We Love The Kroffts.

The greatest TV producers ever, Sid & Marty Krofft, are back in the news today in a special column in the LA Times. Jim worked with them on two series and says they're both batshit crazy. But then, that's why we loved their shows!

Sid and Marty Krofft are still pulling the strings

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THEIR HEYDAY: Sid, left, and Marty Krofft with Jack Wild, the young star of “H.R. Pufnstuf,” which premiered in 1969. The show’s premise — a child stumbles upon a hidden fantasy world — turned into a winning formula for the Kroffts, who also created “Lidsville” and “Land of the Lost.” There’s a new appetite for their low-budget shows.

Nearly 40 years after the psychedelic splash of 'H.R. Pufnstuf,' the bickering puppeteers believe their time has finally come.

By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 26, 2008

Hollywood is often described as a dream factory, but really it's just as often a salvage yard. Anxious studio executives would rather bet their $100-million budgets on nostalgia than on new ideas, which is why, against all odds, Sid and Marty Krofft are back in business.

The Krofft brothers, both now in their 70s, have a showbiz story that dates back to the final days of vaudeville. But for children of the Nixon years, their name is the brand behind some of the era's strangest TV programming: shows such as "H.R. Pufnstuf," "Lidsville," "Land of the Lost" and "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters."

Those low-budget shows had rubber-costumed actors, fluorescent puppets and psychedelic sets that were by the 1980s hopelessly dated; and by the end of that decade, the same could be said of the Kroffts.

Today, though, thanks to the Hollywood appetite for all things kitschy and high-concept, the Kroffts are poised for the biggest payday of their career -- unless, of course, they strangle each other first.

"Things did get lean, but we never gave up," said Sid, 78, the smiling, soft-spoken dreamer of the two.

His brother, sitting next to him at their Studio City office, rolled his eyes. "We? I wouldn't let you give up," snapped Marty, still the deal maker at 71. "I wouldn't let us sell the rights to our old shows. That is why we are where we are today."

Read the rest here. Registration required on LA Times site.