>“We screwed with every kid’s mind,” Marty told THR. “There’s a Krofft look — the colors. There’s an edge. Disney doesn’t have an edge.”

That is true. I barely remember the puppet shows, but H.R. Pufnstuf had a
appealing, weird tone to it that nothing else on Saturday morning had.
Land of the Lost was riveting. Usually, on kids' shows, the enemy or
villain isn't actually scary because they're so over-the-top buffoonish.
The sleestak, though, were scary. When the Marshalls went into the Lost
City, I was uncomfortable for both them and myself.
I also enjoyed the Will Ferrell film very much. I thought it was
respectful to the show I enjoyed as a kid while also taking it in a
different, fun direction.

David Carson

I only met (and only once) one of the Krofft brothers, but did indirectly work for both, and for a couple summers.

First, in 1975, while performing as one of only three people in the entire USA manning their affiliated "Aniforms" operation (me at Six Flags Over Mid-America, the other two guys at the Texas and Georgia Six Flags parks respectively).

Then again in Summer 1976, home from Boston University at Six Flags again, when I finagled my way into a gig as a puppeteer for a stage show the Kroffts produced for the (then-) three Six Flags installations. Though I'd heard the company appreciated my Aniforms via-video-screen entertainment work in 1975, I nonetheless had to go down to NYC from Boston for an audition in March.

There, in a 6th-floor Manhattan office about a quarter-mile west of the United Nations, I had what was surely the briefest audition of my showbiz career: the Krofft organization manager sitting behind the desk instructed me to pick up a blue, fuzzy Elmo-like mechanical puppet and synchronize it with whatever words I wanted to put in the contraption's mouth. Can't remember what words I said for the blueish* puppet, but I remember how long it was before he declared: "That's great; you can handle it"...so that summer I was in my first stage show all summer back in the exurbs of St. Louis. Its duration was even shorter than the 30-second audition in 1982 for Metro Traffic Control which made me a freeway reporter on radio in Los Angeles.

I never met surviving Krofft brother Sid, but DID run into younger brother Marty Krofft when I was down in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex just days after I returned via train to St. Louis for summer break from BU. Upon return, I had all but immediately driven down to Texas (with a couple other devotees not averse to traveling across the country merely to witness The Neverending Tour**) to catch my sixth Rolling Thunder Revue performance (those first five were up in New England in October and November 1975, but of course I wanted to catch at least one performance of the RTR's southern swing, which vocally was RADICALLY different than what happened musically onstage back east). In particular, the show we caught was on Sunday, May 16, 1976 gig at the Tarrant County Convention Center. (As you might imagine, I was delighted to see portions of that earnestly-rendered concert selected by Columbia Records to end up on Mr. Inscrutable's "Hard Rain" live album, and then its ENTIRETY preserved on the double-disc "Hold the Fort (For What It's Worth)", one of the most widely-distributed bootleg albums in rock history..)

But before that, I visited Six Flags Over Texas on Saturday, May 15th, and was in their office (being cleared for park access as a Six Flags employee) when one of the managers said, "Hey, you're in luck, Bryan, [given that a fortnight later I'd be starting in the Krofft's stage show up in Missouri], Marty Krofft is in town this weekend, and in fact inside the park right now--I'll go find him for you!"

And he did: I ended up spending an hour with the celebrated children's TV mogul, first just walking about the expansive theme park, and then watching a rehearsal of the SFOT version of their show in which I'd soon be performing, out in the empty bleachers with him sitting to my left. Krofft mentioned he had heard about my audition in NYC--else I doubt he would have afforded me more than an obligatory handshake and "Good luck up in St. Louis." Instead, we spent over an hour walking the park. Krofft was visibly delighted when I told him this: during Summer 1975 (while awaiting the Aniforms tele-system to be fully installed at three of SFOM-A's ride queue-houses), I had spent a month as part of the Six Flags "Shows" division portraying a popular Krofft creation, Mr. Big.

Mr. Big was a huge yellow, human-like gangster-style hat, wherein I rendered my best Edward G. Robinson impression while occupying the giant-cigar-chomping, costumed character, walking about SFOM-A (accompanied by, as all Six Flags costumed characters were, by an attractive girl, Mr. Big's "Keeper") while glad-handing Slx Flags visitors young and old. (You may remember that Krofft Brothers character from the TV show "Lidsville", IF you were into Saturday morning network TV in the '70s; I wasn't. (But every kid, most of whom tried to grab my cigar, knew EXACTLY who Mr. Big was.) All told, I found the late Krofft a quite personable and engaging fellow, and hope I made a similar impression on him that afternoon.

Unfortunately, neither Krofft brother made it to the St. Louis area that summer to supervise any of the 694 performances I did (ten shows a day, six days per week) of "Star-Studded Tunes on the American Scene" [or some such title] through my final show on Friday night, August 27, 1976.

Portions of that wacky and colorful musical show were risky; I almost fell from near the top (25+ feet) whilst scaling mid-show the ladder to the gangway above four Fridays prior, on July 30th in performance #455 or so. When hustling up the ladder to make my next soundtrack-cue (just seconds away up on the gangway), left-handed me lost my left grip, ONLY to be saved by a lightning-fast grab of a rung by my life-saving right hand; NO WAY I would have survived*** that plunge onto the concrete backstage floor.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
===================* One of my favorite jokes in "Yellow Submarine" was an allusion to that old observation about The Chosen People, when a Blue Meanie asked one of the animated Beatles (Ringo I think, but maybe not): "Are you BLUEISH? You don't LOOK blueish!"
** Though back then the STILL-ongoing NET [tonight his tour coach trundles into Richmond, Virginia, playing the Altria Theatre] was a dozen years prior to its official, Tuesday, June 7, 1988 kickoff in the SF Bay Area...which I also would be on-scene for. (Natch!)
*** And thus y'all were nearly spared EVERY ONE of my seldom-appreciated, ever-annoying postings hereto! Unlucky for you folks, but MORE than lucky for me--downright death-defying.

This CNBC obit linked below of the late Marty Krofft is pretty well written (which of course is unusual for a cable-news outlet).

Too bad there's no citation of their Saturday-morning-TV production "Lidsville", much less any mention of my whimsical "pal", Mr. Big.

This weekend I was startled to learn the Kroffts were behind--among their many other successes--the "Donny & Marie" variety show. And that's MY bad, and a HUGE one...as I make it a point to watch EVERY opening or closing credit of EVERYTHING I watch (and have ever since childhood), inasmuch one can learn a LOT from those seldom-scrutinized credits. Yet FOR YEARS I had COMPLETELY SPACED in retaining the Kroffts' connection thereto, even though I'm sure I read it at least dozens of times. (And I can't even blame my egregious lapse on those illicit drugs the Krofft brothers (somewhat) convincingly deny using, as little ol' nerd me only first got high in May 1977, the month I graduated Boston University.)

As it happened, I ALSO ran into Donny Osmond once, while working as a local TV news writer for WGN/Chicago in 1999; he was visiting our station to promote the upcoming "Don Osmond Show" which WGN would soon being airing. (He was waiting for some WGN handler to fetch him from the lobby.) I spotted him while heading out to my car following my 2-10 am shift on the WGN's morning news. I didn't talk with the talented singer at length, but he seemed every bit as genial in person as he ALWAYS did on television. But I did have time to relate (to his utter delight, visibly) this anecdote from my days as an ever-earnest class clown (in Mrs. Edith Hall's English literature course at suburban St. Louis's Lindbergh High School in December 1971):

Another talkative guy over on the left side of the classroom had been recurrently turning around to hit on some girl behind him, while I was (for once!) keeping my mouth shut at a desk on the far right of the classroom. Eventually, the ever-stern, bespectacled (and rather bulldog-like both in appearance and demeanor) Mrs. Hall shoutingly rebuked him, "Quit turning AROUND, you yo-yo !!" To which, flawlessly on cue, I melodically chimed in immediately with a falsetto Donny impression, voicing the refrain of that recent Osmonds bubble-gum AM radio hit: "Just like a YO-yo-oh-oh!"

Darned near every student ROARED, even though I suspect few of the other kids were (as I was) fans of those much-maligned recording artists The Osmonds. (Sure wish I would routinely have garnered such bringing-the-house-down reactions whilst serving as open-mike night MC at The Laugh Factory on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood* 1987-89, though I DID manage to nail a few such impromptu gags.)

I also had time with Osmond in the WGN lobby to inquire this: "Oh, and what's the deal with your shift from Donny to Don**, Mr. Osmond?" "Well, I just figured it was time to finally update my act, now that I'll be sitting behind a talk-show desk," was his chuckling reply. Osmond is also taller than I expected him to be***...but of course in my mind, he was in 1999 still young Donny, fronting his hearing**** back-up brothers.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
-------------------------------------
* The REAL Hollywood, that is--not that other, lovely (but phony-baloney) Hollywood, a ritzy beach community down in Miami.
** A short-lived shift, however; a couple years after his syndicated talk show's short run, he reverted to Donny Osmond again.
*** Most famous folk this inveterate celebrity hound meets are noticeably taller (OR shorter) than I expect, proof that TV is a great leveler of all those on-camera.
**** Many folks don't remember there were also (and still ARE, I hope) two older Osmond Brothers--who are each, sadly, afflicted with deafness, and thus never part of their onstage act.
==================https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/26/marty-krofft-of-producing-pair-that-put-hr-pufnstuf-and-the-osmonds-on-tv-dies-at-86.html

radioacti...@gmail.com <radioactiveseattle@gmail.com> wrote:
> I only met (and only once) one of the Krofft brothers, but did indirectly work for both, and for a couple summers.
>
> First, in 1975, while performing as one of only three people in the entire USA manning their affiliated "Aniforms" operation (me at Six Flags Over Mid-America, the other two guys at the Texas and Georgia Six Flags parks respectively).
>
> Then again in Summer 1976, home from Boston University at Six Flags again, when I finagled my way into a gig as a puppeteer for a stage show the Kroffts produced for the (then-) three Six Flags installations. Though I'd heard the company appreciated my Aniforms via-video-screen entertainment work in 1975, I nonetheless had to go down to NYC from Boston for an audition in March.
>
> There, in a 6th-floor Manhattan office about a quarter-mile west of the United Nations, I had what was surely the briefest audition of my showbiz career: the Krofft organization manager sitting behind the desk instructed me to pick up a blue, fuzzy Elmo-like mechanical puppet and synchronize it with whatever words I wanted to put in the contraption's mouth. Can't remember what words I said for the blueish* puppet, but I remember how long it was before he declared: "That's great; you can handle it"...so that summer I was in my first stage show all summer back in the exurbs of St. Louis. Its duration was even shorter than the 30-second audition in 1982 for Metro Traffic Control which made me a freeway reporter on radio in Los Angeles.
>
> I never met surviving Krofft brother Sid, but DID run into younger brother Marty Krofft when I was down in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex just days after I returned via train to St. Louis for summer break from BU. Upon return, I had all but immediately driven down to Texas (with a couple other devotees not averse to traveling across the country merely to witness The Neverending Tour**) to catch my sixth Rolling Thunder Revue performance (those first five were up in New England in October and November 1975, but of course I wanted to catch at least one performance of the RTR's southern swing, which vocally was RADICALLY different than what happened musically onstage back east). In particular, the show we caught was on Sunday, May 16, 1976 gig at the Tarrant County Convention Center. (As you might imagine, I was delighted to see portions of that earnestly-rendered concert selected by Columbia Records to end up on Mr. Inscrutable's "Hard Rain" live album, and then its ENTIRETY preserved on the double-disc "Hold the Fort (For What It's Worth)", one of the most widely-distributed bootleg albums in rock history.)
>
> But before that, I visited Six Flags Over Texas on Saturday, May 15th, and
> was in their office (being cleared for park access as a Six Flags employee)
> when one of the managers said, "Hey, you're in luck, Bryan, [given that a

At this point,weren't you still the REE-yul BREE-un STEE-bul?

> fortnight later I'd be starting in the Krofft's stage show up in Missouri],
> Marty Krofft is in town this weekend, and in fact inside the park right
> now--I'll go find him for you!"
>
> And he did: I ended up spending an hour with the celebrated children's TV mogul, first just walking about the expansive theme park, and then watching a rehearsal of the SFOT version of their show in which I'd soon be performing, out in the empty bleachers with him sitting to my left. Krofft mentioned he had heard about my audition in NYC--else I doubt he would have afforded me more than an obligatory handshake and "Good luck up in St. Louis." Instead, we spent over an hour walking the park. Krofft was visibly delighted when I told him this: during Summer 1975 (while awaiting the Aniforms tele-system to be fully installed at three of SFOM-A's ride queue-houses), I had spent a month as part of the Six Flags "Shows" division portraying a popular Krofft creation, Mr. Big.
>
> Mr. Big was a huge yellow, human-like gangster-style hat, wherein I rendered my best Edward G. Robinson impression while occupying the giant-cigar-chomping, costumed character, walking about SFOM-A (accompanied by, as all Six Flags costumed characters were, by an attractive girl, Mr. Big's "Keeper") while glad-handing Slx Flags visitors young and old. (You may remember that Krofft Brothers character from the TV show "Lidsville", IF you were into Saturday morning network TV in the '70s; I wasn't. (But every kid, most of whom tried to grab my cigar, knew EXACTLY who Mr. Big was.) All told, I found the late Krofft a quite personable and engaging fellow, and hope I made a similar impression on him that afternoon.
>
> Unfortunately, neither Krofft brother made it to the St. Louis area that summer to supervise any of the 694 performances I did (ten shows a day, six days per week) of "Star-Studded Tunes on the American Scene" [or some such title] through my final show on Friday night, August 27, 1976.
>
> Portions of that wacky and colorful musical show were risky; I almost fell from near the top (25+ feet) whilst scaling mid-show the ladder to the gangway above four Fridays prior, on July 30th in performance #455 or so. When hustling up the ladder to make my next soundtrack-cue (just seconds away up on the gangway), left-handed me lost my left grip, ONLY to be saved by a lightning-fast grab of a rung by my life-saving right hand; NO WAY I would have survived*** that plunge onto the concrete backstage floor.
>
> BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
> ====================
> * One of my favorite jokes in "Yellow Submarine" was an allusion to that old
> observation about The Chosen People, when a Blue Meanie asked one of the
> animated Beatles (Ringo I think, but maybe not): "Are you BLUEISH? You
> don't LOOK blueish!"

If it was Santo,he would have responded "I'm Blue-ISH!"

> ** Though back then the STILL-ongoing NET [tonight his tour coach trundles into Richmond, Virginia, playing the Altria Theatre] was a dozen years prior to its official, Tuesday, June 7, 1988 kickoff in the SF Bay Area...which I also would be on-scene for. (Natch!)
> *** And thus y'all were nearly spared EVERY ONE of my seldom-appreciated, ever-annoying postings hereto! Unlucky for you folks, but MORE than lucky for me--downright death-defying.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.