E-mail a friendSid & Marty Krofft
airdate May 20, 2005
Sid and Marty Krofft can be called the kings of live action children's TV programming. From H.R. Pufnstuff and Land of the Lost, to The Bugaloos and D.C. Follies, they've taken chances and broken new ground. The legendary sibling production team first worked together doing puppetry as Judy Garland's opening act in Vegas. Not only are their shows imaginative and fascinating entertainment, they are complex stories that don't talk down to kids - a break from the cartoon format for many Generation Xers.
Sid & Marty Krofft
Tavis: I am pleased to welcome the legendary producing duo Sid and Marty Krofft to this program. The prolific pair have created a slew of similar shows like 'Land of the Lost,' 'H.R. Pufnstuf,' 'Lidsville,' and my favorite 'The Banana Splits.'
Singer: H.R. Pufnstuf, he's your friend when things get rough, H.R. Pufnstuf, can't do a little 'cause he can't do enough...
Singer: To the Land of the Lost...
Marshall: Let's get the fly swatter.
Singer: Electra Woman and DynaGirl...
Lori: And you need Electra Woman and DynaGirl.
Singer: Each works for a magazine, hiding the life she leads...
Tavis: Heh! Mr. Krofft, Mr. Krofft, nice to have you both here.
Sid Krofft: It's great to be here. I'm a huge fan of yours.
Tavis: Oh, please! I'm a huge fan of yours. It's like a mutual admiration society. I grew up every year, every weekend...
Marty Krofft: I want to tell you, though, that effect that we did on 'The Land of the Lost' with the spear, we were over budget. That's how low-tech it was.
Tavis: Since you mentioned over budget, I read somewhere that when you guys first got started, NBC--was it NBC--gave you like a million dollars to produce--
Marty: 'Land of the Lost.'
Tavis: 'Land of the Lost,' and you guys went a million dollars over budget.
Marty: Right. And if it wasn't for the Six Flags Parks that we were the creative heads of--and we had the puppet shows in all 3 parks. So we prayed to be on television, then we prayed to get out of it. We didn't think it was gonna be this--but it was good because we're probably the only independent left that owns all our shows. We never could leverage them because, you know, it's not like owning stocks and bonds, but, you know, if you live long enough, I always said with Sid, "We have to be alive 5 minutes before the miracle happens." Now we gotta be alive 5 minutes after.
Tavis: Ha ha ha! Take me back to those early days. You guys actually started as puppeteers.
Marty: Right.
Tavis: How does one start in the puppeteer business?
Sid: Well, you know, we're actually fifth-generation puppeteers and--
Marty: So we've played with dolls for all our lives.
Sid: And it's 68 years ago that I started, and--
Marty: It was 4 years ago that I started.
Sid: And I started just doing a puppet act, and I toured with Judy Garland and Liberace and Frank Sinatra and--
Marty: And the Andrew Sisters.
Sid: The Andrew Sisters. I was the opening act and toured all over the world. Played the Lido in Paris.
Marty: Now you know he's my older brother. He sleeps in the refrigerator. He looks good.
Sid: Don't get too carried away.
Tavis: I can see how this--ha ha ha! I can see how this creative team actually works well together.
Marty: Well, this is easy. It's not easy.
Tavis: Take me back to when you guys did get into television. What was the mandate? What was the opportunity for you then with regard--with children's programming?
Marty: Well, the opportunity came actually through the banana splits that Hanna-Barbera were creating, but they didn't know how to do these banana splits. They didn't know how to design them or make them. So Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna came to our office one day, and we were at that time building all the rides and the shows at Six Flag Parks, and so NBC ultimately came through our factory. We call it the Show Business Factory in the valley, in Sun Valley, and then Larry White, who was the head of NBC programming at the time said, "Hey, you did this. Why don't you create your own character?" So that year we were at Hemisfair in Texas. It was in San Antonio. It was the world's fair. So Coca-Cola was our sponsor for a show called 'Kaleidoscope,' and we had a character in there called Luther who wound up being Pufnstuf. So they came to us and they said, "Hey, do your own show. You now did the banana splits." So that's how it all started. It started just by a fluke.
Sid: And we used to put character--people inside of characters even before Walt Disney put Mickey Mouse in a suit. So that's why Hanna-Barbera came to us because we knew how to do that.
Marty: Now, that's how old my brother is.
Tavis: Yeah, I was about to say. I was trying to be nice. I'm laughing. If you knew Hanna and Barbera, you've been around a while.
Marty: Yeah, we've been around a while.
Tavis: Tell me--let me just throw some of these titles at you because I know all of us who grew up watching this stuff are just fascinated, I'm sure, to hear some stories behind these characters. I mentioned--let me start since I'm hosting the show. We'll start with 'The Banana Splits.' Tell me something about 'The Banana Splits' that I just don't know.
Marty: Let's see. Well, when they walked out the door they paid us $100,000 to create all the stuff and build it, and I said to Sid, "They just took all--how did we give this to them?" We didn't know what we were up for. That's why I always say, "If you want to give God a good laugh, tell him what your plans are."
Tavis: Yeah! Ha ha ha!
Marty: So I didn't know at the time, you know--do you have a story then?
Sid: Well, no, that is the story, and--
Tavis: They walked out with everything.
Sid: Well, I'm a runner, and I run 9 miles a day, and Marty gave me the running orders to come up with something for NBC, and that weekend I came up with the beginning of 'H.R. Pufnstuf,' and on Monday I went into our art department and gave them all my thoughts, and all our artists started drawing all the characters.
Tavis: And I'm afraid to ask, but where did the idea for 'Pufnstuf' come from?
Marty: Well, you know, everybody thinks, you know, every time we do a radio interview, the question always is, "How many drugs did you take?" I say, "if we did as many drugs as they said we did, we'd be dead today." Maybe the kids were doing drugs, but we weren't. But, you know, the 'Pufnstuf' story is that we would've never gotten on if there wasn't a plane crash. The head of programming was in a plane crash years earlier, so he never, ever took a plane. So when we did the development on 'Pufnstuf', I found him at the Union Station checking in. I was looking for his car to give him the development because I figured if he's on the train for 3 days he's gonna have no phones. There were no cell phones then, and sure enough on Monday he called us and he said, "You got it."
Sid: Well, what was really interesting, we never, ever did a pilot. We used to do this incredible presentation book with all the characters--
Tavis: Wait, wait, wait. You only get through--unless Hollywood was different then, you don't get but 3 minutes to make a presentation.
Marty: Right.
Sid: No, they were fascinated with us because even when NBC came--
Marty: This is for prime time. Saturday morning, they were a little bit--they give you 6 minutes.
Tavis: They give you 6 minutes, OK. Ha ha ha!
Sid: Well, even when we did 'Donny and Marie' and 'Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters,' I mean, we got an order right away.
Dolly Parton: Oh, hi, Dolly. What have you got in there, your sisters?
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