Marty Krofft, co-creator of such whimsical kids television shows as “The Banana Splits Adventure Hour,” “H.R. Pufnstuf” and “Land of the Lost,” has died of kidney failure. He was 86.
Krofft, who died Saturday in Los Angeles, had visited Atlanta in early September for the annual Dragon Con convention. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it was the first time he was back in the city since 1976, when he and his now 94-year-old brother Sid opened the $20 million World of Sid & Marty Krofft amusement park at what is now known as CNN Center.
During Dragon Con in early September, he sat onstage in a huge ballroom at the Marriott Marquis, and received a standing ovation from hundreds of jubilant Dragon Con fans, before he even said a word.
“It was hard to come back,” Krofft said. “But I felt a lot of love.”
The amusement park took up several floors and included a human pinball machine. It drew 600,000 visitors but expenses far exceeded revenues. It shut down after just six months. CNN wouldn’t take up the space for another decade but kept the park’s 196-foot long escalator as the entrance to its once popular CNN Tour. (CNN’s former parent company AT&T sold CNN Center in 2021 and current owner Warner Bros. Discovery is almost finished moving the news operation out of CNN Center, going back to the Midtown campus.)
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
Krofft was born on April 9, 1937, to Greek immigrant parents in Montreal and was raised in New England and New York.
The brothers weren’t afraid of the weird. They grabbed early attention at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 with an adults-only Folies Bergere-themed puppet show that featured some topless wooden performers. (The popular evangelist Billy Graham denounced the show.)
“Les Poupees de Paris” came to the attention of Dean Martin, who subsequently collaborated with the Kroffts on his television variety show. Other similar variety show mash-ups followed, with Donny and Marie Osmond, Raquel Welch and, astonishingly, a kids’ variety show with Richard Pryor.
Krofft reminisced about his move into children’s programming during a tour of the Center for Puppetry Arts while in Atlanta. (“They don’t have anything like this in L.A.,” the Los Angeles resident marveled, at the remarkable museum of puppets from around the world.)
Asked by an audience member during a Dragon Con panel the source of their creative experiments, Krofft said, “You have a good nightmare, and then you figure it out.”
The Kroffts refused to sell out to bigger companies and were still developing shows into the 2010s with Nick Jr.’s “Mutt & Stuff,” which featured a guest appearance from Pufnstuf.
Marty Krofft refused to retire. “You start watching daytime television and you’ll be dead in a month,” he said.
He told the AJC in September he was digitizing many of their classic shows and hoped to have them ready to stream in 2024.
Marty is survived by brothers Harry and Sid; daughters Deanna (and her husband, Randy), Kristina and Kendra (Lou); grandchildren Taylor, Karson, Griffin, Georgia and Drake; and great-grandchild Maddox. He married Christa Rogalski in 1965. She died in 2013.
Credit: Deanna Engel
Credit: Deanna Engel
