7 /10 1 Votes
7/10 TV Country of origin United States Program creators Sid Krofft, Marty Krofft | 7/10 IMDb No. of episodes 17 First episode date 11 September 1971 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Starring Butch PatrickCharles Nelson ReillyBillie Hayes Voices of Lennie WeinribJoan GerberWalker Edmiston Network American Broadcasting Company Cast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lidsville introduction
Lidsville is Sid and Marty Krofft's third television show following H.R. Pufnstuf (1969) and The Bugaloos (1970). As did its predecessors, the series combined two types of characters: conventional actors in makeup filmed alongside performers in full mascot costumes, whose voices were dubbed in post-production. Seventeen episodes aired on Saturday mornings for two seasons, 1971–1973. The opening was shot at Six Flags Over Texas. Otherwise, the show was shot at Paramount Pictures film studio in Los Angeles.
Contents
- Lidsville introduction
- Production
- Plot
- Characters
- DVD Release
- Cast
- Voice cast
- Comics
- Other media
- Film
- References
Production
Lidsville resembles an earlier British series, Hattytown Tales, produced by Hattyland Enterprises & FilmFair Ltd. in 1969, which used an almost identical concept but different characters and was produced in claymation.
Like predecessors H.R. Pufnstuf and The Bugaloos, Lidsville ran for only one season (1971–1972), with reruns airing the following year (1972–1973). Also like H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville's title and subject matter were often interpreted as references to drug use: the word "lid" is slang for a hat or cap (as in "flip your lid"), but "lid" is also early-1970s slang for an ounce of cannabis (marijuana).
Like most children's television shows of the era, Lidsville contained a laugh track.
Plot
The show involved a teenage boy named Mark (Butch Patrick) who fell into the hat of Merlo the Magician (Charles Nelson Reilly) following his show at Six Flags Over Texas and arrived in Lidsville, a land of living hats. The hats on the show are depicted as having the same characteristics as the humans who would normally wear them. For example, a cowboy hat would act and speak like a cowboy. The characters' houses were also hat-shaped.
The villain of the show was a magician named Horatio J. HooDoo (also played by Charles Nelson Reilly in a magician's costume and make-up). The vain, short-tempered, but somewhat naive HooDoo flew around in his Hatamaran, blasting the good citizens of Lidsville with bolts of magic (referred to as "zapping") and keeping them in fear, demanding that they pay him their Hat Checks. Mark helped the good hats resist as he attempted to find a way back home. HooDoo, trying to reclaim control of the androgynous Weenie from Mark, often enlisted the services of four Bad Hats.
In his high hat home, HooDoo was besieged by the taunting music of the Hat Band, as well as all of his talking knicknacks (the parrot, Mr. Skull, the mounted alligator head, the sawed-in-half lady, etc.). HooDoo also experienced further aggravation at the hands of his aides, the dimwitted Raunchy Rabbit and his two-faced card guard Jack of Clubs. HooDoo watched the action going on in downtown Lidsville from his hat home by using his Evil Eye, a device similar to a TV set that resembled an eyeball. He also had a hot hatline phone. The show relied on an endless array of puns based on hats. One such pun was "Derby Dunes," an area in Lidsville which sand dunes were shaped like derby hats. Mark, a suspected spy against HooDoo on behalf of the good hat people, was captured at Derby Dunes by HooDoo's minions the Bad Hats the moment he had fallen into the world of Lidsville. He escapes from his clutches alongside a genie named Weenie (Billie Hayes).
Many of the episodes were about Mark trying to get back home, but the evil HooDoo prevented him from leaving. Weenie, being a nervous bumbler, was, in fact, a genie, but many of the tricks and spells didn't work right anymore after being a slave to HooDoo for so long. In the show's final episode, scenes from some of the past episodes were featured as HooDoo's mother (played by Muriel Landers, but not listed in the closing credits) had paid a visit to find out what has been going on in Lidsville while making sure that her son is still bad. Unfortunately for Mark, he did not return home at the end.
Music was also a part of the show, with songs being performed by the characters in several episodes.
Characters
DVD Release
A three-disc complete series set was released on DVD in the United States in January 2005 by Rhino Entertainment. The set contained all seventeen episodes plus interviews with Charles Nelson Reilly, Butch Patrick, and Billie Hayes. They and the Krofft brothers also provided audio commentary on some of the episodes.
Cast
Voice cast
Comics
Gold Key Comics published five issues of a Lidsville comic book. The books were a mix of new stories as well as re-workings of some of the television episodes. Although the comics were generally faithful to the TV series, there were some major differences:
Other media
Film
On January 31, 2011, it was announced that DreamWorks Animation was adapting Lidsville to make a 3-D animated musical. The feature would be directed by Conrad Vernon, and the music would be composed by Alan Menken, known for composing multiple musical score for Walt Disney Animation Studios films. Menken stated that, "The songs will be an homage to '60s psychedelic concept-album rock." In January 2013, he posted on Twitter that "Lidsville is underway... Finally." The lyrics would be written by Glenn Slater, a frequent Menken collaborator. In June 2016, Sid Krofft said in an interview about the project: "It was going to be like Hair or Tommy, a full-blown musical. But they went in a strange direction and it just didn't work."