TV by the Decade :: September 1•7

Sid and Marty Krofft Productions

We begin our second season of TV By the Decade with a few new shows rolling out, some that had short runs but have gone on to become classics, and others not so much. But as the official kick-off to the new season hasn’t taken place yet, most of the new shows this week are Saturday morning programs. Let’s take a look!  

1959

• No new series premiered this week in 1959.

1969

• September 6 — Children’s television series H.R. Pufnstuf debuts on NBC. Produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, this was their second live-action, life-sized puppet program after The Banana Splits. The show introduced what would become the Kroffts’ most used scenarios: the good vs evil fairy tale, and the stranger in a strange land. The show starred Jack Wild as Jimmy, a boy with a talking magic flute named Freddy, who is shipwrecked on Living Island. His boat was actually lured there by WItchiepoo who planned to keep him and the flute prisoners for her own purposes. The mayor of the island, the anthropomorphic dragon named H.R. Pufnstuf found out about the plan and was able to rescue Jimmy, taking him to a cave for protection from Witchiepoo, the only place where her magic didn’t work. Since everything on the island was alive, virtually any object from a house to a mushroom could be a character. During the course of the series, Witchiepoo and her henchmen Orson Vulture, Seymour Spider and Stupid Bat attempted to capture Jimmy only to be thwarted by Pufnstuf and friends. Billie Hayes played Witchiepoo, the only other human character on the show. The series developed from the Kroffts’ Kaleidoscope presentation at the 1969 World’s Fair. There the Pufnstuf character was named Luther. Jack Wild won the role of Jimmy after Sid’s friend Lionel Bart asaked him to view a rough cut of the film adaptation of the musical Oliver!. Only one other actress auditioned for Witchiepoo: Penny Marshall, but it was felt she was not right for the part. Billie Hayes was given the role on the spot after breaking into a maniacal cackle and hopping on a desk. Only 17 episodes were produced which aired through December 27, 1969. The show was successful enough that NBC kept rerunning the show until August 1972. ABC picked up reruns of the show from September 2, 1972 to September 8, 1973. The show was also part of a syndication package, Krofft Superstars which ran from 1978 to 1985. The show found a new home on cable’s TV Land in 1999 as part of the ‘Super Retrovision Saturdaze’ bloc, and again in 2004 as part of the ‘TV Land Kitschen’ weekend late-night programming bloc. MeTV aired the show from 2014-2016. The show was ranked Number 22 in 2004 in TV Guide’s Top Cult Series Ever, and again in 2007 at Number 27. The continued popularity of the series led to the production of a feature film with Wild and Hayes reprising their roles, along with newcomers Cass Elliott as Witch Hazel, Martha Raye as Boss Witch, Billy Barty as Googy Gopher and Orville Pelican, and Jane Dulo as Miss Flick. Raye became so beloved by everyone involved with the film that she was given the role of Benita Bizarre on the Kroffts’ upcoming show The Bugaloos.
• September 6 — Animated series Here Comes the Grump debuts on NBC. The series was produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, best well known for its Pink Panther cartoons. The main character was a grumpy wizard who put a spell of gloom on the kingdom of Princess Dawn. The princess and her friend Terry Dexter, a boy from the ‘real’ world, attempted to break the spell while the Grump tried to stop them while flying on his dragon Dingo. The Grump was based on the Yosemite Sam character, which was also created by Friz Freleng. The dragon was also similar to Sam’s in the Warner Bros. short ‘Knighty Knight Bugs’. The voice cast included Rip Taylor (The Grump), Jay North (Terry), Avery Schreiber, Marvin Miller and June Foray. Like H.R. Pufnstuf, only 17 episodes were produced, containing two ten-minute shorts giving a total of 34 separate cartoons, with the last original airing on December 27, 1969. NBC aired reruns until December 28, 1970. The Sci-Fi Channel reran the series in the mid-1990s as part of its Cartoon Quest bloc. The only known merchandise for the show was a Halloween costume produced by the Ben Cooper Costume Company in 1969. A DVD of the complete series was released in 2006 but is currently out of print.

1979

• September 1 — Animated series Rickety Rocket premieres on ABC as part of The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show. The series focused on four African-American teens and their makeshift, sentient, talking rocket who run the Far Out Detective Agency and solve mysteries. The show was produced by Ruby-Spears Animation and produced 16 episodes which ended on January 1, 1980. Comedian and actor Johnny Brown voiced the character of Splashdown.

1989

• September 4 — Live action/animated series The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! debuts in syndication. The series was produced by DIC Enterprises and Saban Entertainment and distributed by Viacom. The series was based on the Nintendo games ‘Super Mario Bros.’ and ‘Super Mario Bros. 2’ and was the first of three series based upon the video game series. Each episode consisted of live-action segments with Lou Albano as Mario and Danny Wells as Luigi with a special guest, with the remainder of the program consisting of animated stories with Albano and Wells providing the voices for their characters. Every Friday, the show was accompanied by the animated serial The Legend of Zelda which was also based on a popular Nintendo video game. 52 episodes were produced which aired until December 1, 1989. Reruns of the series ran in syndication until September 6, 1991, then The Family Channel picked it up until August 26, 1994. Guest stars on the series included Nedra Volz, Norman Fell, Donna Douglas, Eve Plumb, Vanna White, Lyle Alzado, Kaye Ballard, Brian Bonsell, Melanie Chartoff, Patrick Dempsey, Elvira, Nicole Eggert, Ernie Hudson, Cyndi Lauper, Danica McKellar, Sgt. Slaughter, Moon Zappa and Magic Johnson. Albano and Wells occasionally appeared as additional characters related to Mario and Luigi, and Maurice LaMarche appeared as a live-action version of Inspector Gadget before eventually voicing the character in Inspector gadget’s Last Case and Gadget & the Gadgetinis.(

1999

• September 4 — Pro-wrestling series WWF Jakked / WWF Metal debut in syndication. Both shows aired weekly on Saturdays, replacing WWF Shotgun Saturday Night. Jakked aired on Saturday nights and Metal aired in the afternoon. Both shows featured matches from the week’s events including undercard matches taped before Raw is War. As part of the WWE Brand Extension, from April 2002 until the discontinuation of both shows in May of that year, each also began to feature matches from the SmackDown brand. 193 episodes were produced with the series ending on May 19, 2002.
• September 9 — Early morning news program Early Today premieres on NBC, a replacement for NBC News at Sunrise which NBC cancelled in April 1999 as part of a shakeup of the network’s early morning and daytime schedule which also included the launch of the short-lived talk show Later Today and the cancellation of long-running soap Another World. The title had previously been used by another NBC News program that aired from 1982-83 with the hosts of the Today show at the time, Jane Pauley, Bryant Gumble and Willard Scott. The new program was produced out of the CNBC facilities in Fort Lee, NJ focusing on business and financial news but switched to a general news program in 2004, relocating to the MSNBC headquarters in Secaucus, NJ. In September 2007, the MSNBC operations moved to NBC’s headquarters at 30 Rockerfeller Plaza. On June 29, 2009, Early Today became the first early morning news program to begin broadcasting in high definition. The show debuted with host Nanette Hansen who stayed with the show until 2004. The current on-air personalities are meteorologist Bill Karins (who joined in 2007), Frances Rivera (2014-2015, 2016-present), and Phillip Mena (2017-present).

2009

• September 1 — Docuseries Surviving Disaster premieres on Spike TV. The series was hosted by former Navy SEAL Cade Courtley and featured simulations of real life disaster situations and worst-case scenarios and what viewers can do to survive them. In addition to Courtley, the show usually featured five individuals set into the disaster scenarios with Courtley giving advice on how to survive. Sometimes two or more scenarious are portrayed within the same disaster with Courtley participating in each with the group. Occasionally an individual would not listen to Courtley’s advice, making a rash decision that made surviving the event more difficult. Ten episodes were produced and the series ended on November 10, 2009.

 
Did you or do you watch any of these show? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!