidsville and Dwelling Island.
Many sources date the beginning of Sid and Marty Krofft to their costume designs for Hanna-Barbera’s The Banana Splits. However it’s extra sophisticated than that. From topless puppets to Fleagle and Drooper shouldn’t be a simple profession pivot, and there have been just a few steps in between.
The primary Krofft Enterprises success was their risqué touring stage present Les Poupées de Paris, which concerned outright full-frontal puppetry. Billy Graham complained that “the ladies don’t put on bras,” failing to say that the bare breasts had been made from stuffed felt.
The Kroffts had been making financial institution nevertheless it wasn’t sufficient. Sid wished to go giant, and marionettes simply aren’t made for arenas. He lastly received his probability at HemisFair ’68, a world expo the place Krofft had two separate stage reveals working concurrently. The one for the daddies and mommies was the still-popular Poupées de Paris. Over within the Coca-Cola Pavilion was the kid-friendly Kaleidoscope.
From the surviving proof, it seems that Kaleidoscope was a puppet present like Buckingham Palace is a home. The present surrounded the viewers. Many of the puppets had been human-sized costumes with flapping mouths, a Krofft trademark. Some had been twenty ft tall.
The fog of historical past has woven fables round Kaleidoscope. Nonetheless, we all know the present featured a prince who’d been reworked right into a dragon, and surviving photographs reveal the unmistakable ancestry of one other dragon named Pufnstuf.
Sid was fond of claiming that “I get a dream and Marty will get it accomplished.” This appears like an ideal partnership, nevertheless it additionally explains why the brothers usually clashed on the set of H.R. Pufnstuf. Sid’s goals didn’t get accomplished low-cost. In line with an interview between Marty and FOG!’s founder and editor-in-geek Stefan Blitz, every episode value $100,000—practically one million in as we speak’s numbers—however NBC solely picked up half the tab.
And Pufnstuf was lavish.
When a present is ready in a spot referred to as Dwelling Island, both you ensure that all the things is alive or it’s essential name it one thing else. The soundstage was awash in characters: the finances for foam rubber will need to have been insane. It wasn’t simply that the homes and books and bushes all talked. It’s that Sid made certain each single considered one of them had their very own distinctive look and persona.
This isn’t to say that Sid didn’t take just a few shortcuts.
As he’d accomplished all through his profession, he primarily based many creations on celebrities. Pufnstuf’s West Wind and Lidsville’s Tex—actually an enormous ten-gallon hat—had John Wayne’s acquainted drawl. Different character voices aped Bela Lugosi, Mae West, Ed Wynn, and Frank Nelson, aka the “OOOOOOooooh” man from the Jack Benny Present.
Sadly, Sid’s cultural shorthand usually received out of hand. Mr. Chow and the East Wind had painful Charlie-Chan accents, and the Indian-themed characters stated “how” so much. The much less stated about Lidsville’s Pierre LeSewer, the higher.
Many of the caricatures weren’t offensive: they had been simply made to face out. The late Sixties had been a really loud period. Early Krofft reveals featured hippie bushes and motorcycle-riding grannies, homes that sneezed and large lollipops that offered sweet. Dwelling Island wasn’t simply well-populated, it was hallucinatory. You may perhaps see how the rumors began that “Pufnstuf” referred to greater than the title character’s form.
By the early Seventies, the Krofft “look” was so profitable that it needed to be defended in court docket: a decide agreed that McDonaldland seemed suspiciously Krofftlike. However even Picasso needed to get previous his Blue Interval, and later Krofft reveals had been extra human-centric. This was virtually actually additionally a cost-saving transfer.
Billy Barty and Johnny Whitaker from Sigmund and the Sea Monsters
The Bugaloos and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters minimized the puppets; Donny & Marie decreased them to cameos (sure: Sid and Marty created that present). Then there was Dr. Shrinker, the sadly short-lived Far Out Area Nuts (that includes a prematurely grey Bob Denver), and the topic of many a baby’s first imprecise stirrings, Electra Girl & Dyna Woman.
What is Sid Krofft with out Sid Krofft puppets? Much more than you may assume.
I appreciated the costumed characters—I had a toy Freddie the Flute that was nearly unplayable—however I saved my love for those with kind of human faces. The Kroffts clearly knew that puppets had been laborious to upstage, in order that they relied on stage performers: Jack Wild (nonetheless contemporary off the West Finish stage as Oliver!’s Clever Dodger); scrappy Billie Hayes, who received the function of Witchiepoo by leaping onto Marty Krofft’s desk and cackling; and Charles Nelson Reilly, whose inimitable sputtering and “hulllllll” chortle made him greater than any cartoon.
However then there have been additionally the tales. I don’t imply the writing: apart from Land of the Misplaced, which had scripts by Larry Niven and D.C. Fontana, many of the dialogue on any given Krofft present was absolute dreck. Marty Krofft stated he was in opposition to the chortle tracks, however I’m undecided how any little one might have noticed the jokes with out them.
However the tales—or I ought to say story, since they stored going again to the identical nicely—was one which any little one might establish with: the “stranger in an odd land” theme that gave Krofft reveals their surprising poignancy. The worlds they’ve landed in may be the kookiest or the kickiest, however Jimmy, Mark, and Sigmund simply wish to go house.
Because of this I give David Gerrold much less credit score than he usually receives (or takes) for Land of the Misplaced. In his telling, the Kroffts confirmed him a scrapbook of images from varied sci-fi motion pictures and advised him to give you a narrative. However then there’s that unmistakable Krofft homesickness: Marshall, Will, and Holly simply wishing their expedition had stayed routine.
Wesley Eure, Kathy Coleman, Phillip Paley and Spencer Milligan dwelling within the Land of The Misplaced.
It’s unusual for any present to speculate a lot money and inventive vitality to create a lovely and alluring world, solely to heart it on a personality who longs to depart that world. However I feel there’s a cause why, and I consider the reply is Sid Krofft.
Possibly I ought to say Cyrus Yolas. That little one disappeared the second Sid Krofft grew to become an expert puppeteer on the age of ten. By the point he was fifteen, he was billed as “Ringling Bros. youngest puppeteer.”
Sid cherished speaking about being the boy who actually ran away with the circus (he did say he was in all probability “too younger” to be performing in burlesque), so it’s honest to say he bore few scars into maturity. Even so: like so many younger stars, it’s a life he traded for his childhood. He might have been enthralled to be so younger and so beloved by cheering crowds when most children his age had been caught writing e-book studies, surrounded by unique animals and sequined performers, lit by candy-colored lights below the massive prime.
Or he may need been sick of the scent of elephant dung. He might have sometimes wished to go house.
There’s one other supply for Sid’s grand theme, and he opened for her eight reveals every week in Vegas. Simply as younger Cyrus Yolas grew to become Sid Krofft, Frances Gumm disappeared into Judy Garland at a young age. The Wizard of Oz—the movie that captured her wounded coronary heart, the one H.R. Pufnstuf was most frequently in comparison with—can be a couple of little one who lands in a Technicolor wonderland and simply needs to go house.
At each a type of Vegas reveals that Krofft opened for, Judy would shut by singing “Someplace Over the Rainbow.” Don’t inform me that didn’t have an effect. You don’t base a dancing frog on somebody you don’t love.
In contrast to Dorothy, Sid’s children by no means received house. The explanation for that’s prosaic: most Krofft reveals had been by no means renewed for a second season. It’s mind-blowing to contemplate that they solely filmed seventeen episodes of H.R. Pufnstuf and Lidsville, and each collection finales had been clip reveals.
On Lidsville, Butch Patrick finds himself trapped in a land populated by dwelling hat-people which is dominated by a crotchety magician
There’s something unmistakably unfinished about Sid Krofft’s work, and I don’t simply imply the cancellations. He solely created as a lot of his worlds as he wanted to. Backgrounds had been sketched in and roughly painted. Many pictures had been recycled, and others seem like they didn’t get a second take. The blocking largely consisted of actors shifting in packs or colliding and knocking one another over. The pupils of Pufnstuf’s googly eyes tended to get caught.
However there was one facet of Sid Krofft’s world that was by no means incomplete: absolutely the consideration he gave to the look of his costumed characters. They weren’t huggable like Jim Henson’s Muppets. They’d a far weirder magic. They had been plush and unthreatening however their bizarreness was the entire level. Marty put it bluntly: “We screwed with each child’s thoughts.”
Ever since Punch and Judy, puppets have excelled at terrifying the youngsters they’re purported to be entertaining.
Charles Nelson Reilly as Hoodoo (Lidsville) and Billie Hayes as Witchiepoo (H.R. Pufnstuf)
Whereas many adults have confessed to being scared by Witchiepoo and Hoodoo, I don’t know anybody who regrets it as we speak. We appreciated watching them plot and we cherished it when the plots had been foiled. The villains had been adults, many of the good guys had been carried out by little folks, and the little guys all the time received.
That’s why we love Sid Krofft. He dreamed huge. However he knew that the little guys ought to all the time win.
