Lidsville

They recently had a special on the e-channel about Sid and Marty Croft and the wonderfully imaginative shows they made like Pufnstuff. They were very original and creative and made wonderful shows for kids and I sure remember this one. Butch Patrick, Eddie on the Munsters, plays a boy named Mark who falls into a magician's hat into a land of talking hats. Its like The Wizard Of Oz on LSD thats the best way to describe it. Charles Nelson Reilly stole the show as a wizard named Hoodoo. He was hilariously hammy. Billie Burke was also very good on this show. It was good clean kids entertainment, how much of that do you see anymore? They ought to consider making this one into a full-length feature like they did with Harry Potter. With special effects the way they are today it would be a blast! I can just picture Jim Carrey or Robin Williams as Hoodoo.

"Lidsville" is the story of Mark ("The Munsters' " Butch Patrick) who is budding magician. After seeing the magician Hoodoo (Charles Nelson Reilly), Mark sneaks backstage to see if Hoodoo has real magic or not. He touches Hoodoo's magic hat, which suddenly grows to enormous size. Looking into the hat, Mark falls inside -- and into a secret dimension called Lidsville, where everyone is a giant, talking hat.

Mark has Hoodoo's magic wand, which Hoodoo wants back or he can't continue to work his magic. But only Hoodoo knows the secret of how to get out of the hat and back to the real world.

Hoodoo, his talking vulture pal Orson, and a host of other baddies routinely try to destroy the town of Lidsville and its oversized fedoral inhabitants -- while Jimmy saves the day every time.

For kids, "Lidsville" was a great show. (The theme song, quoted above, stick in my head 35 years later!) Charles Nelson Reilly was the perfect wacky, green-faced magician with red hair. As a seven year old, I lived every week to see him fly in his gigantic, flattened top-hat with Orson. His laugh, his goofiness, and his campy evilness thrilled me. Mark seemed too goody-two-shoes to me, and the inhabitants of Lidsville were too clumsy and inanimate to really do much. Every show was really about Mark, learning cooperation and friendship in order to beat the schemes of silly Hoodoo. Probably the worst episodes had Mark almost getting out of Lidsville, because at the last second he'd be forced back into the alterna-dimension and I'd feel horrible for him. But the other shows were wonderful.

Along with "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters," "H.R. Pufnstuff" and "Super Friends," this is how I spent my childhood's Saturday mornings.

For all the yeas and nays that I have read about this kids' show from the early seventies (I was six when it came out), I really liked this program as the Sid and Marty Krofft shows were the most remembered and best loved shows of my childhood. Too many people read too much into these programs - they are designed for children and for even young adults as FANTASY with no underlying themes or something that would be a "gotcha" like many things are today. They are not violent and are good for any child of any generation. I loved these shows and look forward to sharing them with my young relatives and I recommend them for any group of children. I loved "Lidsville", but also "PufNStuf", "Land of the Lost", and "The Lost Saucer". Sid and Marty will be remembered for generations to come.

I remember watching Lidsville in the early 70s. It was another of the "Stranger in a Strange Land" themed shows from the team of Sid and Marty Krofft as Mark, who fell into a magician's hat and ended up in a land of hats called Lidsville, was captured by the show's villain, Hoo Doo the Magician and he tried to leave and head home but he ended up staying.

Butch Patrick, in his first series since The Munsters was canceled in 1966 was outstanding as Mark. Charles Nelson Reilly, in his role between The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Match Game was really campy as Hoo Doo, all the way to his green makeup. Let's not forget krofft stalwart Billie Hayes as Weenie the Genie. She even reprises her Witchiepoo role in one episode.

There were also a lot of life-sized puppet characters, including a number that were played by The Hermine Midgets. It was the only series they did and to my knowledge, they were never heard from again.

What I liked about the show were the puppets and psychedelic setting. What i didn't like was the writing. It was full of puns and clichés. Whoever wrote those shows didn't have a lot of TV writing experience.

Aside from the writing, Lidsville was a joy to watch. It was a show that really flipped your lid.

This show, like most of the Krofft brothers shows, is basically one wild experience. They claim that they never were on drugs while they were creating these shows, but I doubt that very seriously. This show basically is one long LSD trip and it basically is the same theme as the Krofft's other big creation H.R. Pufinstuff. Also, the songs that provided the musical interludes had to be some of the corniest ever written.