H.R Pufnstuf

My mother bought dvds of this show when I was around 6-7 years old in the early 2000s. I was a smart child, but did not understand this show. Wtf were they thinking? Even the name is a cliche. Any other memories?

it was "weird-a-rama" along with Hatsville!..... give me "ISIS" and the 2 "daddies "from the shazam morning show any day!..

Loved it then for kid reasons, love it now for eldergay reasons. How it got on TV back then is beyond me, but so glad it did.

R1, Don’t you mean “Lidsville?”

How is “H.R. Pufnstuf” a cliche?

Way too childish even for me as a child. And yes it was a cliche

OP does not know what the word "cliche" means and it will prove to be impossible to teach him.

R6 Exactly, nothing about it was cliche. It was unapologetically rife with drug references.

Which was the one that starred Martha Raye?

They wrote the shows while hallucinating. Seriously, I read this somewhere years ago. In the same article it said that the song " Go Ask Alice" was about how inappropriate these shows where for their target audience. Works for me! I blame them for my heavy drug use during my teen years and my weed addiction. 😁

R3... R1 here, i stand corrected yes, lidsville, not hatsville...

The song’s title is White Rabbit, not Go Ask Alice.

R1, that’s alright. I’m just surprised anyone remembers that show at all!

It featured a teenaged Butch Patrick, i.e the boy who played Eddie Munster, and of course, the inimitable Charles Nelson Reilly. The opening credits alone were like a bad acid trip.

R13-- Sorry, lol! Of course it is. I have always associated the song with the book and movie. I was very young when I read that book and it upset me . It affected me for a long time.

R8, Martha Raye was in The Bugaloos. Billie Hayes was in Pufnstuf & Lidsville

The 70s were a great time to grow up. All the TV people were stoned. Created great children’s TV.

I think it's funny that all our kids shows in the early 70's were totally psychedelic. I've always wondered if that had any effect on our generation. I was just thinking of Lidsville the other day - that was a great, entertaining show.

i think we watched this right before bowling league on Saturday mornings

R18-- I think we were very lucky as well. Wouldn't trade times with any other generation.

🎶🎶 One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small. And the ones that mother gives you, don't do anything atall........ 🎶🎶

[quote] The 70s were a great time to grow up. All the TV people were stoned. Created great children’s TV.

Except Sid and Marty Kroftt were not stoned. They have explained that many times.

You weren't supposed to get it as a child OP. Neither were your parents for that matter.

I'm sure THEY weren't R21--doubt it tho-but everyone else involved had to be.

That show was insane and creepy. I was very young when it was broadcast and remember being wildly perplexed by this show with (what I thought was) Donny Osmond and Mayor McCheese.

Proof of the pudding is in how young kids today react to it. My nieces and nephews all loved it-post 2004. Pure fantasy for them. Good vs bad. Stop reading things into it.

Watching it as a young child, Jack Wild and his magic flute gave me a funny feeling in my tummy.

I always thought it was stupid when I was little...I don't think I ever made it through an entire episode. The only things that kept my attention were Witchie-Poo, and Jack, who I had a gayling crush on. The theme song was fun, though.

I own most of the Krofft series on DVD (all the ones that are available). I've even imported a few from Australia that were not released stateside. Most of them are tough to get through for an adult, even if you're watching for nostalgia sake. The exception is The Bugaloos. You can fast forward through the drippy songs that the Bugaloos sing, but the stories are tight and fun and Martha Raye is a campy hoot and knows exactly how to play it, which is more difficult than you might think. Charles Nelson Reilly tries in Lidsville and never quite hits it. Rip Taylor fails miserably in Sigmund & The Sea Monsters. Maybe it's a woman thing, because Billie Hayes is great as Witchiepoo in Pufnstuf. Or maybe the writing on The Bugaloos is just a hair better.

[quote] Martha Raye was in The Bugaloos

Just don't imply she uses condoms!

i vaguely remember on the "bungaloos" the handsome dark haired character always getting captured and brainwashed and in other homoerotic situations/storylines?...

totally forgot about sigmund and the sea monsters! laugh!

what about the banana splits adventure hour that would from time to time show the short "movie like" scenes with the young gorgeous jan michael vincent!!

anyone remember watching johnn sokko and his flying robot!?.. and ultraman?!..

The magic flute creeped me the fuck out as a kid because it was alive, and to play it Jack would have had to put its creepy face in his mouth. I’m not making some kind of lame dirty joke, I really thought that at seven and it deeply disturbed me.

When I was about 3 or 4, The Banana Splits were making an appearance at a Toys R Us in my city. My mother and aunt took my cousins and me to see them. We got there very early and we were running around the store like banshees, looking at all the toys. My cousin and I were running down one aisle, chasing each other. We rounded the corner and nearly smacked right into the Banana Splits, who I guess were coming out of the back room to start their appearance. They froze. We froze. We looked up at them (they were enormous to a small kid) and we both screamed our heads off and burst into tears. We were terrified and had to be taken out of the store by our mothers who were none too pleased at our behavior.

Martha Raye was in the HR Pufnstuf movie. You can see her in this clip with the wonderful Cass Elliot.

I had a crush on Jack Wild. I was about 12 I think.

Surprised Martha was involved in a show so obviously drug-inspired; she was a very right-wing Repuglican.

PPM's "Puff the Magic Dragon" was also drug-influenced.

R26 it’s so odd to me that Americans seem mostly to know Jack Wild only from PUFNSTUF, and from the film MELODY (lovely film—apparently and regrettably a hit everywhere else but the U.K.).

In England, he is obviously codified forever as the most famous iconic version of Dodger in OLIVER!. Personally, I know him best from other Dickensian adaptations for television notably the 1976 BBC OUR MUTUAL FRIEND (also with Jane Seymour and Lesley Dunlop) in which he played Charlie Wrexham; the BBC Schools miniseries EVERYDAY MATHS (with Arthur English) in which he played a very cute and normal lad with a normal nice life for a change, and; the mad experimental 70s musical film ALICJA, which is...difficult to synopsise to say the least. People also forget he played a very small but funny part in Costner’s all-star ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES as Much the Miller’s son, though sadly he was looking rather worse for wear healthwise by that point in time.

He was very charismatic, and probably one of the best child/teen actors ever to come out of England.

I love how epically long the theme songs for those shows were. I guess it filled out the running time and kept costs down.

I remember being BITTERLY disappointed by the theatrical movie of H.R. PUFNSTUF. I was anticipating it like nobody's business. I just remember it being like a soft reboot (not that that term was in my vocabulary back then) which sort of erased the TV show. And the tone was off somehow.

My favorite HR Pufnstuf episode is the one where they are directing a movie with Witchiepoo.

MAKEUP!!!!!!

Sid & Marty Krofft reflect on their career when they got the lifetime achievement award at the Daytime Emmys a few years ago.

R42, and I was just on her wikipedia page 2 hours ago and she was still alive. Maybe this thread did kill her.

OP. Your mom bought the DVDs for herself. Not you. Out of nostalgia, for her own childhood.

You'll do the same thing one day when you bookmark Spongebob Squarepants in your Netflix Queue.

OP never said his mother bought them for him.

[quote] OP never said his mother bought them for him.

He also lied about his age. He wrote his op using his internet age. His story is fiction.

R38, "Oliver!" is one of my favorite movies.

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