Sid and Marty Krofft Must Die!!!

My daughter Maggie is 7. This is only important to the story as it explains why I would be commenting on children's television.

You see....in the last 6 months she's transitioned her TV from almost exclusively cartoons to more live action family faire. Handy Manny is now Hannah Montana (Not a great trade in my estimation). Anyway...one night at dinner, we began to talk about her TV shows and then the shows of my childhood.

Now...I'm 42, so my prime kid TV watching years were from 1972 until about 1980. I had already shared with her my love of Schoolhouse Rock, which has served her well in school. But when I really started digging into the shows I remembered, I realized we were completely screwed. So....with the magic of you tube.....I started checking some of them out.....holy shit, it was awful!!!

I mean....let's take a look at the flaming turds the networks put in front of us as kids.

Hong Kong Phooey - Let's see....a dog, who is also the janitor at a police station, who is also the fumbling, bumbling kung fu expert that solves crimes with the help of his genius pet cat. Throw in one of the worth theme songs of all time....and it's just truly amazing this this existed. Once I was old enough to know who Scatman Crothers was...I wondered if he needed the drug money that badly.

Jabberjaw - A futuristic world set underneath the ocean starring a great white shark that's channeling Curly from the Three Stooges. Oh...and he's also the drummer from a really bad 70's bubble gum band.

Josie in Outer Space - I'm actually a fan of the original Josie and the Pussycats. I mean, what red-blooded American boy would love three hot rocker girls. Throw is bad girl Alexandra....and it was an exciting time. Then they went into Outer Space......by some freak accident. Most of the story lines revolved around how much Sebastian the Cat hated Bleep....some extraterrestrial pet that shocking communicated by saying, Bleep. They really had to get the brain trust together on that one.

Help...it's the Hair Bear Bunch - Yes...that's right, Bears that came straight out of Haight Asbury, living in a zoo. But....they only pretend to live like bears.....they actually have a swinging bachelor pad complete with black lights. When they need to travel....no sweat, The jump on their invisible chopper, kick start it....and of they go...Easy Rider style.

I could go on and on. It's unbeievable that none of these shows could remotely survive the test of time. Even some of the better shows like Scooby Doo got destroyed by adding in celebrity guest stars. Please.....be honest....is having Sonny and Cher and the Globetrotters animatd really gonna kick up the ratings with your average 7 year old? And then two words....Scrappy Doo. 'nuff said.

I save my true hatred...and I'm talking about passionate loathing for two brothers. No...not the Brothers Grimm....we're talking about Sid and Marty Krofft. I don't think anyone ever made such a consistent string of festering, hot garbage as these two did. Please, please, please......go to youtube.com and check any of these out.

1968 - They designed the costumes and sets for that funny foresome.....The Banana Splits. Wasn't this enough to prevent these guys from getting lunch, let alone allowing them to produce a show? I mean....Bingo is an orange bear wearing 1950's 3D glasses with a tremendous overbite. Snorky.....what the hell is Snorky?

1969 - The magic begins...their first show they produced.......wait for it.....HR Puffinstuff. Mayor McCheese rescues a boy who like to play a magic flute. No drug references there. Throw in Witchiepoo (you can just see the amount of thought that went into charater names, dancing trees, singing frongs....wow. By the way....did you know Puffinstuff is a dragon? I didn't until I read it on wikipedia.....

1970 - The Bugaloos....Okay....I want to put together a British version of the Monkees. That's right four British Teens that play in a fake band. Great....got that. Now....their actually insects that live in Tranqulity Forrest......yes, they must fly and have antennae. And...it's 1970.....one of them has to fly riding a surfboard....Britian meets California. Okay...when does the album drop....

The two things that particular kill me about this show is that Martha Raye was in it....pre denture commercials. I hate when a telented actreess has to do crap like this. And a bit of trivia.....a finalist for the role of I.Q. (the other names being Harmony, Courage, and Joy), was Phil Collins. Since he didn't get the job...he went to his backup plan joining this avant gaurde art rock band - Genesis.

1971 - This one's the worst...I mean just wretched. Lidsville. Eddie Munster falls into a magician's hat and lands into a world of talking hats. I could make this shit up....Hats of to Billie Hayes who did such a good job as Witchiepoo....she was able to step right in as Weenie the Geenie. Ugh! Oh....did I mention all of the hats do bad impressions of celebrities. I just love the Judy Garland hat and the John Wayne hat.

1973 - We got to skip a year......but then. Sigmund the Sea Monster. It's okay though because Johnny and Scott are friends. While there is so much crap here to discuss...let's stick to a few points. Sigmunds brothers were named Slurp and Blurp...which was what my stomach was doing when I watched a couple of minutes of this. Mary Wickes was a regular.....so was Margaret Hamilton (the original Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz). After the first year....they needed help, I mean that's surprisiung...this was such a cutting edge show. They added Rip Taylor to the mix as...you guessed it, an undersea Genie. Oh....and the main plot was Sigmund got kicked out of his home for not scaring humans. Sounds amazingly like Casper the friendly ghost.....only with $4 foam rubber costumes.

1974 - Land of the Lost - Sleestaks.....need I say more. This was actually their most successful show lasting all of three seasons, although the guy playing the father was so embarrased, he bailed after two seasons. At least they didn't pull a Darren Stevens and came up with the innovative story line that he transposted back to Earth......but his brother shows up since he was looking for him. Lucky for the kids.....they could have become dinosaur chow.

1976 - The Lost Saucer. Gomer Pyle and the short ugly funny girl from Laugh In are futuristic robots......that inadvertantly kidnapp two kids and go on adventures in their flying saucer. And coming with them is the Dorse.....half dog, half horse, all stupid.

Would you believe these two guys have always denied being influenced by drugs.......really? I felt stoned just watching 10 minutes of this unadulterated fertilizer. After I showed a few of these gems to Maggie....she had a weird look of her face. I'm glad I didn't live back then Daddy she said. But can I watch Lidsville again....I can't believe how bad that is.

I guess I now know why they got produced in the first place......