H.R. Pufnstuf was the name of a childrens television series
produced by Sid and Marty Krofft. There were only seventeen
episodes of this show, which ran from 1969 to 1970, but it was so
successful that NBC kept it on the Saturday morning schedule for a
full three seasons.
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 leader
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 by
Freddy the "magic flute," which was another of the main characters.
Their nemesis was a wicked witch named Witchiepoo, played by Billie
Hayes, who rode on a broomstick with a steering wheel. 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 John Wayne.
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 never been legally available on home
video.
