Saturday, September 5, 2009

A Salute to Sid and Marty Krofft (Part 1)



From wikipedia:

Sid and Marty Krofft are a sibling team of television producers who were influential in children's television and variety show programs, particularly throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

They are largely known for a unique brand of ambitious fantasy programs, often featuring large-headed puppets, high-concept plots, and extensive use of low-budget special effects. The team also dominated the arena of celebrity music/variety programs during the period.


A fairly generic description to be sure but I think the key word is 'ambitious' in that their shows were always much more ambitious than their budgets would allow. Many of their shows actually creeped me out as a youngster (H.R. Pufnstuf and Lidsville).

These guys actually got their start on the Dean Martin Show (1965) and later designed the sets for one my all-time favorites, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. This was followed with a string of Saturday morning hits starting with H.R. Pufnstuf (1969) and ending with the Krofft Superstar Hour (1978).

They also created a few variety shows for prime-time including Donny and Marie (1976), The Brady Bunch Hour (1977) and Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters (1980) but this is the Saturday Morning Cartoon blog.

This week we will be highlighting their output from 1965-1974 and then next week we will finish it up (from 1975 to the present).


'Lost' Banana Splits Clips


H.R. Pufnstuf - Intro


The Bugaloos - Intro


Lidsville - Intro


Sigmund and the Sea Monsters - Intro


Land of the Lost - Intro



1 comment:

  1. I lived for Saturday morning when the Krofft Supershow would come on! However, Lidsville was just too bizarre even for me.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.