Greetings and Salutations!
Bit of a different one here tonight. Word came down that Ruth Buzzi has died at the age of 88. Now TBH, I had no idea she was still alive.
Seems she’d retired from all of Hollyweird many years ago, and passed from stroke-induced dementia. I was to say that it’s sad, but 88? That’s a good run in my book. And as far as “…best known for TV’s Laugh-In”?
Not to Gen X.
When I heard this I immediately had a long buried memory surface.
A curious and Gen X “thing” was Saturday Morning Cartoons and Shows. Cartoons starting at like 0700 and running until noon, at which point the parental units would throw ALL of us outside to go play ’til the sun went down. Unfortunately, the Saturday Morning Cartoons? They died out when we aged out from what I can tell. Back then, it’d be me with Pre-FedBro grabbing the Honeycomb, Milk and being quiet while MomUnit and NotSoDeadDad slept in.
In this case, said-memory of Saturday Mornings was triggered by the news of her passing… mainly because of this:
Sid and Marty Krofft
Saturday Morning Standards
“The Lost Saucer” staring Ruth Buzzi and Jim Nabors.
I prefered it over some of the other shows that’s for sure. My personal favorite was “Far Out Space Nuts”:
Now THAT one???
Gilligan in Space!?!
I pulled up the link, started playing it, and Sapper tripped the fuck out.
In fact what’s crazy is BOTH of us remembered the lyrics and started singing along.
Almost 50 Years Later!!!!
Good memories and times.
Besides those two, there was “Wonderbug”, “Ark II”, “Doctor Shrinker”, “The Mighty Isis”, “Electrowoman and Dynagirl” (both mad hotties), and of course, “The Krofft Supershow” starring Kaptain Kool and the Kongs…
You don’t get much more “70’s” than that picture.
The only thing missing is a mirror covered in high grade Columbian Booger Sugar.
Interesting side note: The majority of the aforementioned shows were part of the “The Krofft Supershow” as a 90 minute sort of ‘variety show’ that was hosted by Kaptain Kool and the rest, with musical interludes and shenanigans.
There was also the utterly excretable “Sigmund and the Seamonsters”
Even at a young age I fucking loathed that fucking wimpy fucking shit-assed costumed seaweed draped fag. I also hated the original probably LSD inspired “H.R. Pufnstuff.” Lil Jimmy can suck on his magic flute allll day long as far as I was concerned…
Out of all of those, the ONLY one of the Krofft shows that other generations know is “Land of the Lost”
Primarily due to the shitty movie starring Will Ferrell did back in 2009. Personally I was sort of ambivalent about that one, except that the fucking Sleestack?
Those things, rubber suits or not, were Pure Fucking Nightmare Fuel to a kid back then. Still are IMO. Implacable Bug-Eyed Lizard Men with a thirst for human blood? (which TBH sounds like Adam Schiff and all his relations) Great bad guys… excellent execution in the production of them too.
So that’s tonight’s ‘stuff’ The 1911 is coming along, and I’m going to soak it for one more night, and finish off the scrub in the afternoon. Then I’ll figure out the next step(s).
Let me know which one y’all remember or dug in the comments
More Later
Big Country
I was born in’59 and cannot recall watching any of those. Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner, Johnny Quest and the like. Never got into the Hannah-Barbera stuff.
Oh. And the Stooges…
And a few years later The Dukes of Hazzard.
But yeah. Early 70s. When even reality was pretty odd but seemed relatively benign
Yeah me too. Didn’t see any of these. Course in the 70’s I was little busy with other things.
Same. I am so grateful to have memories of those offerings. If I had anything produced later, I probably would have pitched the tee vee decades earlier than I did.
Ditto. Interesting enough, the cartoons we had in the ‘60s and ‘70s, mostly from the ‘40s and ‘50s, were more adult in tone and content. The stuff in the ‘80s and onwards was really much more infantilized in comparison.
I can still sing the HR Puffenstuff song, damn the brainwashing.
I remember Banana Splits and the Monkees.
My little brother had imaginary Sleestacks running all over the house. Me, I got a funny feeling inside when I saw Holly. I don’t want to know what she looks like, now. I have enough “thank God for unanswered prayers” after Flakebook came out and I joined long enough to look up old flames and crushes, then deleted my account, thankful for the woman I married.
Sorry. I was born in ’52.
Roy Rogers, Sky King, Cpt Kangaroo (and all those early cartoons), Warner Bros, Clutch Cargo, Johnny Quest.
All that other stuff you mentioned, I knew of them, but never watched them.
All in black and white. Who could afford a color tv back then?
We had color by 65. Kept the tv till the 80s. Grandma kept her b&w and passed it off post mortem in the 80s. If it works, don’t fix it.
I’m about your age BCE and OMG I hadn’t thought of those shows in decades and sure enough memories were triggered and I started singing along especially to the Space Nuts and the Lost Saucer.
I especially loved The Mighty Isis, I thought then and still do that the actress who played Isis was mighty fine. Sadly she passed away not long ago.
All kids loved Saturday morning cartoons, why did they get rid of them ?
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Built a model of the submarine
Coelacanth
Never forget! Halcyon Days those were.
https://youtu.be/D2cdhTuI9nc
OMFG… worst thing is I remember ALL of it
Oh Country, that’s Purdy cornball.
Now, Superchicken, Speed Racer…THOSE were serious bidness (lotsa Japanese friends back then). BTW Crunchy, I’m the same age as you.
And yeah Coelacanth, Dukes of Hazzard. Daisy Duke, for real?! Man, even to this day I think if I saw a picture of her I wouldn’t be able to see straight! All smiles and beauty!!
…. that and the introduction of wearing them uber cutoffs and showing
Barbara….correction……. Catherine Bach’s “Camel Toe”HominaHominaHominaHominaHominaHominaHomina!
Lynda Carter and her Wonder Toe was legendary. Add those udders hanging in that skin suit without a bra… obviously. There was all manner of toe in the Good Old Days. Must have been truly nose opening under those hot lights and location shots. Especially after some saddle time on one of the many western. Those four legged vibrators were the precursor of many a location fuck. A SAG card was a ticket to a good time back then.
Off-topic but still an older topic: do you know about Tin Can Pam’s in Dade City?
It’s essentially the last stop for groceries so they can be remaindered out at huge discounts.
A while back they had SoPakCo MREs at $20 per plain brown box of 12 with production dates only about a year back.
Occasionally they’ll get stuff in like this, so before driving out there, you might want to give them a call to see if they have any back in.
Tin Can Pam’s inventory is somewhat unpredictable for specific items but generally you can find something you need at a nice discount.
The only one of those TV shows I remember isn’t about the TV show, it’s about the “themed attraction” built for it.
Sid & Marty Krofft had a “themed attraction” for their TV show at The Omni in Atlanta.
Our family paid a visit once when we were in Atlanta for a summer break.
But the show wasn’t on the TV stations where we lived, so it was just some weird kid-themed thing that my parents decided we had to do.
None of it made any sense.
I hated Puff n’ Stuff too!
It was seriously shitty up here in Canada before we got cable. Ughhh… Rocky and Bullwinkle… the original Spider-Man cartoons weren’t bad. Kids live action programming was awful too. The Junior Forest Rangers? If any of them are still alive they should be hunted down and killed!
😂
We got cable in 71 ~ 72… and TV changed forever and for the better.
Up until I was around 10 and cable was strung our channels were TV-6 CBS, PBS and Channel 2 CBC oota Tunder Bay…
Never pause on curling, the autism will have you watching for hours…
I was just a tad young for those, but Thundarr the Barbarian was a staple for me, along with He-Man and all the Hanna-Barbera first- and re-runs.
I was more into the A-Team, Knight Rider, MacGyver and Airwolf myself…
Thats the ones i watched plus land of the lost was a staple. Scooby do was part of the line up but mom refused to let us watch plastic man
Daffy Duck was me goto!
I never got into shows mentioned but you want a kids show show on D-lysergic acid watch Jaberwhocky!
The mirror the teacher looked into on Romper Room was also a trip!
Wow. This led me to backtrack through the maze of my memories while kicking beer cans and horse turds. Bugs Bunny was and is a favorite. Sky King was a winner back when aviating was still an adventure. Being in black and white didn’t slow down the imagination. Damn. Looking in the mirror to shave gets harder every day. Its about the only thing that gets harder. The little vilian with the flesh helmet used to watch me shave. Know he watches me lace my boots.
I was born in ’60. I only really watched the Bugs Bunny & Roadrunner Show. They are on a network called MeTV from 9 to 10 here in Californistan. The girlfriend thinks I’m a bit off when I watch them at 65 yrs old. Too bad.
Here at night (post Jeopardy, ending at 20:00) it’s Star Trek nonstop until 0100 on Heros and Icons (our local)
Star Trek TOS/Next Gen/Deep Space 9/Voyager and then Enterprise.
The cool thing is they run them all in order, and at whatever series end, they ‘roll it over’ and start again.
During the day, H&I has the A-Team/MacGyver/Hawaii 5-0/and all the Chuck Norris shows.
Early Morning is Classic Cowboy time Paladin/High Chaparral/Rawhide… Love me some Paladin!
I was a 90’s kid, and they had a brief Land of the Lost resurrection. It was awesome to 9 year old me.
Don’t watch much TV these days, but we have “Grit TV” on the antenna. I always leave Tales of Wells Fargo on for the dog when I leave for the evening.
Dude I would have lived in a cave and ate roast dinosaur with Holly and been happy as a pig in shie.
Only chick hotter was Debby from Speed Buggy.
The one in “Danger Island” had a, let’s just say, eye-catching midriff as well. “Uh-oh, Chongo!”
The animated “Tarzan Lord of the Jungle “. I use to be able do a near perfect Tarzan yell in my teens and early twenties. I got the request plenty. Usually followed by “do that shit again”…” how the fuck do you do that?!”.
I hadnt put the Sleestack/Adam Schiff thing together. But now that you brought it up, CAN NOT get it out o’me head!!!
Ewww gross and CREEPY!!!
I was a little too young for the Saturday morning Krofft shows, but I do remember the Krofft puppets on the Mandrell sisters’ variety show.
Fun fact: Sid and Marty Krofft designed the McDonaldland characters and McDonald’s stiffed them IIRC, apparently it was a big deal at the time.
Big Ruckus dropped in the ’74 model year (well, I was Little Ruckus then) but I never took to any of the Krofft fare. Really don’t even remember those being shown on Saturday morning carton blocks of my childhood. I was obsessed with Tom and Jerry, Looney Toons, could tolerate the Hanna Barbera cartoons; Flintstones was the only really good one, the others ranged from kind of watchable down to flat out stupid.
Scooby Doo was at the upper end of the stuff that wasn’t as good as Flintstones. Then stuff like Smurfs and He-Man came along, and I began to lose interest. Got our first home computer in 1981, and that drew my attention away from TV to a large extent. I think we got cable in late spring or early summer of ’81, they hadn’t even finished running trunk lines in our neighborhood, but our side of the street was live and dad arranged to have us hooked up with the quickness. Think we were the first or second in the subdivision to get it.
Nickelodeon was on there from the start, but man early Nickelodeon showed some weird shit. lots of UK and Canadian import series and some movies (The Tomorrow People, What Will They Think of Next?, among other things) and their early original shows catered more to kids older than me at the time (Livewire, A music video show, a sports show hosted by Reggie Jackson) and Pinwheel, which was kind of a dollar store Sesame Street knock off, was for little kids (and I was already growing out of that phase by 81-82).
Early 80’s cable tv was pretty weird in general, with limited transponders still available on the major tv satellites, there were half day channels that switched over to completely different services in the late afternoon or early evening. There were also random occurrences where a transponder that was not otherwise in use for an hour or two would get use as a backhaul. This let one see raw taped segments being sent to remote locations for post production work, or sometimes even live segments being sent for recording elsewhere. Also sometimes saw the open transmission of promo reels and other behind the scenes stuff that one wouldn’t normally ever see unless they had a big C/Ku band satellite dish. I found this kind of stuff fascinating for some reason.
I remember the first time they reshuffled the channel lineup to add a few new things like MTV. Went on all afternoon as they redid stuff at the headend and channels suddenly disappeared then showed up on a new number. All seemed like magic to me at the time. Takes me back to better times, for sure.
Society officially went off the rails when they stopped showing the Little Rascals on TV.
Lol, I remember Land of the Lost and Chaca, the first indentured servant of the new age (1976), it’s no wonder we’re all racist
Don’t know if you got ivermectin source. Here is one i use plus info
https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/update-catastrophic-bombshell-first?utm_source=substack&publication_id=400535&post_id=162522404&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=17su8a&triedRedirect=true
Hope this helps. Keith
Your parents must have been feeding all of you LSD by the sugar bowl full and shrooms on the weekends. I don’t remember those shows but I was in the lean green Army machine defending your right to watch these absurd kiddie shows. No wonder another reason we couldn’t win gulf 1 and 2…
Hey Troop, since it is my Birthday Today (May the 4th be with you all) I felt I had to chime in on one of my Fave Saturday TV Shows in the Late 70’s, early 80’s:
Big Foot and Wildboy!
https://youtu.be/-NNb1pgQlQo?si=zc-KHKjECY2VpF1C
Happy Birthday TTH.
Born in ’53. For me it was Capt Kangaroo and Popeye Theater with Sally Star. There was a show called “Pixanne” who I had a pretty good chubby for, and the Saturday morning ‘toons were Bugs and Daffy.
In Oz we had HR Puff n Stuff, which was creepy. We also had The Banana Splits, which had the short series Danger Island with a very young Jan Michael Vincent. That was great, loved watching that as a kid.
We also had a lot of UK tv shows, including one called Captain Scarlett, which probably had the darkest opening scene of any kids show. I used to watch it when I was about 4 years old.
Keen to see if anyone in the US saw Captain Scarlett back in the 60’s/.70’s?
Here is the YT opening scene ;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re8CQJ4kSQ0
Your blog reminded me how in 1970 my new wife and I would lie abed Saturday morns and watch H.R. Puffinstuff. I thought it looked like a giant penis. After some slap and tickle with her I would offer to introduce to H.R.’s little brother. Snide remarks in reply!
I enjoy reading your blog and wish you the best. Cheers.