TV Legend Sid Krofft Celebrates '55 Years of Weird' With H.R. Pufnstuf

By the time Sid Krofft was born in 1929, the Los Angeles Breakfast Club had already been holding their weekly shindigs for several years. The two institutions came together this morning for a sold-out show celebrating the TV legend. Sid and his late brother Marty Krofft created H.R. Pufnstuf , Sigmund and the Sea Monster and Land of the Lost , and dozens of TV shows, specials and even their own theme park starting in the 1960s. Today, Krofft connects with fans at conventions and on his weekly Instagram live show Sundays With Sid .

Krofft was interviewed by Los Angeles contributor Alison Martino who shared the stage with the nonagenarian Hollywood icon as he shared endless stories about Judy Garland, Liberace, Mae West and seemingly every outrageous star of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Krofft likes to say that he was in show business for 30 years before H.R. Pufnstuf hit the air. As a teenager, he toured with the circus, in vaudeville, and in burlesque as the “world’s youngest puppeteer” and sent his paycheck back home to his family.

In 1962, Sid and Marty launched Les Poupées de Paris , a bawdy adult puppet show at the hip club P.J.’s on the Sunset Strip and would go on to present the spectacle for millions of visitors to the Seattle, New York, and San Antonio World’s Fairs . Pufnstuf debuted on NBC in September of 1969, and the anniversary was celebrated at today’s show the title “55 Years of Weird.”

Krofft was joined onstage by a fan in a homemade Pufnstuf suit and Johnny Whitaker , who has been acting since the 1960s in iconic shows like Bewitched , Green Acres , and Bonanza before starring in Family Affair and the Krofft’s Sigmund and the Sea Monster .

Gen Xers hold the Krofft shows close to the heart as totems of childhood and art lovers laud them as far out psychedelia. Bob Odenkirk and David Cross parodied the duo on their 1990s series Mr. Show as Sam and Criminy Croffft in a sketch called The Altered State of Drugachusettes . The shows just keep getting stranger with age. Sid Krofft told the audience to embrace their weirdness and that when the whole world goes to the right, you should “Go left!”