Just a dream from yesterday

[austin_dern]

It's a dangerous thing under any circumstances to watch Sid and Marty Krofft shows. They're great children's programming, mind you, and often combine that exhilarating sense of adventure with densely packed whimsy and a surprisingly common storyline about people trying to find their home which it's hard for anyone to not feel some sympathy with. You can fault them -- other than Land of the Lost, which is surprisingly somber while staying adventurous -- for cornball humor and a weirdly over-applied laugh track and a tendency to include segments that look like they were rejected from an Alice in Wonderland fan fiction, but that's also part of the appeal. And there's a heavy reliance on some great voice actors and some pleasant character actors at a time they probably needed the work, and if the sets are goofy and cardboard at least that looks like a deliberate artistic choice and it matches the tapping-into-kids-playing aesthetic of many of the setups.

I'd been borrowing The World of Sid and Marty Krofft DVDs -- sample episodes from each of the shows -- from the library now and then, and today got to the first disc (which was checked out for the longest time). That's the one with H R Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, Lidsville (taking about Alice in Wonderland fan fiction, filtered through ... I'm not even sure whose perspective), and the somehow-escaping-a-plagiarism-suit-for-its-theme-songs Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. And that's what lead me for the first time since Super Retrovision Saturdays to Lidsville, which might be the quintessential Krofft show to watch as an adult and wonder how something like this could ever be made. Pufnstuf is too solidly grounded in plausibility to compete.

If you've forgotten the show, this is the one with the genial but bland kid trying to get back home from a bizarre land of living hats, ruled over by Charles Nelson Reilly as twisted mad magician Horatio J Hoodoo, who's aided by sidekick Raunchy Rabbit (I swear), the henchmen Playing Cards, and the occasional innovative uses of green-screens. In the episode on this sampler, Hoodoo has lost his magic powers to Raunchy Rabbit, and to get them back Hoodoo -- played by Reilley painted green -- decides his best approach to stealing them back is: a female rabbit!

So you have Charles Nelson Reilley, in green makeup, in a rabbit head-covering mask, wearing a full-body white leotard and ballerina skirt, overplaying a sort-of woman and oh, my, but I was not ready for that in this existence.

Trivia: The Swiss patent office granted ten patents on electric clocks in 1902. Source: Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps, Peter Galison.

Currently Reading: Biting The Sun, Tanith Lee.

Comments

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

I'm... sort of glad I haven't seen that.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

You missed something alarming in lycra and pink.

That...

[seawasp]

... is one of the shows that I saw in my misspent youth that has a terrifying habit of just popping back into my consciousness with its perky little theme song.

OTOH, the Krofft shows aren't complete without watching Bigfoot and Wildboy, Shazam, or Oh Mighty Isis.

Re: That...

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Weirdly enough, I didn't watch much of the Krofft shows when I was growing up other than Land of the Lost -- I was always disappointed by The Far-Out Space Nuts because of the implausibilities involved in using the lunar module as they did and don't think I'm not ashamed of that fact, and a show like The Lost Saucer was even more scientifically flawed -- but the Sigmund and the Sea Monsters closing jingle sticks in my head. It must have been immediately before Land of the Lost on my local stations.

The World Of Sid and Marty Krofft DVD set has a sample episode of Bigfoot and Wildboy, but not Shazam or Oh Mighty Isis that I remember.

[orv.livejournal.com]

As usual, The Onion is on the case with Area 36-Year-Old Still Has Occasional Lidsville Nightmare (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38817).

The existence of that show is perhaps the strongest argument against excessive marijuana consumption.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Thing is, the talking hats and weird settings and all that are just fine; that's just a fanciful setting and cheery fun. It's Hoodoo doing what Bugs Bunny used to do so effortlessly that's alarming.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I never did see Lidsville, or The Bugaloos, or even H.R.Pufnstuf, having somehow arrived at just the wrong time and channels on TV for such. I did however watch Sigmund.

My first encounter with the character of Raunchy Rabbit was actually someone playing him on FurryMUCK. Go fig.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

You missed a lot of really wild programming. The earlier the better, it's to be admitted. Just the range of settings is sparkling; it's like watching early Betty Boop cartoons, only in live action. I'm amazed it hasn't been turned into a polygon-rendered video game yet.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

but the pacing and the kitchy...!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Just because you can't believe you saw it doesn't men it didn't happen.