Marty Krofft, the savvy businessman who partnered together with his older brother Sid to amass an leisure empire fueled by such mind-blowing youngsters TV exhibits as The Banana Splits Journey Hour, H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Misplaced, died Saturday. He was 86.
Eight years youthful than Sid, Marty Krofft died Saturday in Los Angeles of kidney failure, his household introduced.
“There’s no one higher on this planet,” Sid mentioned of his brother in a 2000 interview for the Archive of American Tv web site. “I get a dream, and Marty will get it executed.”
The pair already have been well-known theatrical puppeteers once they have been recruited in 1968 to design the costumes for the live-action portion of NBC’s The Banana Splits Journey Hour.
Their 4 furry animal characters (Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky), members of a rock band, have been an on the spot hit on the Saturday morning present, which ran from Sept. 7, 1968, to Sept. 5, 1970 (and in near-perpetuity in reruns since then).
The subsequent yr, NBC requested them to create their very own Saturday morning youngsters present, and the brothers got here up with H.R. Pufnstuf, a couple of shipwrecked boy (Jimmy, performed by Jack Wild) who lands on a magical island. The title character, Pufnstuf, was a revamp of Luther, a pleasant dragon that two had created for a present on the 1968 HemisFair in San Antonio.
NBC wished a second season to observe the 17-episode first however provided solely a small improve on the rights price, already far beneath what it was costing the brothers to make the present, so that they declined. Pufnstuf got here to an finish in 1970 however lived on in reruns as effectively.
Pufnstuf‘s psychedelic units and costumes have been an enormous hit with faculty youngsters, and The Beatles requested for a full set of episode tapes to be despatched to them in England. The look of the present prompted many whispers that the brothers took medicine (pot for certain, possibly LSD as effectively?), one thing Marty denied.
“You possibly can’t do a present stoned,” he instructed The Hollywood Reporter in January 2016.
The Kroffts adopted Pufnstuf with The Bugaloos (1970-72), the Claymation collection Lidsville (1971-73), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973-75) and Land of the Misplaced (1974-76), which spawned an ill-fated Will Ferrell film adaptation launched in 2009. These exhibits have been wildly common in syndication as effectively.
“We screwed with each child’s thoughts,” Marty instructed THR. “There’s a Krofft look — the colours. There’s an edge. Disney doesn’t have an edge.”
Certainly, the Kroffts’ model was so common that McDonald’s copied it to create Mayor McCheese and McDonaldland for an early ’70s promoting marketing campaign. The Kroffts sued, successful a reported seven-figure settlement in 1977.
A yr earlier, the brothers opened The World of Sid & Marty Krofft theme park in downtown Atlanta’s new Omni Advanced (now CNN’s headquarters). Unfold over six ranges, it was billed because the world’s first vertical amusement park. About 600,000 guests got here throughout the recession-plagued ’70s, nevertheless it wasn’t sufficient to cowl the prices and curiosity funds, and the park closed after six months. (A lot of the financing for the $20 million park got here via loans from varied banks and investments from Lamar Hunt, the Ford Basis and others.)
Sid (left) and Marty Krofft obtained a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame in February 2020.
Courtesy of SID & MARTY KROFFT PICTURES ARCHIVE
Lengthy after different smaller youngsters producers like Hanna-Barbera had bought out to conglomerates, the Kroffts have been nonetheless growing exhibits because the final of the good Sixties independents. As late as 2015, that they had a success on Nickelodeon with Mutt & Stuff (one episode even featured a visitor look from Pufnstuf).
The Kroffts additionally developed quite a few live-action selection exhibits together with The Brady Bunch Hour, The Donny & Marie Present, The Bay Metropolis Rollers Present and Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters.
They produced one other youngsters present hosted by Richard Pryor, primarily based on his childhood, and their puppets toured with such acts as Judy Garland, Liberace, The Mills Brothers, Tony Martin & Cyd Charisse and Frank Sinatra.
Krofft was born in Montreal on April 9, 1937, and he and his household later lived in Maine, Rhode Island and the Bronx. For PR, the brothers appreciated to say that they got here from a protracted line of puppeteers going again many generations. In fact, the story was fabricated. Their father was a clock salesman who emigrated from Greece within the early 1900s.
“The Kroffts have been taking part in with dolls their entire lives,” Marty joked about their household’s curiosity in puppeteering. By the point he was 15, Sid was already working golf equipment in New York, and he would quickly be part of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
(That they had two different brothers; Hy died throughout preventing in World Conflict II, and Harry briefly labored for his or her firm earlier than going into actual property.)
Marty joined his brother full-time in 1958 after Sid’s assistant left, and so they opened Les Poupees de Paris, an adults-only burlesque puppet present that performed to sold-out crowds at a dinner theater within the San Fernando Valley.
“Les Poupees took us from an act, Sid’s act, to a enterprise,” Marty mentioned. Shirley MacLaine was there on opening evening, and Richard Nixon got here throughout his run for president.
Les Poupees went on the highway and performed world’s festivals in Seattle in 1962, New York in 1964 and San Antonio in 1968. It featured 240 puppets, largely topless girls, and Time journal known as it a “soiled puppet present.”
After that, it was so common, “we couldn’t even get our personal greatest buddies within the theater,” Sid mentioned. It drew an estimated 9.5 million viewers in its first decade of performances.
All this led to exhibits at Six Flags amusements parks across the U.S. — they employed greater than 100 puppeteers at one level — and appearances on TV, together with a daily gig on The Dean Martin Present (a refrain line of enticing lady puppets they created for the range program have been changed by real-life Golddiggers).
Marty is survived by brothers Harry and Sid; daughters Deanna (and her husband, Randy), Kristina and Kendra (Lou); grandchildren Taylor, Karson, Griffin, Georgia and Drake; and great-grandchild Maddox. He married Christa Rogalski in 1965, and she or he proceeded him in loss of life in 2013.
Donations in his title may be made to Marley’s Mutts.
Sid wrote to his followers on Instagram Saturday: I’m heartbroken over the lack of my child brother.
I actually know that each one of you meant the world to him. It’s YOU that made this all occur. Thanks for being there with us all these years. Love, Sid.”
