Sid Kroft has died

Cafe Society
1

Sid and Marty Kroft were responsible for some of the weirdest, most imaginative kids shows in the 1970’s. Their creativity still influences programs today.

2

Land of the Lost was a strangely good show. Amazing the special effects we use to put up with.

96 is one hell of a run.

3

H.R. Pufnstuf was arguably the weirdest and trippiest children’s show ever to air on mainstream TV (even measured against Pee-wee’s Playhouse). Even weirder was the fact that McDonald’s chose that show to rip-off in creating their McDonaldland series of commercials, for which they were successfully sued by the Krofts.

4

I enjoyed a lot of the Krofft shows when I was a kid, especially Land of the Lost and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. They got a lot of bang for their buck - minimal, cheap special effects, but often compelling stories.

Also have a vague memory of a nightmare I had from LotL. A few years ago I was watching some episodes online and saw the very scene from my dream, which was the tyrannosaur peering into the cave Marshall, Will and Holly lived in (from their POV) . This was probably just a cheap puppet, but it struck me as really menacing and scary when I was little.

The Krofft brothers did some really interesting work. It was a good time to be a kid.

5

I remember shows like Pufnstuf, Sigmund the Seamonster, Bugaloos, Land of the Lost, and Lidsville, but I think they reached their apogee with the multi-feature Krofft Supershow. Particularly Doctor Shrinker and Wonderbug.

Didn’t watch Electra-woman and Dyna-Girl because that was for GIRLS. I mean, if you’re going to watch a show like that you may as well watch shows featuring phrases like “zephyr winds which blow on high, lift me now so I can fly”

6

Anyone remember Lidsville? I was a big H.R. Pufnstuf fan as a kid of 5 or 6, and Lidsville was a follow-up to HRP. Charles Nelson Reilly played the ‘Witchiepoo’ style bad guy in a town populated by large sentient talking hats. There must have been a lot of Marijuana (or something stronger) consumed in the writers’ room for those shows.

ETA: Curses, ninja’d by Cardigan