H.R. Pufnstuf

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Image:Pufnstuf.jpgH.R. Pufnstuf was a children's television series in the United States produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. There were only seventeen episodes of this show, which ran from September 6, 1969 to September 4, 1971, but it was so successful that the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) kept it on the Saturday morning schedule for a full three seasons. American Broadcasting Company (ABC) carried repeats of the series for 2 more seasons: September 16, 1972 to September 1, 1974.

H.R. Pufnstuf introduced the Kroffts' most-used plot scenario, revolving around a boy ("Jimmy", played by Jack Wild) who had accidentally stumbled into an alternate fantasy world. The "Mayor" of the community of this world was a friendly dragon named H.R. Pufnstuf (played by Van Snowden and voiced by Lennie Weinrib, who also wrote the episodes). Jimmy had been lured to the island with his friend, Freddy the "magic flute", by a magic boat which promised adventures across the sea. The boat was actually owned and controlled by their nemesis, a wicked witch named Witchiepoo, played by Billie Hayes, who rode on a broomstick with a steering wheel called the "VroomBroom". Apart from Witchiepoo, all of the characters on Living Island were realized via large, cumbersome costumes or puppetry. Since everything on Living Island was alive - houses, castles, boats, grandfather clocks, candles, books, trees, mushrooms - virtually any part of any of the Living Island sets could become a character, usually voiced in a parody of a famous film star, such as Mae West, Edward G. Robinson or most notably John Wayne as "The West Wind".

The show's popularity in the psychedelic era of the 1960s led to the release of a movie based on the show, called Pufnstuf, in 1970. The film featured guest appearances by Mama Cass Elliott and Martha Raye. Both show and movie were notable for bright colors, fast edits, sped-up film, musical segments and pop-culture in-jokes, and appealed to young adults almost as much as children.

The seventeen episodes of the TV series are available in a DVD box set. The film has also been offered on VHS, now out-of-print.

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The show in pop culture

The show was the subject a successful lawsuit brought by the Kroffts against the fast food restaurant McDonald's, whose McDonaldland characters were found to have infringed the show's copyright. (Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions, Inc. v. McDonald's Corp., 562 F.2d 1157, decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.)

The show is now popular among drug users, who find the show's style heavily influenced by drugs.

One of the most notable parodies of H.R. Pufnstuf was "The Altered State Of Druggachusetts", a segment on the HBO comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David. The sketch is introduced by a description by "Sam and Criminy Kraffft" (Bob Odenkirk and David Cross), and the show features the characters nervous over the aspect of ordering a pizza, finding a telephone to use to order the pizza, and operating the telephone. The segment climaxes with "Professor Ellis D. Traills" (Tom Kenny) on a bad acid trip, tearing off his clothes, and being taken away to a van by a man in a tie-dyed shirt. The show is laced with other obvious drug puns and references, including the "Letsgit Highway", the "Canni-bus", and "Hallucino-Jenny".

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