NEW YORK — Marty Krofft, a TV producer known for imaginative children’s shows like “HR Pufnstuf” and primetime hits like “Donny & Marie” died in Los Angeles in the 1970s, his publicist said. Krofft was 86.
He died Saturday of kidney failure, publicist Harlan Boll said.
Krofft and his brother Sid were puppeteers who broke into television and eventually earned stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Along the way, they brought a trippy sensibility to children’s television, bringing single siblings Donny and Marie Osmond and Barbara Mandrell and her sisters to primetime.
The Osmonds’ clean-cut variety show, which at the time featured television’s youngest-ever hosts, became an enduring piece of ’70s cultural memorabilia, rebooted in the 1990s as a daytime talk show and in 2010 as a Christmas show on Broadway. with “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters,” which focuses on the country star; it ran from 1980-82.
Like the Osmonds, ‘HR Pufnstuf’ proved to have staying power in pop culture. Despite only containing 17 episodes in total, the surreal show, featuring an island, a witch, a talking flute, a castaway and a red-haired dragon wearing cowboy boots, was ranked 27th in the 2007 TV Guide poll. of all-time cult favorites. .
More than 45 years after the show’s debut in 1969, the title character graced an episode of another Krofft brothers’ success, ‘Mutt & Stuff”, which ran for several seasons on Nickelodeon.
“To have another hit at this point in our lives, I have to pat ourselves on the back,” Marty Krofft told The Associated Press ahead of the episode’s taping in 2015.
Even then, he still struggled with another enduring feature of ‘HR Pufnstuf’: the speculation that it was a sign of some ’60s commitment to changing consciousness. Krofft dismissed that idea: “If we did the drugs everyone thought we did, we’d be dead today,” he said, adding, “You can’t work stoned.”
Krofft was born in Montreal on April 9, 1937 and was introduced to entertainment through puppetry. He and his brother Sid staged a risqué, cabaret-inspired puppet show in 1960 called “Les Poupées de Paris,” and its traveling success led to jobs creating puppet shows for amusement parks. The Kroffts eventually opened their own, the short-lived World of Sid & Marty Krofft, in Atlanta in the 1970s.
They first made their mark on television with ‘HR Pufnstuf’, which spawned the 1970 feature film ‘Pufnstuf’. Many more shows for different audiences followed, including “Land of the Lost”; “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl”; “Pryor’s Place,” with comedian Richard Pryor; and “DC Follies,” in which puppets offered a satirical take on politics and the news.
The pair was honored with a Daytime Emmy for Lifetime Achievement in 2018. Two years later they received their Walk of Fame star.
Sid Krofft said on Instagram that he was heartbroken by his younger brother’s death, telling fans, “You all meant the world to him.”
While other producers might have settled for their achievements much earlier, Marty Krofft indicated to The AP in 2015 that he had no interest in stepping back from show business.
“What am I supposed to do: retire, watch daytime TV, and be dead in a month?” he asked.