H.R. Pufnstuf

H.R. Pufnstuf
Created bySid and Marty Krofft
Starring
Voices of
Country of originUnited States
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes17
Production
ProducerSid and Marty Krofft
Running time25 minutes (per episode)
Production companySid and Marty Krofft Television Productions
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseSeptember 6 (1969-09-06) –
December 27, 1969 (1969-12-27)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

H.R. Pufnstuf is an American children's television series created by Sid and Marty Krofft. It was the first independent live-action, life-sized-puppet program, following on from their work with Hanna-Barbera's program The Banana Splits Adventure Hour.[1] The seventeen episodes were originally broadcast Saturday from September 6, 1969, to December 27, 1969. The broadcasts were successful enough that NBC kept it on the schedule as reruns until September 4, 1971. The show was shot at Paramount Studios and its opening was shot at Big Bear Lake, California. Reruns of the show returned on ABC Saturday morning from September 2, 1972, to September 8, 1973, and on Sunday mornings in some markets from September 16, 1973, to September 8, 1974. It was syndicated by itself from September 1974 to June 1978 and in a package with six other Krofft series under the banner Krofft Superstars from 1978 to 1985. Reruns of the show were featured on TV Land in 1999 as part of its Super Retrovision Saturdaze Saturday morning-related overnight prime programming block and in the summer of 2004 as part of its TV Land Kitschen weekend late-night prime programming block, and it was later shown on MeTV from 2014 until 2016.

In 2004 and 2007, H.R. Pufnstuf was ranked #22 and #27 respectively on TV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever.[2][3]

Fast food chain McDonald's later emulated aspects of the series for its long-running advertising campaign McDonaldland, and the company was successfully sued by the Krofft brothers for copyright infringement.[4][5]

  1. ^ CD liner notes: Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, 1995 MCA Records
  2. ^ TV Guide's 25 Top Cult Shows - TannerWorld Junction Archived January 4, 2009, at the Wayback Machine TannerWorld Junction: May 26, 2004
  3. ^ TV Guide Names the Top Cult Shows Ever - Today's News: Our Take Archived January 6, 2015, at the Wayback Machine TV Guide: June 29, 2007
  4. ^ Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions, Inc. v. McDonald's Corporation, 562 F.2d 1157 (9th Cir. 1977).
  5. ^ Lanier, Raven. "Research Guides: Substantial Similarity: Krofft". guides.lib.umich.edu. Retrieved September 20, 2022.